Real-Time Telecom Management Integrated With AM/FM

Introduction
With a worldwide trend toward deregulation and privatization, there are continually new entrants to the telecommunications industry. In this increasingly competitive environment, telecommunications operators must live or die as much by the quality of their services as by their cost competitiveness. Therefore, the quality of their real-time network management cystems becomes all-important. Note that a customer lost to a competitor due to price competition can usual] y be won back at a later date On the other hand a customer lost for reasons of poor set-vice may be lost forever. This is particular y true of the larger, more lucrative corporate customers whose financial loses from disrupted or unreliable telecommunications service may be many times larger than their total telecommunications bill.

To remain competitive an operator needs to take maximum advantage from the capital investments in its network. This is only possible with enterprise-wide access to complete and comprehensible knowledge of the network. infrastructure.

New technologies continue to push-intelligence further and further out in the local loop, thus increasing the level of network management complexity. The boundaries between network engineering and real-time management are becoming more and more blurred. Although AM/FM and real-time management systems have usual] y operated independently of each other to date, the overlap of their domains is demanding a higher level of interaction.

What is Network Management?
Network Management includes a wide range of management functions related to the real-time behavior of a telecommunications network. Under the TMN (Telecommunications Management Network) standard the common management functions are broadly grouped as:

Configuration Management to control, identify, collect data from, and provide data to Network Elements;
Fault Management to detect, isolate, and correct abnormal operations;
Performance Management to evaluate and report on equipment behavior and the effectiveness of the network or Network Elements;
Accounting Management to measure network service usage and to cost it,
Security Management to facilitate the prevention and detection of improper use of network resources plus the containment of and recovery from security breaches.