corba and tmn the story so far eurescom dot ‘98, 1-2 september 1998

1DOT’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.

2DOT’98 Workshop


Reference Material

• ITU-T

• OMG

• IS&N’98

• NOMS’98

• ACTS

• T1M1

• NMF

• CiTR

• Lumos

3DOT’98 Workshop


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

4DOT’98 Workshop


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

5DOT’98 Workshop


TMN Systems Perspective

x

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q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

q3q3q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

ff

ff

ff

mm

wsfwsfwsfwsfTMNTMN TMNTMN

OSFOSFOSFOSF

OSFOSF

NEFNEF NEFNEF QAFQAF

6DOT’98 Workshop


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

EventLifecyclePersistenceRelationshipExternalisationTransactions

QueryPropertyLicensingSecurityTrader

OMG IDLCORBA

7DOT’98 Workshop


Management Hierarchy

BML

SML

NML

EML

NE

CO

RB

AC

OR

BA

TM

NT

MN

8DOT’98 Workshop


CORBA in the TMN pictureLocal Operations System Local Operations System

ORB

Object Request Broker

AI DI

OS CF

OSI Manager/Agent

Naming, Events . . . . . . . . . . . .

Object Services

AI DI

OS CF

OSI Manager/Agent

Q3Q3

Network element

Q3Q3

ORB

IDL

IDL

IDL IDL

GDMO/ASN.1

9DOT’98 Workshop


10DOT’98 Workshop


CORBA TMN Interworking• Object Model Comparison

• Specification Translation– Rules for mapping between different data-definition languages:

» GDMO/ASN.1 IDL

» SMI/ASN.1 IDL

• Interaction Translation– Dynamic behavioural conversion:

» Representing TMN and SNMP management interactions in the context of CORBA

11DOT’98 Workshop


CORBA Manager, OSI Agent

CORBA ORB

FaultManagement

PerformanceManagement

ConfigurationManagement

CORBA Manager

IIOP

GDMOObjects

MOMO

MO

CMIP

OSI Agent

CORBA/CMIP

Gateway

OSI Stack

12DOT’98 Workshop


OSI Manager, CORBA AgentOSI Manager

CMIS over IIOP

CMIP

CORBA Agent

CORBA/CMIP

Gateway

CORBAAgent

FaultManagement



OSIManager

GDMOObjects

MOMO

MO

13DOT’98 Workshop


CORBA Manager and AgentCORBA Agent

CORBAAgent

GDMOObjects

MOMO

MO

CORBA ORB

FaultManagement



CORBA Manager

CMIS over IIOP

14DOT’98 Workshop


Where CORBA has been appliedBML

SML

NML

EML

NE

Q3

Q3

Q3

Agent

Manager

Agent

Manager

X

X

X

15DOT’98 Workshop


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

16DOT’98 Workshop


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

17DOT’98 Workshop


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

18DOT’98 Workshop


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

19DOT’98 Workshop


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

corba and tmn the story so far eurescom dot ‘98, 1-2 september 1998

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