NES — Network Expert System for heterogeneous networks

Intelligent network monitoring and self-governing decision-making in heterogeneous networks has been an active research topic especially in related to audio/video delivery over multi-access networks. In this paper, we introduce a policy and rule based Network Expert System (NES) component to assist automated resource and mobility management. NES is one of the core components added to the Distributed Control and Management Framework (DCMF) presented in [1]. Here, we present the design of the NES as well as the results obtained from our proof-of-concept implementation. We also show that the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) based expert system utilized in NES is capable of providing solutions to resource and mobility management problems encountered in coexisting multi-operator networks.