AU4476999A - A system for managing a telecommunications network - Google Patents

Description

P/00/01i1 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990

ORIGINAL

COMPLETE SPECIFICATION STANDARD PATENT Invention Title: A system for managing telecommunications network 4 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: FNPSYFlCERNATP(hC'21R01O 9 A SYSTEM FOR MANAGING A TELECOMMUNICATIONS

NETWORK

The invention relates to a system for managing a telecommunications network.

0:.0 It is known that a telecommunications network is constituted by the assembly of hardware and of software enabling paying users to communicate. Such hardware naturally includes user telecommunications terminals which can equally well be stationary or mobile terminals.

There are also systems for accessing the network, 10 switching centers, and centers for managing the network.

The invention applies to any type of telecommunications network, whether stationary or mobile.

Attention is given below more particularly to centers for managing a telecommunications network, also referred to as the operation system These centers enable the operator of a telecommunications network to manage the network and to configure it.

It is known that a telecommunications network management center is structured as five functional blocks, F, A, C, P, and S, specifically for managing faults F, configuration C, information about payload A, performance (quality, throughput) P, and security S.

2 A management center does not operate in real time relative to the communications network itself. There is no need for the management center to penetrate into the network on each occasion that a telephone call needs to be set up. However, these centers serve to extract information from the network or to input information into the network each time it is necessary to take action for surveillance or reconfiguration, depending on the problem encountered.

Links between the management centers OS and the various elements of the telecommunications network have been standardized by the ITU. These recommendations are defined in a series known as M and a series known as X, where M relates to the practical aspects and X relates to communications protocols and implementation.

Mention can be made mainly of the ITU-T M3010 S standard which describes a concept known as TMN: STelecommunications Management Network. The operational architecture of such TMN is shown in Figure i. According '20 to the standard, a TMN can include several types of operational assemblies, some of which are optional: OSF (Operation System Function) WSF (Work Station Function) S""MF (Mediation Function) QAF (Q Adaptor Functions) NEF (Network Element Function) All these functions will not be described in detail since some of them are not within the scope of the present invention.

The management center proper is conventionally constituted by the OSF and WSF functions. The OSF functions. The management application proper is in the _I llill I 111_1 IT1 111~1~11111111~.11 .~lf l i -II- i I- 11 I I II.-^ OSF assembly and the operator interface and presentation function assemblies are in the WSF assembly.

All these functional assemblies can transfer information to and from each other via interfaces.

According to the standard, interfaces of the f type link the functional assemblies of the WSF type to the functional assemblies of the MF and OSF types.

Interfaces of the q3 type make it possible to link the functional assemblies of the OSF type to the functional assemblies of the OSF, MF, QAF and NF types. Interfaces of the qx type make it possible to link functional assemblies MF to functional assemblies of the MF, QAF and NF types.

Eventually, x, q and m interfaces make communications with the outside of the TMN possible from the OSF, WSF and QAF assemblies, respectively.

Interface q (also called "reference point q" is defined by a language for modelling the interface since it is dependent of each of the elements of the managed network. According to the standard, this description language is the GDMO language (Guideline for the Definition of Managed Objects). The ASN.1 language (Abstract Syntax Notation 1) can -also be used for the definition of data.

For the f interface, the recommendations are general. No real specification is provided stating how the interface F should be implemented.

Thus, the state of the art often consists in basing the user interface functions (WSF) directly on the interfaces q.

Unfortunately, q interfaces are not designed to support the user presentation layers (operators) of WSF I ~I~I 1 functional assemblies. The q interface is designed for dialogs between management systems.

Basing operator interfaces directly on the q interface leads to the following drawbacks: The semantic distance between the definitions of objects at the q interface and their representation is very large, so the cost of developing such a function is very high. As a result, changing the type of representation is very expensive.

The WSF function becomes totally dependent of the o• system. In other words, having the same implementation of the WSF function become common to a plurality of ~applications which cannot be linked by a q interface is not easily achievable.

The standard defining the ITU-T M3010 TMN (Telecommunication Management Network) architecture defines a presentation interface for network management Ssystems known as the f interface. However, as already mentioned, that standard says little as to the formal 0~'"20 definition of the interface.

o* o o. Management systems based on TMN architecture do not implement the f interface. User interfaces are directly linked to the q interface which is described, as mentioned above in the GDMO/ASN.1 language, and thus with the above-mentioned drawbacks. In practice, it is necessary to develop as many USM user interface modules (for User Management System) implementing an OSF function as there are desired presentation layers with a q interface.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a telecommunications network management system comprising one or more network information management modules and one or more user service modules wherein the system includes a software architecture having an interface suitable for supporting one or more user presentation layers for a user services management module, and the software architecture includes a mediation layer between the interface supporting the user presentation layers, and the information management module.

