In the 1960's, the problems of distributed systems management did not exist. Systems were centralized and typically housed in one facility. Over time, however, the power, complexity and connectivity of the computer systems and networks evolved. Today, businesses are dependent on their compute and networking infrastructures to operate and survive. These infrastructures are geographically and functionally distributed, and their management is critical. This paper discusses how distributed systems management has evolved, and what the future may bring.

As the size and complexity of network increases, the distributed systems management (DSM) will be vital in order to improve the availability of network management, to reduce the complexity of network operations, and to provide the high reliability. In this paper, we (1) describe general requirements required for systems management in distributed environment, (2) introduce the basic structure of distributed network management system (DNMS) for efficient network management, and also especially illustrate the concrete design of system management application process which is an important element among them, (3) propose the connectionless CMIP to accomplish for effectively managing the distributed management system, and indicate its efficiency; this protocol is available to manage dynamically changing DSM environment, to negotiate among the managing systems, to handle the dynamic informations etc. Finally, (4) the behavior and software structure of a suggested management system during negotiation to execute the received request for implementation are presented.