Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-15
2002-02-19
Rinehart, Mark H. (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network monitoring
C370S255000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06349334
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a management method according to the preamble of the attached claim
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for managing a telecommunications network, and to a telecommunications network management system according to the preamble of the attached claim
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. The telecommunications network to be managed may be e.g. a SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) network, a PDH (Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy) network, or a combination of such networks.
The basic situation in network management is usually such that an operator managing a telecommunication networks, e.g. a telephone company, has a plurality of customers (i.e. network users) in addition to the physical network. The operator sells the customers various services that utilize the network. (A public network will be used herein as an example; in principle, however, the same description applies to a private operator managing e.g. an organization network). To meet customers' data transmission requirements in the physical network, the operator utilizes a number of facilities or operative processes for the provision of customer services. These operative processes can be divided into groups in accordance with the functions for which they are intended:
Service Provisioning taking care of the performance of customer services, including e.g. invoicing customers for services.
Operation & Maintenance for keeping the network operative to allow the usage of customer services. One of the most important functions in this respect is the supervision and repair of network faults.
Planning & Development, the function of which is to develop network operation so as to better meet customers'needs and to increase the overall profitability of the operator enterprise.
As appears from the above, network management takes place on several different levels, depending on the extent to which the functions to be performed on a specific level are associated with the overall management of the operator enterprise. The management of a telecommunications network is generally divided into four different levels, which are from bottom to top as follows:
network element management layer,
network management layer,
service management layer, and
business management layer.
This division is used e.g. in the ITU-T (the former CCITT) recommendation M.3010, which specifies a kind of framework for the management architecture of a telecommunications network. The bottom layer below the above four layers is the equipment itself; these equipments are managed by installation and field engineering tools.
The network element management layer means the management of an individual network element (such as a multiplexer or a cross-connection device) as a separate component without simultaneously paying attention to the condition of the network or other network elements. The majority of so called “network management” systems commercially available today are actually network element management systems within this layer.
The network management layer is concerned with the management of the entire telecommunications network, such as overall management of network connections. One example is the creation of connections and the end-to-end supervision of their condition. This means that e.g. alarms detected on equipment are not just displayed against that equipment, but they are also propagated to show what services (paths and circuits) are affected by the fault, if any. The present invention is positioned in this layer.
As distinct from the above, the service management layer is not concerned with technical network management. It takes care of e.g. customer data, supervision of services provided to customers, invoicing for services, and considering needs for services of different types.
The business management layer is used to monitor and plan the business activities and economy of the entire enterprise, resulting in decisions affecting the lower levels.
At present, network management systems are changing into systems that manage the telecommunications network as a whole, whereas conventional management systems have handled only the remote control of transmission equipment, especially monitoring alarms produced by the equipment. In conventional network management methods, configuration changes, such as creation of new end-to-end connections, have been laborious and time-consuming, as the end result consists of several configuration events the prerequisite of which is that the maintenance staff of the network first gets an overall view of the situation and then decides on configuration changes required in individual network elements. In new network management systems, on the contrary, an overall view of the network and its condition is produced within the system, and the system itself gives the required configuration commands to each transmission equipment. As a consequence, all configuration changes can be performed significantly more rapidly than previously. Such developments have been accelerated by the freeing of competition in the field of telecommunications.
The above-mentioned recommendation M.3010 specifies the management architecture as shown in FIG.
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. The architecture basically consists of one or more operations systems OS connected to a data communication network DCN communicating with an actual telecommunications network which is to be managed and which includes the network elements NE managed. It is to be noted that the connections of the data communications network and those of the telecommunications network are logically distinct, although they can be implemented physically in one and the same cable. Logically, there are thus two networks: (a) a network providing services to customers, and (b) a network maintaining the service provisioning network. The management of certain transmission equipments (network elements) further requires a separate Mediation Device MD, which mainly acts as a protocol converter between a Q3 interface complying with the recommendations and transmission equipments that do not understand the protocol applied in the interface but use their own proprietary protocol. New SDH equipment, for instance, can be connected directly to the Q3 interface, whereas older PDH equipment requires a Mediation Device.
In practice, a management network for a combined SDH and PDH network may be e.g. such as shown in FIG.
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. Users (network operator staff) sitting at the operation centre use network management work stations WS connected to a separate local area network WSN, which may be e.g. an Ethernet network. The management system is typically distributed in several computers of the local area network, one of the computers being a dedicated application server SRV having a database DB containing information necessary for managing the network. In its practical embodiment, the local area network further comprises e.g. necessary back-up devices (like DAT drives or mirrored disks) and event-logging printers (not shown).
The management system is connected via the above-mentioned Q3 interface e.g. to the SDH network. A variety of alternatives have been defined for the Q3 interface, so that the interface may be e.g. an X.25 type packet switched interface or an Ethernet LAN interface. (The packet switched interface is useful if the operator in charge of the network management also otherwise uses a packet switched network.) In practice, control channels between the SDH network elements
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are established in the overhead bytes of the STM-N signal (N=1, 4, 16), so that control signals between SDH equipments propagate with the payload signal (that is, also in the same physical network). Such control channels established in the overhead bytes are called Embedded Control Channels, and they are formed e.g. in the STM-1 frame by the section overhead bytes D1 to D12.
PDH equipments, on the contrary, need manufacturer-specific solutions, wherefore they have to be connected to the management system through a separate mediation device
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.
The management system may also be hierarchical so that different geographical areas have their own smaller management systems that toget
Faupel Matthew
French Graham
Altera Law Group LLC
Nokia Telecommunications Oy
Rinehart Mark H.
Thompson Marc D.
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