LAPPEENRANTA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Thesis for the Master of Science in Technology Service Management in the Massive IP Networks Lappeenranta, 6. October 1999 Lasse Metso Kiertokatu 6 C 13 53850 Lappeenranta +358 40 576 0786 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 ABBREVIATIONS 2 1 INTRODUCTION 3 2 SERVICES IN THE NETWORK 5 2.1 SERVICES 5 2.2 THE MASSIVE IP NETWORK AND THE CONVERGENCE IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS 6 2.3 SERVICE PROVIDERS 8 2.4 SERVICE USERS 8 3 SERVICE MANAGEMENT 9 3.1 CUSTOMER CARE AND BILLING 10 3.1.1 Customer Care 11 3.1.2 Billing 12 3.2 MANAGING NEW SERVICES 18 3.3 PROBLEMS IN SERVICE MANAGEMENT 18 4 MENETELMÄT ??! 19 4.1 QUALITY OF SERVICE 19 4.2 CLASS OF SERVICE 20 4.3 POLICY BASED SERVICE MANAGEMENT 20 4.4 SENSUROINTI 20 5 SERVICE PLATFORMS 20 5.1 WWW SERVICE PLATFORMS 21 5.1.1 Problems 23 5.1.3 Directories 23 5.2 TMN SERVICE PLATFORMS 24 5.3 INTELLIGENT NETWORK SERVICE PLATFORMS 25 5.4 FUTURE SERVICE PLATFORMS 26 5.4.1 Web-based Architecture 27 5.4.2 TINA-compliant service management platform 28 6 PROTOTYPE OF SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN MASSIVE IP NETWORKS 30 7 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT 30 8 CONCLUSIONS 30 REFERENCES 31 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS AIN Advanced Intelligent Networks ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange CATV Cable Television CCB Customer Care and Billing CMIP Common Management Information Protocol HTML Hypertext Markup Language HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol IETF Internet Engineering Task Force IN Intelligent Network IP Internet Protocol ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network ISP Internet Service Provider POTS Plain Old Telephone Service PSTN Public Switched Telecommunications Network Ret Reference point (in TINA architecture) RSVP Resource ReServation Protocol RTCP Real-Time Control Protocol RTP Real-time Transport Protocol RTSP Real-Time Streaming Protocol SGML Standardized Generalized Markup Language SLAs Service Level Agreements SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol TINA Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture TMN Telecommunication Management Network URL Uniform Resource Locator VoD Video on Demand WWW World Wide Web QoS Quality of Service 1 INTRODUCTION - PROJEKTIN TAUSTAA - PROJETIN ORGANISOINTI JA AIKATAULU - Martikaisen referenssimalli ? - tässä projektissa internetin käsite IP - internetin laajentuminen (uudet kanavat, lisää käyttäjiä, uusia palveluja, ???) - IP, Catv, IN, PSTN+ISDN, Mobile, - työn tavoite / tarkoitus (ongelman kuvaus) -menetelmät ratkaisun kanssa -teoriaosa - proto(kokeellinen osa) - OMAN AIHEEN SIJOITTUMINEN PROJKETIIN - OMAN AIHEEN MYYNTI More services are being added to the networks offered by the service providers. As a result, the system involved in providing services is expanding and is also becoming more complex. The ability to deliver voice, video, and data at higher speeds is also becoming a critical requirement. ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 4) Different services and technologies over diverse telecommunications and computer networks make the management of the services difficult. (D. Udupa, 1999, p. 4) In the past, network management in the telecommunication industry was mostly proprietary. These proprietary solutions were good enough for limited services and limited geographical coverage of telecommunications service providers. Services providers could control the introduction and implementation of new technologies. However, deregulation has changed the situation. Deregulation has expanded the operating area of the service providers. They have to look beyond their own national borders. The tendency toward globalization has also increased competition. ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 5) World-wide demand for network services are growing exponentially. Also the data services, which the Internet offers is growing. (Walrand, 1996, p 20) - OMAN AIHEEN RAJAUKSET 2 SERVICES IN THE NETWORK Today Internet has many services, such as files transfer with ftp, WWW-pages, IP telephony, multimedia services etc. In the future the amount of services will increase, for example Video on Demand services will become available and easy to use; mobile need will become important. 2.1 Services According to Kong, Chen and Hussain: "A service is anything that a service provider determines that customers will wish to purchase and that the service provider is willing to supply." (Q. Kong, 1998, p. 22) Another service definition: "A service is a set of functions offered to a user by an organisation." (C. Popien, 1994. pp. 889) More service definitions: "A service is an application with a well-defined interface and functionality." (Bhoj, 1999) Service is defined in ITU-T and ISO systems management documents: "An abstract concept that includes the behaviour of a service provider as seen by a service user. Alternatively, the service definition includes a set of capabilities provided to a service user by a service provider. Service definition does not include the internal behaviour of a service provider." ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 82-83) The massive IP network gets more customers, because more services will be available for customers. This has raised the importance of service management. In history the technology orientation has placed products and equipment ahead of the services. Today customers want reliable and easy use of services, to get value-addition. For example the customers do not want to use different login names and passwords when connecting to services. Microchips cards could be one method used to identification and authentication. 