Web Services-Based Dynamical Coordination Model Of Network Management Services

The efficient fulfillment and assurance of communication services is one of the main objectives of network management. To provide and assure communication services from the overall network needs dynamical coordination between network management systems, which are significant parts of operation support systems. The individual network management system cannot accomplish nowadays operation requirements. However, the existing network management systems are mostly heterogeneous and tight-coupled. How to achieve dynamical coordination between those heterogeneous systems is becoming a focus in network management area. To apply Web Services technologies, whose attractive characteristics are louse-coupling and platform independence, into the dynamical coordination between network management systems can effectively resolve the problems due to heterogeneousness and tight-coupling.Based on analyzing existing Web Services-based network management methods, with the requirements of network management for dynamical coordination considered, this dissertation focused on the Web Services-based dynamical coordination model of network management services and related key issues. A prototype was designed and implemented to validate the proposed viewpoints. The main contribution of this dissertation can be summarized as follows:1) A Web Services-based dynamical coordination model of network management services.In order to take advantages of service-oriented Web Services technologies, network management functions provided by network management systems are encapsulated in network management services. The dynamical coordination between network management systems is consequently converted to that between network management services. According to the requirements of network management for dynamical coordination, a Web Services-based dynamical coordination model of network management services is proposed and the architecture of the key element of this model is described in detail. Making use of the louse-coupling and extendability of Web Services, this model can resolve the coordination problems encountered by network management systems in traditional layered network management architecture.2) Telecommunication operation business process oriented network management service construction methods.According to the issues that have not been settled by existing management service description methods, the construction principles of management functions provided by management services are given. By analyzing the telecommunication operation business processes and management functions sets defined by eTOM and ITU-T M.3400 separately, the characteristics of management functions are identified and the construction methods of management functions are proposed. Then several common management services that may be used by Web Services-based dynamical coordination model of network management services are defined. With the construction methods of management functions and the common management services, management services providing different management functions can be easily constructed and described in a standardized way.3) Process distribution mechanism for network management distributed coordination.The requirements for distributed coordination of network management services are analyzed. According to the requirements and scenarios of process distribution in distributed coordination, a process distribution service is defined to accomplish process distribution between coordinators. The process distribution service, which is easily implemented and independent of process description languages, can deliver process definitions between coordinators effectively and improve the efficiency of distributed coordination.4) Web Services-based interoperation interfaces between network management business process management systems. Based on analyzing the defects of interoperation mechanism between workflow management systems, those aspects need to be improved are identified. According to the functional requirements, the interoperation interfaces between network management business process management systems are defined based on the proposed management services construction methods. And the application scenarios of the interoperation interfaces are given.