IBM Corp’s Networking Software Division in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina has turned to Legent Corp, Herdon, Virginia for help with development of Mercury, a network management environment based on active agent technology. The two will put together an agent software development kit and an Agent Management System, both supporting the Simple Network Management Protocol and designed to send and receive performance, reliability and configuration management data across the network. The Agent Management System will offer four primary functions: agent discovery, agent repository, agency policy management, and a means for agent distribution. The software kit will include an automatic code generator that accepts specifications of managed objects in formats including DMTF MIF, SNMP MIB, and Corba Interface Definition Language formats, and creates interfaces to the application code; and a set of management services. It is set for fourth quarter.
