Forum debuts management interface for multivendor networks

By STEPHEN HARDY

Recognizing that the sale of management systems with proprietary interfaces has become increasingly untenable, four telecommunications vendors within the Network Management Forum have announced what they describe as an open software interface that will facilitate the oversight of multivendor networks from a single monitor. The interface, based on Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (corba) principles, was demonstrated at last month`s National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference in Orlando, FL.

Representatives from Fujitsu (Richardson, TX), Lucent Technologies (Holmdel, NJ), Nortel (Brampton, ON, Canada), and Tellabs (Lisle, IL) told reporters during a recent conference call that one of the keys to their strategy was using corba to develop the interface from the element management layer (EML) to the network management layer (NML) within a TMN framework. Part of this process involved determining which troubleshooting functions would be performed at each of the two layers. This agreement on the distribution of network management labor enabled the vendors to streamline the amount of information passed between the two layers, making feasible the management of thousands of network elements in a large multivendor infrastructure.

The population of the overall network management system`s database also would be streamlined with the new interface scheme, the vendors say. Individual network element vendors would be responsible for providing element management systems with feature concurrency for their respective network elements. The element management systems will then forward these up-to-date performance parameters to the network management systems via the corba interface.

The demonstration in Orlando included a 3-node ring of Fujitsu transmission equipment connected via three EC-1s to a Tellabs crossconnect. The crossconnect was then linked by an OC-3 (155-Mbit/sec) line to another three-node OC-3 ring, this one with Lucent equipment. The Fujitsu ring was managed by the company`s element management system, the crossconnect by a Euristix system, and the Lucent equipment by its own management system. All three of these element management systems in turn were managed by a Lucent network management system.

In addition to its performance capabilities, the interface should enable service providers to bring the benefits of improved network management to market quickly, thanks to the use of off-the-shelf software packages, say the spokespeople. These attributes, the vendors feel, should appeal not only to network managers, but to other equipment vendors looking to improve the capabilities of their network management systems. q