2.2 The massive IP network and the convergence in telecommunications Internet is popular as the basic infrastructure in providing world-wide distributed services to end-users. The Internet is open and distributed environment which allows different types of service providers to provide different types of services on the network. (Q. Kong, 1998, p. 22) The massive IP network includes the Internet, but also Cable television (CATV), telecommunication networks, such as Public Switched Telecommunications Network (PSTN), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), Intelligent Network (IN), and mobile systems. However there are two other important network technologies which make new services available: wireless transmission by the radio, and the microwave satellite transmission. Telephone companies are interested in delivering non-telephone services to end-users. CATV providers are interested in telephone and Internet services as well as Video on demand (VoD) services. These companies believe that cost savings are possible through value-added services. Also, the number of end users is increasing. These users have unique interests, and because of their interests, they require different services from the service providers. (Mori 1997, p. 129) The CATV industry is migrating to a digital transmission technology, in order to increase the number of TV channels and services available to the end users. To provide new services, such as VoD and interactive TV, the CATV industry is designing bi-directional networks. End-users are connected to video servers, and they can select the video program, and the video program is sent over the network to the user. (Walrand 1996, pp 16-19) The differences between telephone, computer, and CATV networks are still great. However, each type of network is now able to provide services that were originally from other networks. This tendency is convergence. (Walrand 1996, pp 20) Media industry, telecommunication industry and computer industry are integrating. Media industry produces the content, for example entertainment and publishing. Computer industry produce equipment and applications, which can make this content available for everyone. Telecommunication industry, both fixed and mobile, produces the connections to networks. See Figure 1. (Svanbäck, 1999) Figure 1. Convergence (Svanbäck, 1999) 2.3 Service Providers Service providers here are companies that provide services as a business on the network. Service providers operate on the network, or they integrate the services of other provides in order to deliver services to their customers. Service providers are increasingly using Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to define agreements for sharing resources with partners, as well as for offering service quality guarantees to customers. These SLAs contain details of information that is shared and service level guarantees that are offered by the service provider. (Bhoj, 1999) Service providers offering reliable services in cost-efficient way will succeed. Service users do not use services that are not operating properly. Cost-efficiency means that service providers can easily add new services or update old services. 2.4 Service Users Service users are often called as end-users or customers. Service providers have to fulfil end-user needs before the end-user uses any services. The service users want that the user interface of the service is handy and clear. They also expect that the connection and the billing are reliable, installations are easy and software products are good. 3 SERVICE MANAGEMENT Growing services (such as e-commerce, web hosting etc.) are being deployed over an infrastructure that spans multiple control domains. These end-to-end services require co-operation in internetworking between multiple organizations, systems and entities. Service providers need to deploy interoperability, distributed scaleable architectures, integration and automation of network management systems. The management system must make management easy and flexible to service providers. The management system must also make service providers operations and end goals easier. (Bhoj, 1999) Service providers need to find new and effective ways to (Cisco, 1999): * Deploy services more quickly * Deliver guaranteed services through service-level agreements (SLA) * Evolve from reactive network management to proactive service management * Reduce costs by automating network and service management. Currently, there are no standard mechanisms to share selective management information between the various service providers or between service providers and their customers. Such mechanisms are necessary for end-to-end service management and diagnosis as well as for ensuring the service level obligations between a service provider and its customers or partners (Bhoj, 1999). Service management here includes also the management of value added services in the network. Service management can be divided into two areas: * customer care and billing * creating and managing new services. 3.1 Customer Care and Billing Customer care and billing (CCB) processes have been traditionally kept as a back ground process. Those have not been taken as the key function in the business. Today customer care and billing are one important part of making profit. Good customer care and billing make able to get more profit, better customer relationships, and competition advantage. Today succeeding in the market depends more on the quality of product and service than just the price. 