5.

Referring ITU standards, provide a brief description of TMN covering its

relationship to a Telecom Network, field of applications, objectives, general requirements and its functional architecture. Ans. Telecommunication networks are actively integrating new technology to provide diversified services to a continue increasing number of users with demanding requirement. Handling such a large amount of information has become a main objective for the existing network that must support those services. Network management has become the most influence subject among all the users, operators and suppliers. Hence, Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) was introduced. To cope with the rapid development of the various kind of network services, some network architectures are being introduced into the general telecommunication network's infrastructure. One of them is the Intelligent Network (IN) approach. Intelligent Network (IN) and Telecommunications Management Networks (TMN) are widely endorsed. IN and TMN however cannot be treated separately. Today's products and their underlying architectures are insufficient for the growing world the operators and their suppliers are facing. Hence the need to make good use of the latest technique in distributed computing and object-oriented analysis, design, together with the latest remedy to overcome the challenges. Thus improved interoperability, better reuse of software and flexible placement of software on computing platforms can be achieved. TMN and IN are integrated to form Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture (TINA). FIELD OF APPLICATION: TMN provides an organized architecture for the interconnection between various types of Operating Systems (OSs) and/or telecommunication equipment for the exchange of management information using an agreed architecture with standardised interfaces including messages and protocols. TMN provides management functions for telecommunication networks and services and offers communications between itself and the networks and services. OBJECTIVE:

The aim of TMN is to provide a framework for telecommunication management. By introducing the concept of generic network models for management, to perform general management of diverse equipment using generic information models and standard interfaces. The M.3010 recommendation defines general architectural requirements for a TMN to support the management requirements of administration to plan, provision, install, maintain, operate and administer telecommunication networks and services The basic concept behind a TMN is to provide a organized architecture to achieve the interconnection between various types of OSs and/or telecommunications equipment for the exchange of management information using an agreed architecture with standardized interfaces including protocols and messages

RELATION BETWEEN TMN AND TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK: TMN can vary in complexity from a very simple connection to a complex network interconnecting. It provides management functions and offers communication both between an OSs themselves, and between OSs and the different parts of the telecommunication network. A telecommunication network contains many types of telecommunication equipment and associated support equipment. TMN is a separate network that interfaces a telecommunication network to control its operation. It may be use parts of the telecommunications network to provide its communication. The following diagram show the relationship between TMN and telecommunication network.

Requirements of TMN On the fly creation of resources and services imposes two requirements on TMN. The first requirement concerns network service creation. Using active network technologies, new network services can be dynamically added to the managed network Viewing this situation from the TMN environment, if an agnt is to manage continually added services to the Q adapter should also be updated in order to interface with the newly created services. The second requirement concerns resource partitioning. New types of resource can be dynamically created from the existing ones. This will require the information model to be changed to represent the new types of created resources. But the current TMN information model does not allow new GDM classes to be created on the fly.

TMN Functional Architecture

The functional architecture describes the functionality within the TMN to allow for the creation of function blocks from which a TMN of any complexity can be implemented. The elements of the functional architecture are function blocks and reference points.

Function blocks are conceptual entities that can be implemented in a variety of physical configurations. It provide the TMN general function which enable TMN to perform the TMN management function. The following are function blocks: * Network Element Function (NEF) block * Workstation Function (WSF) block * Mediation Function (MF) block * Q Adaptor Function (QAF) block Reference points represent the exchange of information between pairs of management function blocks. The aim of reference points is to identify the information passing between function blocks. There are five reference points, first three classes are TMN reference points, other two are non-TMN reference points. The following show the class and the definition of it.

Class Definition q Between OSF, QAF, MF and NEF f Attach to a WSF Between OSFs of two TMNs or between the OSF of a TMN and x the another network with equivalent OSF-like functionality. g Between a WSF and users m Between a QAF and non-TMN manage entities.