RFC 3052 (rfc3052) - Page 2 of 12

Service Management Architectures Issues and Review

RFC 3052            Service Management Architectures        January 2001


   The network and service management issue is going to be a major
   problem facing the networks of the future.  This realization is a
   significant motivating factor in various efforts within the IP
   community which has been traditionally reluctant to take on issues of
   this type [1].  The purpose of this document is to explore the
   problems of developing a framework for managing the network and
   services and to examine some of the issues that recent efforts have
   uncovered.

2. The Problem of Management Standards

   Network and service level issues traditionally are handled in IP
   networks by engineering the network to provide the best service
   possible for a single class of service.  Increasingly there is a
   desire that IP networks be used to carry data with specific QoS
   constraints.  IP networks will require a tremendous amount of
   management information to provision, maintain, validate, and bill for
   these new services.  The control and distribution of management
   information in complex communications networks is one of the most
   sophisticated tasks a network management framework must resolve. This
   is compounded by the likelihood that devices in IP networks will be
   varied and have differing management capabilities, ranging from
   complex computing and switching platforms to personal hand held
   devices and everything in between.  Scaling and performance
   requirements will make the task of defining a single management
   framework for these networks extremely complex.

   In the past standardization efforts have suggested a simplified model
   for management on the hypothesis that it can be extrapolated to solve
   complex systems.  This premise has often proved to be without merit
   because of the difficulty of developing such a model that meets both
   the operators heterogeneous, multi-vendor need and network equipment
   vendors specific needs.  At the center of efforts to devise a
   standard management model are attempts to develop an architecture or
   framework to control the management information. The same conflicting
   operator vs. vendor forces are present in the effort to establish a
   common framework architecture as are in the efforts to develop a
   common information model.

   Network operators requirements call for a framework that will permit
   centralized management of the network and require the minimal
   resources to operate and maintain while still providing tremendous
   flexibility in choice of equipment and creativity of defining
   services [2].  Operators may be less able to support change in their
   Operational Support Systems (OSS) then they are in the network
   infrastructure because the OSS is tightly integrated into the





Eder & Nag                   Informational