1980's was product oriented time in the telecommunication and data transfer market, while now customer orientation is leading. Marketing to the customers is one of the key component to success as well as the ability to sell more and the ability to high quality customer care. Also it is important, to get the products quickly to the market, and be able to support existing and new services. Good customer care and billing system has to be flexible enough to fulfill these criterions. (IBM, 1999) Even electronic commerce depends on customer relationships says Lester Wanninger, professor at the University of Minnesota. It is important to teach how to make good customer relations for people going to start electronic commerce. Also in electronic commerce a company and a customer should handle all the communication channels. Electronic commerce has to implement functional processes of the company, information systems, databases, and other channels. Important is that customer gets the same service from any service channels of the company. Easy use brings more value to the customer. Also in electronic commerce the customer buys again only if the customer get what was promised. WWW-pages can have effect on attitudes, intends, and shopping habits. High quality information, easy use, and new experiences, binding customers to services. Traditional media, such as TV, radio, and printed media are good in getting new customers, while the Internet is good in keeping old customers. (Karonen, 1999) 3.1.1 Customer Care Customer care means maintaining customer services and customer relationships and answering routines. Customer care links to the level of the offered service and the connection with the service level and the price of the service. (TAG, 1999) Customer care deals with the processes needed to deliver services to customers, such as order handling, problem solvimg, performance reporting, and billing. Good customer care system makes able to provide current and accurate information to the customers. It helps in delivering services when promised and resolving problems quickly and keeping customers informed of the status, for example order. It also makes able to meet stated service level agreements (SLAs) for performance and availability, and providing accurate billing in a format that customer wants. This all ensures that the customer gets good service from the service provider. The automation of customer care enables better services and cost savings. The service provider's Help desk can see all the information needed quickly, and then he/she can answer to the customer. Also new services can be implemented and delivered to the customers easily when customer care processes are automated. Service providers can use the same methods to all services, when customer care processes are automated. Service providers do not need to plan new methods to implement new services, when the system is existing. 3.1.2 Billing Internet is becoming able to support heterogeneous applications and services to a diverse user community. Delivered services must be billed. In the future we want to know, who is using the network, what the network is being used for and when the network is being used (Lidyard, 1999). Pricing mechanism will be necessary in order to manage the quality of services (QoS). Accounting and billing systems must be reliable, scaleable and have high performance, and offering flow-through operation from the other systems. According to Busse (1998) accounting system should fulfill the basic requirements: * cost effective, performant, transparent * up-to-date information * customer configurable * secure To be cost effective, the accounting system should be highly automated, based on standards, and easy to interact with. It should provide a reasonable response time. The whole accounting process should be transparent to the customer. The accounting system should provide up-to-date information, i.e. it has to minimize the time needed to process the usage information form the network elements or other service provides. This is important especially when real-time information should be provided to the customer order status. The accounting system should be configurable according to customer preferences for example with respect to the tariff, the billing cycle, the details of the bill, local currency and taxes, the format in which the bill is expected, and the method of payment. The accounting system should fulfill strong security requirements: identification, authentication, access control, confidentiality, integrity, and auditing. Accounting process The accounting process can be divided to the following steps (Busse, 1998): * Tariff negotiation: The customer and the service provider negotiate the tariff during the subscription and service profile configuration phase. Usually the customer pick one of the standard tariff offered by the service provider. * Usage metering: The service provider meters the usage of the resources during the operational phase. This includes the orders of the customers and the actual usage of the network. Counters are collected from the network resources. * Charging: The tariff and usage information are combined and the charge is computed. This can be done directly after the connection was released, or regularly in order to prepare the bill. * Billing: The customer usually gets regular bills, e.g. once a month. The charging information of the period is collected and combined in a bill. Taxes are added. The customer will then be notified and the invoicing process will be triggered. * Invoicing: Within the invoicing process the system keeps track of the payment status of the bills of each customer. The customer can pay the bill how he/she wants. In figure 2 there is the accounting process step by step. All the steps are listed also above with short description. Figure 2: Accounting Process (Busse, 1998) Payment mechanisms Internet payment mechanisms can be grouped into three classes: electronic currency systems, credit-debit systems and systems based on secure presentation of credit card numbers (Neuman, 1996). Collecting and rating usage, tracking services, managing inventories and reconciling invoices are key features of accounting systems (Lidyard, 1999). The safety issues are under discussion. Some payment mechanisms are totally anonymous and payers can not be tracked (such as E-cash -- electrical purse, where you load money and pay with it). The principal advantage of electronic currency is its potential for anonymity. The disadvantage is the need to maintain a large database of past transactions to prevent double spending. In the credit-debit model (like NetCheque system), customers are registered with accounts on payment servers. Customers authorize charges against those accounts. The credit-debit model is audible. Once a payment instrument has been deposited, the owner of the debited account can determine who authorized the payment, and that the instrument was accepted by the payee and deposited (Neuman,1996). Some payment mechanisms are based on credit cards (such as CyberCash). Information is often shared with owner of the credit card, payment service provider and the credit card company. The owner of the credit card does not need to give his credit card number to the merchant without encrypting it. A customer's credit card number is encrypted using public key cryptography. The merchant has a message that it cannot read completely but which authorizes the purchase. The merchant adds his identification information and sends it to the CyberCash server. The entire message is digitally signed by the merchant to prevent tampering in transit. The CyberCash server unwraps the message and creates a standard credit card authorization request. The CyberCash server then forwards the request to the appropriate bank or processing house for authorization and returns the result to the merchant. The advantage is that the customer does not need to be registered with a network payment service; all that is needed is the credit card number. (Crocker, 1995) Demands of the electronic payment Internet payment system should be secure, reliable, scalable, anonymous, acceptable, flexible, convertible, effective, ease to integrate with applications and ease to use. An anonymity is more important in some communities or for certain kinds of transactions, than they are in other communities (Neuman, 1996). * Security: The infrastructure must be usable and resistant to attack in an environment where modification of messages is easy. * Reliability: The infrastructure must be available and should avoid failures. * Scalability: The payment infrastructure must be able to handle the addition of users without suffering loss of performance. * Anonymity: For some transactions, the identity of the parties to the transaction should be protected. Where anonymity is important, the cost of tracking a transaction should outweigh the value of the information that can be obtained by doing so. * Acceptability: A payment instrument must be accepted widely. * Customer base: The acceptability of the payment mechanism affects the size of the customer base. * Flexibility: Alternative forms of payment are needed. The payment infrastructure should support several payment methods including credit cards, personal checks, cashier's checks and anonymous electronic cash. * Convertibility: There will be several forms of payment, providing different trades. * Efficiency: Royalties for access to information may generate frequent payments for small amounts. Applications must be able to make these "micropayments" without noticeable performance deterioration. * Ease of integration: Applications must be modified to use the payment infrastructure in order to make a payment service available to users. * Ease of use: Users should not be constantly interrupted to provide payment information and most payments should occur automatically. Users should be able to limit their losses and monitor their spending. Threats of misusing electronic currency can lead for example to the dept (unpaid bills), forgeries, not allowed payments on behalf of another person, double purchases (order twice -- pay once), refusal of payments and unsuccessful deliveries. Future billing requirements Some of the requirements of the new billing systems include (SUN,1999): * Real-time react to market activities * Flexible billing formats and media to meet customer demands * Flexible rating engine that allows discounting * Integrated billing, which includes charges from third-party providers * Well-defined interfaces to allow easy integration and data sharing between business systems and the billing system. * Pre-paid services: Customers change to pre-paid service, so customers loyalty to service provider will become more difficult to check. Customers can easily change the service provider, because they know how much they have to pay for services they need. Customers can forget where they have bought services. * Fraud and bad dept: Cheating and lost incomes remain problem. CCB systems can help to get over and to prevent cheating. * New technologies such as certificate based authentication will open more accurate and faster charging for the services. 3.2 Managing new services Managing new services means development of new services and taking care of the economic use of the network. For example implementing a cost-effective service quickly, and guaranteeing the specified service level to all end-users. End-to-end service process automation improves the accuracy and speed of a task while also freeing personnel from routine jobs. The advantages of automating end-to-end service process are in cost reduction and in improved customer service. Today every service providers have to create their own services in the Internet. Same services are created in many different ways, because there is not a method how to create new services in a way, that these services can be reused and modified. 3.3 Problems in Service Management There are unresolved questions in service management: * How can management information be shred across administrative domain boundaries in a secure way? This capability is important when a service is composed of components from several service providers. * How to get measurable aspects from Service Level Agreements (SLAs)? It is unclear how a legal service level agreement document is translated into a measurable specification that can be automatically monitored for compliance. * How to define metrics and their bounds for service compliance? There are no recommendations and policies to define what metrics are and how their values are computed. Above-mentioned questions are handling in the Internet Protocol Performance Metrics (IPPM), the Cross Industry Working Team (XIWT) and ANSI T1A1 committee to identify Internet service related metrics, and measurement methodologies. (Bhoj, 1999) 4 MENETELMÄT ??! 