1 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA and TMN The Story So Far EURESCOM DOT ‘98, 1-2 September 1998 Tom Counihan, Researcher, Broadcom Eireann Research Ltd.

2 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Reference Material ITU-T OMG IS&N’98 NOMS’98 ACTS T1M1 NMF CiTR Lumos

3 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 ITU-T TMN TMN defines principles and a management architecture which provides for interfacing a telecommunication network with computer systems in order to provide different management functions at different management levels M.301x –states that ODP type principles may be needed in the design of TMNs

4 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 OMG Object Management Architecture CORBA is an object oriented framework designed to support a –consistent programming model on a given platform and –interoperability between different platforms CORBA allows applications to communicate irrespective of location, or design specifics Telecom Domain Task Force

5 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 TMN Systems Perspective

6 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Object Management Architecture Architectural Framework with detailed interface specifications All standardisation within the OMG populates the OMA Object Request Broker Application Interfaces Domain Interfaces Common Facilities Object Services Event Lifecycle Persistence Relationship Externalisation Transactions Query Property Licensing Security Trader OMG IDL CORBA

7 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Management Hierarchy BML SML NML EML NE CORBA TMN

8 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA in the TMN picture Local Operations System ORB Object Request Broker AI DI OSCF OSI Manager/Agent Naming, Events Object Services AI DI OSCF OSI Manager/Agent Q3 Network element Q3 ORB IDL GDMO/ASN.1

9 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

10 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA TMN Interworking Object Model Comparison Specification Translation –Rules for mapping between different data-definition languages: »GDMO/ASN.1 IDL »SMI/ASN.1IDL Interaction Translation –Dynamic behavioural conversion: »Representing TMN and SNMP management interactions in the context of CORBA

11 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA Manager, OSI Agent CORBA ORB Fault Management Performance Management Configuration Management CORBA Manager IIOP GDMO Objects MO CMIP OSI Agent CORBA/ CMIP Gateway OSI Stack

12 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 OSI Manager, CORBA Agent OSI Manager CMIS over IIOP CMIP CORBA Agent CORBA/ CMIP Gateway CORBA Agent Fault Management Performance Management Configuration Management OSI Manager GDMO Objects MO

13 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA Manager and Agent CORBA Agent CORBA Agent GDMO Objects MO CORBA ORB Fault Management Performance Management Configuration Management CORBA Manager CMIS over IIOP

14 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Where CORBA has been applied BM L SML NML EML NE Q3 Agent Manager Agent Manager X X X

15 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 ITU-T & T1M1 CORBA at the X-Interface (SML) is seen as inevitable Studying the use of CORBA mechanisms for Q3 Interfaces at the Service Management layer

16 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Telecom Domain Task Force Issue RFIs and RFPs for CORBA based technology relevant to the Telecommunications Industry. Management and control of A/V Streams CORBA/TMN Interworking Telecom Log Service Wireless Access & Control Notification Service Access to Telecommunication Service: Provisioning and Subscription

17 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 CORBA Reservations TMN applications can explicitly control association set-up while CORBA only has an Implicit Bind Model CORBA doesn't support making a single request to multiple objects at once. The client application has to make individual requests to all the objects involved Scalability and Performance

18 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 TMN Reservations TMN standards are: –hard to use –difficult to understand –Skills are hard to find –expensive TMN standards can take too long –in the interm proprietary solutions become available TMN implementation is software based: –future work on TMN should converge with the mainstream of the IT industry direction »will increase the availability of TMN developers

19 DOT’98 Workshop Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998 Conclusions CORBA has been used in many real applications for some time The continued design of CORBA based frameworks within development organisations will make specific requirements for standard services much clearer The JIDM Interaction Translation is not solely geared for the SML The JIDM Interaction Translation is bi-directional The RealTime SIG has the potential for implementation of CORBA Servers on the Managed Resource