Integration of a TMN-based management platform into a CORBA-based environment

Abstract

The evolving liberalisation of the European telecommunication markets will result in a growing competition among service and network providers. In such an environment the rapid development and deployment of new telecommunication services take on increasing significance. The use of distributed object-oriented platforms that provide a set of common and generic building blocks for applications helps to reduce the efforts required to implement new telecommunication services. Therefore, there is a strong trend towards object-orientation in modelling and realisation of telecommunication services, especially in the employment of industry platform standards such as OMG/CORBA. Another key to the success of a service or network provider in this future environment is the comprehensive, flexible and integrated management of its telecommunication services. Traditionally, the state of the art in management-oriented applications is characterised by the OSI management and Internet management standards. However, specifically in the telecommunications world the Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) standard is becoming more and more important. This paper describes how a specific TMN-based management platform, i.e., the ANDROMEDA platform, is integrated within a CORBA-based environment. It outlines the required changes to the existing management platform and identifies the problems which are encountered during such a migration.