4.1 Quality of Service New demand on the Internet service is to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS). Internet Protocol (IP) based applications have used best-effort method in order to approach QoS. Current Internet architecture does not support QoS guarantees. Multimedia applications such as; internet telephony, Video on Demand, video conferencing, groupware, distance education, and remote health care, are examples of applications which have QoS requirements. QoS requirements of applications and services will lead to policies used to manage IP based networks, and specify Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with Internet Service Providers (ISPs). (Blight, D., 1999, pp 813) The Quality of Services (QoS) is handled in the level of physical network management. However QoS requirements may be specified also for an application or service, not only for the physical network. QoS includes constraints for multiple applications and traffic streams, and may include higher level requirements such as availability and reliability. (Blight, D., 1999, pp 814) There are at least three approaches being taken to meet QoS issues in the IP networks: * Classes of Services (CoS) * Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) * Policies The Integrated Services working group in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has developed an enhanced Internet service model called Integrated Services that includes best-effort service and real-time service. The real-time service will enable IP networks to provide quality of service to multimedia applications. Resource ReServation Protocol (RSVP), together with Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), Real-Time Control Protocol (RTCP), and Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), provide a working foundation for real-time applications. Integrated Services allows applications to configure and manage a single infrastructure for multimedia applications and traditional applications. It is a comprehensive approach to provide applications with the type of service they need and in the quality they choose. RSVP is the network control protocol that allows data receiver to request a special end-to-end quality of service for its data flows. Real-time applications use RSVP to reserve necessary resources at routers along the transmission paths so that the requested bandwidth can be available when the transmission actually takes place. RSVP is a main component of the future Integrated Services Internet which can provide both best-effort and real-time services. (RFC 1633, 1889 and 1890) 4.2 Class of Service - tuleeko ollenkaan tähän ????? 4.3 Policy based service management - jos löytyy ainestoa, niin otettava mukaan myös tähän - agentit 4.4 sensurointi - kirjoitettava ??? vai tuleeko ollenkaan ?? - lisäpalvelu, jolla estetään ei toivottujen sivujen katselu esim. lapsilta - lähde pääasiassa: www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html 5 SERVICE PLATFORMS Competition is increasing in service providing. Customer satisfaction is becoming an important matter to service providers. One of the most critical problems faced by service providers today is managing of changes. The ability to focus deployment of new services and network technologies requires a new level of management flexibility to support a new level of customer care. Competitive advantage for service providers will depend on the ability to rapidly deliver end-to-end service solutions. A key management question is to meet these challenges. Service providers have to optimize their service management to meet business and customer needs. (S. Harris, 1996, p.701) 5.1 WWW service platforms The World Wide Web (WWW) is an architecture for sharing information. The WWW provides a hypertext system linking people, computers, and information around the world. The WWW consists of information servers and client browser programs, linked together by a set of standards and agreements. The user runs the browser to access WWW servers, which deliver information to the requesting browser. (Stallings, 1995, p. 87-88) The key components of the WWW architecture are the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). (Stallings, 1995, p. 88) URLs provide standardized specifications for objects or resources located on a network, detailing both the network address of the object and the protocol to be used to interact with that object. For example, the URL for various types of resources look like this: Service Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Anonymous File Transfer ftp://ftp.frack.com Hypertext Transfer http://www.frack.com Remote Login telnet://frack.com Gopher Retrieval gopher://gopher.frack.com Wide-Area Info Service wais://wais.frack.com Usenet News nntp://news.frack.com The URL is an enhanced Internet address. WWW clients use the URL to find an object on the network and select the proper protocol for interacting with that object. (Stallings, 1995, p. 88-89) The HTTP is a connection-oriented protocol designed for the rapid transport of files consisting of a mixture of text and graphics. HTTP uses a stateless object-oriented protocol consisting of simple commands that support negotiation between the client and the server. This negotiation allows WWW browsers and servers to develop independently of emerging technologies because the negotiation process established a common basis of communication between the client and the server. (Stallings, 1995, p. 89) HTML is a standardized document tagging language, based on the Standardized Generalized Markup Language (SGML). SGML is a means of embedding formatting commands in an ASCII document, allowing documents formatted with headers, boldings, italics, and