NView: A Visual Framework for Network Tool Integration

Monitoring and managing distributed applications and networks present a number of problems. Tracking down the source of connection problems over a large area, such as the Internet, can be time-consuming and confusing, as one must deal with many small utilities. In this paper, we present NView, a framework program for integrating network tools into a uniform visual interface with a minimum of effort. We also discuss an example implementation which has been applied to the Internet’s Multicast Backbone. This easily customized tool allows to be displayed in different ways. NView can be used both off-line as a design tool, and on-line as a network monitoring tool.