Management Integration Network Management Spring 2014 Bahador Bakhshi CE & IT Department, Amirkabir University of Technology This presentation is based on the slides listed in references.

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 2

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 3

The Basic Ingredients of Network Management 4 Previous Lecture: Management Functionalities Current Lecture: How are these functionalities implemented and integrated?

Non-integrated Network Management 5

Integrated Network Management 6

Management Integration  Different management functions  diverse set of management applications  complicated NM  Management integration  seamlessly integrated and end-to-end management support  Avoids manual procedure and human errors  Avoids cost of employing and training many operators  Reduces amount of redundant data  Reduces management overhead (traffic, computation, storage)  Facilitates management of the management itself …… 7

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 8

NM Integration Perspectives  What is the scope of the NM integration?  It depends on who answers  Different perspectives of NM integration  Equipment vendors perspective  Integrating various element management functions  Enterprise perspective  Integrate management of a network that includes a wide range of different types of devices  Service provider perspective  Many different tools have to be integrated  Each of which might be “fully integrated” from their limited perspective 9

Equipment Vendor Perspective  Integrated element management application to configure, audit, monitored, back up, restored, … of the vendor equipments  Open and well-documented interfaces as part of the management applications 10

Enterprise Perspective  End-to-End Multi-vendor Network management  Network level & End-to-End management applications: topology & Routing  Multi vendor support  Vendor-dependent EMSs need to be either replaced by a vendor-independent system or complemented by systems that integrate certain EMS functions 11

Service Provider Perspective  Service & Business on multivendor Network  End-to-end connectivity though different devices  Different services provisioning & monitoring  Billing using customer, service, accounting information 12

Integration Scope & Importance & Cost  As it becomes more important to address management integration in larger scope, it becomes more difficult to do so 13 High CAPEX High OPEX

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 14

Management Integration Challenges  Two dimensions affecting NM integration complexity  Management functions need to be integrated across the managed domain  Device heterogeneity  Different features, different mgmt interface, different MIB, …  Services heterogeneity  Different provisioning mechanism, QoS parameters, …  Different management functions have to be integrated  FCAPS functions have many common sub-functions  Relation between functions, e.g., FM needs access to CMDB, which is managed by CM 15

Management Integration Challenges  Heterogeneity complexity  f(#vendors) * f(#device types) * f(#technologies)  Function complexity  f(#management functions) * f(integration depth)  Scale complexity  f(#ports, #devices)  Management integration complexity  scale complexity ~ (heterogeneity complexity * function complexity) 16

Management Integration Challenges  Software architecture complications  Challenges due to heterogeneous application requirements  Scalable meanwhile cost-efficient  Flexible & extensible to support new devices  Challenges from conflicting software architecture goals  Different management functions can impose conflicting requirements on the software architecture  Trying to address the needs of multiple management function in a single system inevitably leads to situations in which the best that can be accomplished might be a compromise  Build multiple applications that each serves a particular purpose and simply make sure that they can work well together 17

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 18

NM Integration Approaches  The integration problem is generally too large to be tackled all at once  Trade-off (partial integration)  Not to integrate certain aspects, to lower management integration complexity and cost, at expense of operations  Where to make the cut? (an optimization problem)  Place where a high reduction in management integration complexity and cost results, yet operations efficiency is minimally impacted  How to find the cut?  Look at NM dimensions and decide which dimension is the most crucial for integration  minimize the interactions  E.g. “function dimension”  integrated fault management for all devices  E.g., “management layer”  integrated application for service provisioning 19

NM Integration: Platform Approach  A common approach to management integration is using a management platform  Software system that provides common infrastructure services for management applications (NM Middleware/Application server)  Typically, software development kits that facilitate the development of additional functionality 20

NM Integration: Platform Approach  Typically, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)  Applications need to use those services interact and exchange information with the platform components that provide those services  Some common example services  Database, Device communication (mgmt protocols), Network discovery & inventory, Network configuration cache, Current alarms state, Event collection & registration, GUI framework & API, …  Some common example applications  Topology viewer, MIB browser, Alarm viewer, basic alarm correlation & filtering, … 21

NM Integration: Platform Approach  Different device support?  Device-specific application logic is not hard-coded into the algorithms of the management platform 22

NM Integration: Custom Approach  Consists of multiple management systems and applications (components) integrated to work together and collectively form the operations support infrastructure that is used to manage the network  Might better fit the particular needs of an operations support organization  Issues:  Well-defined scope of functionality  All management required functionalities should be covered by components  Component functionalities may overlap 23

Custom Integration Issues  Issues (cont’d):  Northbound interface, allowing other applications and components on top of it to “flow through” operations to the network  Different requirements (OS, DB, …) by different components  Data mediation between components  Harder to keep updated  Umbrella component: a central coordinator  Such as work-flow: integration activities on system 24

Outline  Introduction  Integration perspectives  Integration challenges  Integration approaches  Summary 25

Summary  In service provider networks, an integrated system is used for network management  OSS (Operations Support System)  Software applications that support back-office activities which operate a telco’s network, provision and maintain customer services  BSS (Business Support System)  Software applications that support customer-facing activities.  Billing, order management, customer relationship management, call centre automation, are BSS applications  In the past, OSS & BSS had a clearer separation; current trend integrated OSS/BSS software 26

References  Reading Assignment: Chapter 10 of “Alexander Clemm, ‘Network Management Fundamentals’, Cisco Press, 2007” 27