embedded grahics to be exchanged electronically between a wide variety of computer- and document-processing programs. HTML supports the inclusion of graphical, audio, and video objects into a document, either inside the document or by embedding a URL that points to the location of the object across the network. The WWW client programs (browsers) that run on user´s PC or workstation interpret the HTML commands and display the text indicating formatting and graphics as part of the document. The browser provides links to "player" programs that can playback audio or video clips on properly equipped computers. (Stallings, 1995, p. 89-90) 5.1.1 Problems HTML based pages embedded with images, sounds and video clips are easy to create, but they can be uninteresting and do not allow true interactivity. (C. Smith, 1998, p. 5) Communication between client programs (browsers) and servers is done using non-ideal paradigms (HTML and sockets). Instead it should be done in an object oriented manner, in order to reduce development time and increase ease of maintenance. Internet service developers find it difficult that support systems have to be hand-built for each service and each system must often be managed separately. (C. Smith, 1998, p. 6) The use of services is often based on the registration at the providers site. So a user of several services has a multitude of login names and passwords. Also payment for these services goes directly to each provider, normally via Credit Card. It is risk to send credit card numbers over the web and the user may not have any knowledge of how trustworthy the service provider is. (C. Smith, 1998, p. 6) 5.1.3 Directories Directories are logical data repositories to save and to search for information. Directory services are important in helping users to find information on the network. Directory services must be reliable and secure in performance. Directories are used for example in saving personal data with telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The data is often saved in logical tree form. Special programs on the Internet have basic directory functions (mapping names to addresses and visa versa). The Domain Name System (DNS) provides these directory services on the Internet by mapping domain names to IP addresses and providing e-mail routing information for domain names. Security is another task of the directory. A directory is a logical place for usernames and passwords as well as for public-key data such as certificates and keys. Another use of directories is yellow-pages functions, where searches find all entries in the directory where attributes satisfy some search criteria. Policy-based networks (PBNs) and guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) applications are also driving the demand for directories (LDAP, 1998). There is a need to consolidate directory data. When intranet systems are expanded to extranet-systems, there is a problem combining different types of directories and databases. A standardized model of directories will help this integration. Decreasing number of the directories means cost savings, higher quality data and lower security hazards (LDAP, 1998). The development of an application is also easier if all the information is available in directories using standardized protocols (Mensola, 1998). 5.2 TMN service platforms Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) has an expanding role when telecommunications, computers, and TV are integrating. More services are being added to the traditional telephone services by telephone service providers. This complex and diverse equipment makes controlling networks and resources difficult. ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 4-5) TMN specifies a layered architecture for management of telecommunications networks. TMN is concerned with the monitoring, control, and coordination of resources in telecommunications networks. Resources are components of the system that provides services. These resources can be software, hardware or customers. The telecommunications networks include the advanced intelligent networks (AIN) as well. ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 6) TMN layers are ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 19-20): * Business management layer * Service management layer * Network management layer * Network element management layer * Network element layer The focus of this thesis is on the service management layer. The service management layer provides the customer interface. It performs functions such as service provisioning, opening and closing accounts, resolving customer complaints, including those related to billing, fault reporting, and maintaining data on quality of service (QoS). The service management layer functions do not include the management of physical layer. ( D. Udupa, 1999, p. 20) 5.3 Intelligent Network service platforms Modern switches in the telephone networks are programmable computers, which makes them very flexible. A configuration of the switch can be modified by sending instructions to the switch. In modern switches, the control is separated from the hardware that executes the elementary switching operations. This separation of control and basic operations is also in the other network elements. The separation enables telephone companies to develop their own services and implement them on switches and other network elements. (Walrand J. 1996, pp 181-182) Intelligent Network (IN) is the name given to this network of programmable elements, organised to facilitate introduction of new services. Telephone companies have implemented their own version of IN. Also wireless network operators have implemented IN for mobile subscribers. The capability to implement new services that IN offers to a telephone company can in part be delegated to customers who can use the capability to design their own services. (Walrand J. 1996, pp 181-182) A simple example of service in the IN is the plain old telephone service (POTS). POTS is the basic telephone call service. Another example is the call forwarding service, which allow customer to instruct to mobile phone instead of the dialled phone. This instruction is stored in the database. The database responds to request by providing the instructions that switch must follow to handle the call. The telephone network can implement such services because the controls are separated from the actual operations of the switches. (Walrand J. 1996, pp 181-182) 5.4 Future service platforms Current architectures in service management are based on management protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) or trouble ticketing interface. (Busse, 1998, p 167) 5.4.1 Web-based Architecture In the Web-based architecture the customer downloads an applet that communicates with a proxy server in the service providers domain. The proxy server interacts with the actual inter-domain management system. It is possible to use standard gateways like IBM Webbin or build a service specific solutions in order to simplify the funtionality at the customer site. This makes download time shorter and code is needed less. (Busse, 1998, p 167) The inter-domain management system implements the interactions with cooperating service providers. Requests to the local domain are processed by the intra-domain management system and then forwarded down the hierarchy to the network managers and finally to the network element managers. (Busse, 1998, p 167) Security restrictions in browsers do not allow an applet to interact with local resources, i.e. with the file system or local network nodes. In Netscape Communicator the security restrictions can be configured based on the right to trust relationships with the applet provider. Signed applets can be given the right to access the local network. This provides also a network management solution for customer premises network. (Busse, 1998, p 167) In the figure 2 there is a web-based service management architecture. CPN is Customer Premises Network and PN is Public Network. Figure 2. Web-based service management architecture. ( Busse, 1998, p.167) This prototype has been developed providing a web based interface covering subscription management, configuration management, alarm surveillance, trouble ticketing as well as accounting management. The usage of the web and Java (applets) simplifies the service interaction between the customer and the service provider. It will reduce the cost on both sides. For service provider it is important to automate the customer care process in order to cut the costs to survive in the emerging competitive market. ( Busse, 1998, p.168) 5.4.2 TINA-compliant service management platform Telecommunication companies are coming to new business areas like the Internet and multimedia. New technology is emerging, and this is putting a lot of pressure on service providers to deploy new services quickly and to keep up with customers expectations. Introduction of new services in the existing telecommunication networks can be very difficult. (Rana, 1998) The Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture (TINA) was developed to allow service providers to build, deliver and manage new multimedia services quickly and easily. This architecture includes generic software components, which should allow software reuse, and specified interfaces should enable interoperability across a range of platforms. The reuse of generic software components allows faster service creation in this service management platform. (Rana, 1998) TINA is a software architecture for provision of telecommunication and information services. It has a number of parts, one of which is the definition of a business model. The business model breaks down into roles: consumers, retailers and service providers. A consumer uses PC to contact a retailer for any service which is desired, for example a video-on-demand service, electronic shopping or video conference. The retailer provides the service which may be obtained from a third party service provider. (Rana, 1998) In the TINA architecture business domains interact at standard reference points. These reference points are carefully specified. The reference point between the consumer and the retailer needs to be standardised to enable consumers to select any retailer of their choice, to have the option of using more than one retailer at a time, and to move to another retailer at some future time. The reference point is called Ret. Ret describes interactions which can take place between the consumer and the retailer. See figure 4. (Rana, 1998) Figure 4. Simplified TINA business model. (Rana, 1999) The TINA service architecture defines a set of concepts and principles for the design, implementation, usage and operation of telecommunication services. Services are based on sessions. TINA defines an access session, usage session and other sessions. The reference point Ret is divided into two parts: Ret access and Ret usage. Ret access initiates a dialogue between the consumer and the retailer, establishes a secure association, exchanges domain information to make sure that the appropriate equipment and software are available for using services and allows services to be requested according to a subscription contract. Ret usage allows the end user to use any selected service. (Rana, 1999) corballa toteutetut, java , api yms, katso kokousraporteista ja netti dokuista 6 PROTOTYPE OF SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN MASSIVE IP NETWORKS - tehtävä joko ohjelmaproto tai simulaatio palvelunhallinnan yksityiskohdasta (aihe sovitaan 6.10.1999 johtoryhmän palaverissa kirjallisuusesiselvityksen perusteella) 7 FURTHER DEVELOPMENT - proton/mallin edelleen kehittely ja testaus v 2000 ja sovitus OM:n viitemalliin 8 CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES Blight, David C., Hamada, Takeo, Policy-Based Networking Architecture for QoS Interworking in IP management. 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