| Modeling service management for programmable architectures (2000) | |||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||
| The concept of Service Management was first described in the TMN (Telecommunications Management Network) framework. TMN was aimed at public networks that provided a small and well defined set of telecommunication services. However, this old architecture can not adequately deal with current demands brought on by the recent explosion of distributed multimedia applications and services. New telecom architectures, called Programmable Architectures, are necessary to facilitate a rapid and flexible provision of new services with QoS capabilities and pose new challenges to management that are only beginning to be addressed. This thesis presents a top-down approach to understanding service management in the context of programmable architectures. I propose a standard language to describe networks and services based on graphs; this allows us to define the control and management activities on them as graph construction and manipulation activities. This graph model helps in defining APIs for the management of multilayered networks as well as multimedia services. I establish a methodology to compare programmable architectures based on the graph model. Specifically I compare TINA and xbind as two important representatives of programmable architectures. TINA represents the direction in which telco operators are moving, beyond IN (Intelligent Networks), while xbind is an example of an open programmable network. I show that the precise definition of services as graphs leads to a foundation of comparative analysis between programmable architectures that guarantee QoS. Finally, I address the design and implementation of a multicast service in which to test the management model mentioned above. We tested the prototype on two platforms: an emulation testbed to address scalability issues, and a real testbed (xbind) to experiment with a real transport service. To speed up the prototyping process we designed and implemented a new software environment, TeleSoft, that facilitates the move of source code between platforms. The prototyping work proved the validity of the management model and that it may be generally applicable. | |||||||||||
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