Total systems management in open architecture provisioning systems

Abstract

A growing challenge in the transition of telecommunications provisioning systems from a closed architecture to a distributed open architecture is the need for effective system management tools that encompass not only network management, but also application management functionality. Networking the various provisioning system components resulted in a heterogeneous multivendor environment. At the time, the lack of industry standards in the communications as well as the systems management area gave rise to the development of proprietary communications protocols and network management solutions. This paper concentrates on the analysis of a proprietary total management system (TMS) designed to combine applications and network monitoring in a heterogeneous provisioning system environment. Bellcore's long-term strategic direction is towards implementing the open system interconnection (OSI) management standards model to provide a consistent management environment within provisioning systems. We discuss the transition strategy and an approach to integrating OSI defined CMIP/CMISE management protocols, the TCP/IP defined SNMP protocol and proprietary legacy network management systems to produce an open architecture total management system to complement our open architecture provisioning system strategy. We highlight our main point that neither network management nor application management alone is sufficient. However, the judicious combination of the two yields an unbeatable total management system solution.<>