Towards an ontology for system administration case study : backup operation

Abstract

With the multiplicity of operating systems it is becoming common practice for organizations to deploy heterogeneous systems environments in order to benefit from their different advantages. The tradeoff of building heterogeneous environment is that it often leads to parallel support structures, noninteroperable management tools and system administrators with diverse skills to keep such complex infrastructures running. One basic requirement of interoperability or integration is the mapping between different models. This mapping can be carried out through syntactical and semantic translation using ontologies. This project focuses on the interoperability issues in heterogeneous environment, mainly mixed Unix/Linux and Windows infrastructures. The aim of this text is to investigate, with the help of a specific case study, how integration can be achieved in the management of Unix/Linux and Windows mixed environment through the knowledge sharing and interoperability capabilities provided by ontology engineering.