Abstract
Networks offering services of high availability and quality need to be carefully monitored. Their increasing size and complexity stresses the ability of currently used static centralized systems. Decentralized approaches are possible and a key issue is the placement of area monitoring stations for optimal operation. Previous research has resulted in computationally expensive algorithms that require a global centralized network view. In this paper we propose a much simpler distributed algorithm and show that it performs as well as existing near-optimal but expensive, centralized algorithms. In addition, we propose that area monitoring stations are mobile agents, cloning and optimally placing themselves by executing the proposed algorithm. As network conditions change, e.g. through faults or persisting congestion, agents can adapt and migrate to new locations. We quantify the benefits of our approach against both the centralized and centrally-computed static distributed approaches.