Integrated TMN Service Management

Abstract

The deregulation of the global telecommunication industry has seen a change in the business and operational environment in which services are deployed and managed. The requirements have intensified to provide a management framework for telecommunication networks and services across multiple technology domains and using multiple management technologies. This paper describes an integrated TMN service management architecture that provides an environment for different service management functions and different management domains to be integrated. To further substantiate this architecture, a system was built to demonstrate the integration concepts. The research and development work reported in this paper focuses on the following two aspects of integration: first the integration between TMN network and service management functions; and next the integration between different service management functions. A proof of concept system was developed to demonstrate such integration. It consists of the following components: Generic service ordering and provisioning; connection management based on a generic network model concept; and service management based upon service level agreement management and customer service management concepts. This paper reports this work and the experiences gained from this research.