Today's networks are larger, faster, and more capable than their predecessors.
As they expand, speed up and enhance, they become more complex and more difficult to manage. Also new network technologies require new management technologies. For IPv6, for example, the lack of available management functions is a barrier to IPv6 deployment.

NEC is developing network management technologies and products for better, more scalable network management systems that fully support new network technologies. These activities are closely coupled with standard contributions to the IETF. NEC's current focus is on the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6), the NetConf protocol for remote device configuration and distribution of management functions with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), such as the remote operations MIB modules and the health check MIB module.

DHCPv6
The NEC Network Laboratories fully implemented DHCPv6 client, server, and relay agent. These modules have been tested at several interoperability testing events with many different equipment manufacturers. The network laboratories are DHCPv6 test providers at ETSI Plugtest events and organized two international DHCPv6 interoperability testing events.

NEC's relay agent has been integrated into the Sourceforge DHCPv6 project providing an open source full-fledged DHCPv6 protocol stack implementation that is commonly used by Linux distributions.

Together with Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, a large-scale field trial was conducted. This trial was the first of its kind and controlled more than 1000 hosts with NEC's DHCPv6 implementation at the university campus, providing the final step in testing cutting edge technology for the next generation Internet protocol.

NetConf
NEC is developing and conducting research on the NetConf remote configuration protocol that provides mechanisms to install, manipulate, and delete the configuration of remote network devices. It uses an Extensible Markup Language
(XML) based data encoding for the configuration data as well as the protocol messages. NEC also developed NetConf extensions for remote firmware update.
The NetConf protocol is still under standardization at the IETF's NetConf working group.

Remote Monitoring Operations
NEC is contributing to the standardization of the IETF's MIB modules for remote monitoring operations. This activity includes past activities on the Script MIB module, current work on Remote Ping, Traceroute, and Lookup Operations and suggestions for new technologies, such as the health Check MIB module.

A. Reyes, M. Brunner, A. Barba, Controlling IP Network Management Systems via Policies, November 2002, IASTED International Conference Communications, Internet and Information Technology (CIIT 2002).

P. Martinez, M. Brunner, J. Quittek, F. Strauss, J. Schoenwaelder, S. Mertens, T. Klie, Using the Script MIB for Policy-based Configuration Management, IEEE/IFIP on Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS'02), 2002, Florence, Italy.

M. Brunner, J. Quittek, MPLS Management using Policies, Proceedings of the 7th IEEE/IFIP Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM´01), May 14-18 2001, Seattle, USA.

J.Schoenwaelder, J.Quittek, Script MIB Extensibilty Protocol Version 1.0, RFC 2593, May 1999.

J.Schoenwaelder, J.Quittek, Script MIB Extensibility Protocol Version 1.1, RFC 3179, October 2001.

Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), MPLS Information Model, CIM Version 2.7.

Several authors including M. Brunner, Policy Core Information Model Extensions, RFC 3460, January 2003.

A.Reyes, A.Barba, D.Moron, M.Brunner, M.Pana, Policy Core Extension, LDAP Schema (PCELS),
RFC 4104, June 2005.

J.Quittek, K.White, Definitions of Managed Objects for Remote PIng, Traceroute, and Lookup Operations, <draft-ietf-disman-remops-mib-v2-06.txt>, December 2004

C. Cadar, C. Strauf, DHCPv6 IPv4 Information Options, <draft-cadar-dhc-dhcpv6-v4options-00.txt>, Internet Draft, work in progress, February 2004

C. Cadar, Email Configuration Options for DHCPv6, <draft-cadar-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-email-00.txt>, Internet Draft, work in progress, June 2004

C. Cadar, IMAP Configuration Option for DHCP, <draft-cadar-dhc-opt-imap-00.txt>, Internet Draft, work in progress, June 2004

C. Cadar, SMTP Option for DHCPv6, <draft-cadar-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-smtp-00.txt>, Internet Draft, work in progress, December 2004

G. Nunzi, J. Quittek, M. Brunner, T. Dietz, Definitions of Managed Objects for the Health Check Operations, <draft-nunzi-check-mib-00.txt>, December 2003.

Please visit also the DHCPv6 website.