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

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

Reference Material

• ITU-T

• OMG

• IS&N’98

• NOMS’98

• ACTS

• T1M1

• NMF

• CiTR

• Lumos

3DOT’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

4DOT’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

5DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

TMN Systems Perspective

x

gg gg

q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

q3q3q3q3

q3q3

q3q3

ff

ff

ff

mm

wsfwsfwsfwsfTMNTMN TMNTMN

OSFOSFOSFOSF

OSFOSF

NEFNEF NEFNEF QAFQAF

6DOT’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

EventLifecyclePersistenceRelationshipExternalisationTransactions

QueryPropertyLicensingSecurityTrader

OMG IDLCORBA

7DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

Management Hierarchy

BML

SML

NML

EML

NE

CO

RB

AC

OR

BA

TM

NT

MN

8DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

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

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

10DOT’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.1 IDL

• Interaction Translation– Dynamic behavioural conversion:

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

11DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

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

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

OSI Manager, CORBA AgentOSI Manager

CMIS over IIOP

CMIP

CORBA Agent

CORBA/CMIP

Gateway

CORBAAgent

FaultManagement

PerformanceManagement

ConfigurationManagement

OSIManager

GDMOObjects

MOMO

MO

13DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

CORBA Manager and AgentCORBA Agent

CORBAAgent

GDMOObjects

MOMO

MO

CORBA ORB

FaultManagement

PerformanceManagement

ConfigurationManagement

CORBA Manager

CMIS over IIOP

14DOT’98 Workshop

Heidelberg, 1-2 September 1998

Where CORBA has been appliedBML

SML

NML

EML

NE

Q3

Q3

Q3

Agent

Manager

Agent

Manager

X

X

X

15DOT’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

16DOT’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

17DOT’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

18DOT’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

19DOT’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