Full Scale TMN Management

TMN (Telecommunication Management Network) is a concept defined by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) as the common framework for building distributed multi-vendor based management systems for telecommunications network.

TMN is of today the most comprehensive omnicompetent architecture for telecom management/OSS system architectures. Although few companies have been able to relinquish the full potential of TMN, it is still the choice of reference when it comes to telecom information models and terminology.

The biggest challenge of implementing the visions of TMN has been the complexity of the the technology CMIP/Q3 being a core part of TMN. As a consequence, the cost of realizing a true TMN based solution, in terms of tools costs and development effort, has been a serious obstacle.

Many telecom vendors and operators have therefore refrained to other less complex (i.e. less advanced) technologies as SNMP and CORBA to solve their immediate problems. Hence todays blurred and highly heterogeneous state of telecom management. But many of the same vendors and operators have now (or will soon!) realize that choosing the simpler solution now only increases you problems later. You are still left with the complex task of integrating several heterogeneous systems - except, now you have just added a few extra to the pool. You are still left with scalability issues, which are not solved satisfactorily by these technologies.

Solution

For UHC, TMN has always and is still the only real choice for the infrastructure of the TMN system.

Q3ADE's extensive set of adaptation components (gateways) proves that any other technology used for telecom management can be handled by and through a TMN based infrastructure.

The times where telecom companies would even consider to replace their existing portfolio of management/OSS applications is long past. Q3ADE may interact with your existing application sthrough one of its many open interfaces based on CMIP, SNMP, CORBA, XML, OSS-J, 3GPP. So you can maintain your existing applications and use Q3ADE as the "glue" that binds them together.

Q3ADE 3G is a ready-to-use application, which acts both as a specialised web-server, an information gateway between several technologies and as a real management node. Several Q3ADE 3G process can be configured into a cooperating telecom management network, where a user may plug in anywhere and get information from anywhere (under given access control restrictions, of cause). You may put your Q3ADE 3G application to work in a days time.

Q3ADE Advanced Developer is a software toolbox by which you can develop your own Q3ADE applications, fitting right into the network of Q3ADE applications or interacting with a 3'rd party platform like HP OpenView, TeMIP, OpenMaster. Typical applications are event processsing nodes pre-processing/correlating and store event/alarm information. Another typical application is gateways to some equipment via a proprietary technology.

Q3ADE Gateway Developer is a software toolbox by which you can develop your own complex gateway applications either by combining or extending one of the gateway components provided in the Q3ADE Gateway Developer Package.

Benefits

The architecture of Q3ADE is based on the principles of TMN, which implies

• Open Interfaces
  Applications from different vendors may be integrated seamlessly. Q3ADE 3G provides a range of different technologies for this purpose, including SNMP, Q3, CORBA, XML/SOAP, ODBC, SMTP and FTP.
• Unified Information Models
  To share information between different applications require the information to be based on a common information standard. Q3ADE provides a range of information standards based on TMN and other sources.
• Common Object Identification
  Information about the state of resources in the system is represented by objects. Q3ADE provides the mechanisms to locate these objects across technology barriers transparent to the higher level applications. The mechanism is based on X.500, the same technology chosen for LDAP.
• Scalability
  The processing of the vast quantities of information generated in a telecom network (hundreds of GB every day) requires an immense scalability of the information processing power. Q3ADE's architecture provides scalability through distribution and multi-threaded transaction processing. The processing of information may be distributed across a network of hosts/CPU's implementing both serial and parallel strategies.
  

Pricing

With Q3ADE, the cost of realizing a true TMN based management system is probably no more expensive than your current choice of technology. More likely, you will save money on your tools account, because you only need one tool to deal with all your interoperability problems.

A Q3ADE 3G runtime starts below USD 3000 and increases with the number of managed elements and users. Q3ADE applications run on any retail/industrial PC hardware and on the largest Sun Sparc multiprocessor hosts in the world. So you can scale each node in your TMN network to your needs.

Contact UHC for more information by accessing our question form. Let UHC give you an idea of the total costs and implications of applying Q3ADE to your Telecom management needs.