In practice, an additional interface corresponding to the f interface of the TMN telecommunications *management network is preferably introduced in the user service manager USM module (User Service Manager).

The interface is constructed on the basis of needs common to all of the presentation modes, its model is linked to the external representation of the entities managed by the system. A single software layer for mediation between the f interface and the q interface is provided and shared between all of the user presentation S20 modules.

o Other features and advantages of the invention will appear on reading the following description which is given by way of non-limiting example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1, described above, is a general diagram illustrating the functional assemblies of a telecommunications management network (TMN); Figure 2 is a general block diagram of a management system of the invention; and Figure 3 is a detailed block diagram of the software architecture of the invention.

As shown in Figure 2, a network information management module IM1 can be linked to another network lilfl__ I _tlt~ ~~~I1_111 I- -l~--llll~il-l^~-I I -1 information management module or to a network element NE via a reference point q a q interface as defined above) These two management modules IMI and IM2 respectively implement tow functions OSFI and OSF2 (arbitrarily shown as two bounding boxes.

The figure also shows a user interface module USM.

In accordance with the invention, and for the reasons mentioned above, it is proposed to fit the management system with a software architecture that includes an f interface suitable for supporting one or more user presentation layers CP of a user services :°oo management module USM.

The software architecture also includes a mediation layer OM between the f interface supporting the user presentation layers CP and the information management module IMI which is linked to the user services management module USM.

In practice, the f interface corresponds to a standardized f interface of a TMN network. By way of example it can be introduced into the software module USM. The interface is constructed on the basis of the needs that are common to all of -the presentation modes and its model is linked to the external presentation of the entities managed by the system.

The mediation layer OM between the f interface and the q interface is single and shared by all of the user presentation modules or "presentation handlers" Figure 3 is a diagram showing the software architecture of the invention in greater detail.

Elements already shown in Figure 2 can be found in this Figure 3.

II~ r ~r 1_1_11~ 1 -r r~ _-l~i~il il~ The information from a q interface is, for instance, transported by the CMIP protocol (Common Management Information) and modelled using the language known as GDMO/ASN.l which is a language from the telecommunications field, and the information is received by the mediation layer OM.

Level 1 of the mediation layer manages data interchange with the q interface.

Thereafter, levels 2 and 3 serve respectively to go from the QM model of data representation to the FM model, and from the FM model of data representation to the QM model. FM model means the data model used for performing the interchange of data via an f interface. Similarly, le 0* QM model is the data model used for the q interface.

15 Level 4 defines the data representation FM model of the f interface. According to embodiments of the invention, this can be a representation of information o based on the CORBA or CORBA-IDL languages (Interface Description Language) or on function calls in the C++ S.0 '20 language.

o.0o Thus, the mediation layer OM, in addition to making the transformation of data representation models can make protocol translations.

SFor instance, it can translate between the CMIP protocol and the IIOP protocol or all of the protocols based on technologies of the CORBA type as well as those defined by the OMG (Open Management Group).

To this end, the mediation layer OM concatenates the inheritance levels of the GDMO language and transforms ASN.1 types into base type, and vice versa.

The f interface preferably supports a plurality of types of user presentation layer.

r_ (_rr li I_ -~lt-ri~~C l 11 In one embodiment, the user presentation layers can be integrated in the mediation layer OM.

In another embodiment, the user presentation layers can be integrated. in the user service management model USM, as shown in Figure 3.

In the embodiment shown, the f interface supports the following user presentation layers: a direct graphics interface G; a script language S enabling users to describe their own macro-instructions FSl or macro-instructions stored in files FS2 via a user interface IU; and o* an access AR to Internet or Intranet computer ~networks or to any client application via the IIOP communications protocol.

15 The F interface also supports a presentation layer such as an agenda function A.

•A link to a journalisation module FLog, can be added to the mediation layer OM, the aim of this module being making it possible to store the translations 0020 carried out by this layer.

ooo The above-described software architecture makes it possible to provide open modules for user services management USM.