Subject: Telecom Network Management

Topic: Telecommunication management network

Difficulty: Medium

TMN layered architecture:

The TMN services are grouped and presented as TMN layered architecture, as shown in Figure1.

ii. The lowest layer is the network element layer comprising network elements such as switches, routers, bridges, transmission facilities, etc.

iii. The next layer, the network element management layer, which manages the network elements.

iv. The third layer is the network management layer, which manages the network. The network management functions in this layer include bandwidth, performance, and quality of service, end-to-end flow control, and network congestion control.

v. The network element layer and network element management layer is vendor dependent, whereas the network management layer is not.

vi. The service management layer is concerned with managing the services provided by a network service provider to customers or to other network service providers.

vii. They include services such as billing, order processing, complaints, and trouble ticket handling. The top layer is the business management layer. It is concerned with managing the operations of a communications business, including fiscal considerations, human resource needs, project management, and customer needs and satisfaction.

viii. The TMN reference point between the various service layers is q3. It is the standard interface between the operations system, network element, and mediation functions.

ix. TMN management services are classified by OSI system management functional area. These areas are the five OSI application functions, configuration management, fault management, performance management, security management, and accounting management.

x. The TMN management services and the system management functional areas are presented in Figure2.

xi. The four TMN management services—business, service, network, and element—are at the top of the hierarchy. They invoke the system management functions defined as the five components comprising the system management functional areas: configuration, fault, performance, security, and accounting.

xii. The management applications in the system functional areas perform either system management functions or TMN functions. The TMN function blocks OSF, WSE NEE ME and QAF consist of TMN functional components such as the NMF and MIB. The data communication function (DCF), although not part of the TMN function blocks, is included for completeness.

xiii. The system management functions include object management and alarm management. In Figure 3, we could have embedded the system management functions in TMN function blocks and TMN functional components, but we show them separately in order to present a non-OSI environment.

xiv. Figure3 also shows the OSI primitive services of M-GET, M-SET, and so on. Equivalent SNMP services are GET-REQUEST, SET-REQUEST, and so on. The TMN environment is a distributed environment.

xv. The applications communicate remotely with the communication transport service by means of the RPC. In the OSI model, the RPC is accomplished with ROSE and ACSE. The former does the remote operation and the latter establishes and releases the application association. In the SNMP management model, the remote operation is accomplished by using the RPC and TCP/IP.

The TMN services are grouped and presented as TMN layered architecture, as shown in Figure1.

• The lowest layer is the network element layer comprising network elements such as switches, routers, bridges, transmission facilities, etc.

• The next layer, the network’s element management layer, which manages the network elements.

• The third layer is the network management layer, which manages the network. The network management functions in this layer include bandwidth, performance, and quality of service, end-to-end flow control, and network congestion control.

• The network element layer and network’s element management layer is vendor dependent, whereas the network management layer is not.

• The service management layer is concerned with managing the services provided by a network service provider to customers or to other network service providers.

They include services such as billing, order processing, complaints, and trouble ticket handling. • The top layer is the business management layer. It is concerned with managing the operations of a communications business, including fiscal considerations, human resource needs, project management, and customer needs and satisfaction.

The TMN reference point between the various service layers is q3. It is the standard interface between the operation system, network element, and mediation functions.

• TMN management services are classified by OSI system management functional area. These areas are the five OSI application functions i) Configuration management, ii)Fault management, iii)Performance management, iv)Security management, v)Accounting management.

• The TMN management services and the system management functional areas are presented in Figure2.

• The four TMN management services—business, service, network, and element—are at the top of the hierarchy. They invoke the system management functions such as: configuration, fault, performance, security, and accounting.

i) Fault management—

• Detect, isolate, notify, and correct faults encountered in the network.

• Furthermore, it uses trend analysis to predict errors so that the network is always available. This can be established by monitoring different things for abnormal behavior

ii) Configuration management—

• Configure aspects of network devices, such as configuration file management, inventory management, and software management.

• Configuration management is concerned with monitoring system configuration information, and any changes that take place.

• This area is especially important, since many network issues arise as a direct result of changes made to configuration files, updated software versions, or changes to system hardware

iii) Accounting management—

• Collect usage information of network resources.

• Accounting management is concerned with tracking network utilization information, such that individual users, departments, or business units can be appropriately billed or charged for accounting purposes.

• Accounting is often referred to as billing management. Using the statistics, the users can be billed and usage quotas can be enforced. These can be disk usage, link utilization, CPU time, etc.

iv) Performance management—

• Monitor and measure various aspects of performance so that overall performance can be maintained at a defined level.

• It enables the manager to prepare the network for the future, as well as to determine the efficiency of the current network, for example, in relation to the investments done to set it up. The network performance addresses the throughput, network response times, packet loss rates, link utilization, percentage utilization, error rates and so forth.

v) Security management—

• Secure access to network devices, network resources, and services to authorized individuals.

• The confidentiality of user information is maintained where necessary or warranted.

• Security systems also allow network administrators to control what each individual authorized user can (and cannot) do with the system.