New Self-* Paradigms for Managing Customer Networks

Abstract

This paper describes Telefonica's experience in network management obtained in the EnComPAs2 CELTIC project, applied specifically to residential customer networks. The proliferation of devices in the digital home context poses a number of new challenges that makes it necessary to break with the current centralized model for the management of customer networks. We will present ongoing work in this area. The first step was the introduction of standards for the management of remote devices. But it was also necessary to incorporate new paradigms into the model, such as Autonomic Computing, with the deployment of distributed intelligence in home networks that relieves the centralized systems from most of the management tasks. A major challenge is also the encapsulation of all these device ecosystem complexities, providing the upper OSS with simpler interfaces that offer operations at the service level and hide the specificities of device configuration protocols. Moreover, fixed-mobile convergence brings new challenges for the telecommunications industry, who must define new models, systems and processes for an orchestrated configuration of the devices in the home network, regardless of whether they are fixed, mobile or dual.