Over the past two decades, business volume of hardware and software in the U.S has decreased by about seventy percent, while the cost of management and support has grown from $20 billion to $140 billion. With close to seventy percent of this growing figure being spent on the management of legacy systems and only thirty percent on new systems, improvements in the development of self-managing systems have become a cost-saving priority for many corporations and an issue of strategic importance for many economies. Investigating the latest theories, methods, and technologies, Advances in Network Management provides the insight of a recognized expert into the fundamental concepts and contemporary challenges in network management. From basic concepts to research-level material, it details the evolution of network management solutions in network management paradigms, protocols, and techniques. The book also addresses dependencies between network management and application-level service management. This forward-looking resource investigates advanced networks and network services including-autonomic computing, context-aware systems management, and automatic techniques aiming at self-management (self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, and self-protection). With its breadth and depth of coverage in theoretical, technical, and research topics, this book provides time-tested guidance for dealing with the growing complexity of network services while improving cost efficiencies in your IT department.