by Sara Bogdanove

This describes how CORBA is being introduced into Telecommunications network management and how it relates to other standards in use in the telecommunications industry.

The current standard for network management is TMN which stands for Telecommunications Management Network.

TMN defines a hierarchy of management layers. Each layer provides an agent to handle requests from higher management layers. TMN is based on the OSI stack, and uses CMIP at the application layer. This is known as a Q3 interface.

The CMIP protocol is based on CMISE services which perform management requests based on managed objects defined using the GDMO object modeling language.

TMN is hierarchical by nature, and operates within a single management domain. It does not support peer-to-peer communication with other domains. There is a need for peer-to-peer communication with other TMN domains as well as with networks based on SNMP and other protocols. Groups such as the Nework Management Forum (NMF) and the TINAC consortium have studied this problem, and are converging on CORBA as the standard for peer-to-peer communication. 

Gateway products are emerging which provide GDMO to IDL conversion and use the CORBA naming and event services for peer-to-per communication between management domains.

Recently a consortium of telecommunications vendors known as TeleManagement Forum announced a global solution for enabling management of multi-vendor SONET and SDH networks. This solution includes the use of CORBA between the network management and network element layers.

Links:

Organizations:

The Open Group

TINA-C

Network Management Forum

TMN Standardization Bodies

Papers:

ASN.1 Type to Corba-IDL Translation

GDMO to CORBA-IDL Translation

GDMO White Paper - DSET

Submission to OMG - Interworking Between CORBA and TMN Systems

Recent work by Subrata Mazundar on CORBA/TMN/SNMP Internetworking.

Products:

DSET's CORBA to GDMO Gateway (product info will be available at this site shortly.

ODLGO: A CORBA-IDL to GDMO Translator

ORBYCOM - CORBA-IDL, GDMO/ASN.1 and SNMP MIBs inter-working tools.

UHC - Q3ADE

Netmansys Fastbench TurnKey SNMP -Q3 Mediator

Tutorial:

Intro to TMN