Network management is critical in today's business to ensure high network availability, secure communication, easy-to-use of the network and related technologies, effectively manage network devices and support users. There are many network management architectures and models proposed by various standard organizations and vendors. Some of them are widely implemented in the real world while others maybe only concepts for considerations. The key concept of these models is to partition the task of managing network into smaller functions, which makes the entire network management job much easier.
In the following table, we listed the major network management models and architectures, plus some key technologies.
| NM Model Name | Sponsor Organization |
Target networks |
Main functions |
Status |
| FCAPS: Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security | ISO | All | Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security | Popular conceptual framework for network management |
| TMN: Telecommunications Management Network | ITU-T | Telecom network | Business Management, Service management, network management and element management | Conceptual framework for many Service Provider's network management systems. |
| OAM&P: Operation, Administration, maintenance and Provisioning | Service Providers |
Telecommu -nication network |
Operation, Administration, maintenance and Provisioning | Widely adopted by large Service Providers in their network management systems |
| TOM: Telecoms Operations Map or eTOM: enhanced Telecom Operations Map | TeleManagement Forum | Service Provider's network | Network and systems management, service development and operations, customer care | Still in concept stage; Will replace the OAM P. |
| CMIP/CMIS: Common Management Information Protocol and Common Management Information Services | ISO | OSI based data network | Monitoring, Performance, Fault and Configuration. | Limited deployment in the OSI based network |
| SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol | IETF | Data network | Monitoring, Performance, Fault | Widely deployed in data network, especially the TCP/IP based network |
It is very confusing to have so many different models, however, the functions of the various network management models are somehow comparable. The following table provides a rough sketch of how the models map to each other.
| FCAPS | Fault | Configuration | Accounting | Performance | Security |
| TMN | |||||
|
Business Management |
No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
|
Service Management |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
|
Network Management |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
|
Element Management |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| OAM&P | |||||
|
Operation |
Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
|
Administration |
No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
|
Maintenance |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
|
Provisioning |
No | Yes | No | No | No |
| TOM / eTOM | |||||
|
Fulfillment |
No | Yes | No | No | No |
|
Assurance |
Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
|
Billing |
No | No | Yes | No | no |
|
Operation Support |
No | No | No | No | No |
| IETF SNMP (TCP/IP) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| ISO CMIP/CMIS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Comparison between the FCAPS and TMN model
Comparison between the FCAPS and TMN model
Related Terms: SNMP,CMIP,CMIS,FCAPS,TMN,OAM&P,eTOM
Reference Links:
http://www.javvin.com/protocolSNMP.html : Overview of SNMP
http://www.javvin.com/protocolCMIP.html : Overview of CMIP
http://www.itu.int : Specification documents for TMN and FCAPS (M.3000, M.3100, M.3200, M.3400)
http://www.tmforum.org : Specification documents for TOM and eTOM