The relationship between IOs and COs in VPN charging management

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of modelling telecommunications service management applications in a distributed environment. The modelling approach is based on ODP [1] and TINA-C and is harmonised using the PRISM Service Management Reference Configuration (SMRC) [2] to the TMN approach. ODP structures a specification of a distributed system according to five viewpoints. Each viewpoint represents a different abstraction of the system. As TMN Services are designed using these ODP Viewpoints a dilemma occurs as the development process moves from the Enterprise Viewpoint to develop the models of the Computation and Information Viewpoints. On one hand the Computation Viewpoint looks at the set of activities and their actions which will provide the functionality of the TMN service. The actions derived from this are placed in Computational Objects. On the other hand the Information Viewpoint looks at the relationships, attributes and life cycles of Information Objects. To produce consistent Engineering Objects which fully reflect the designs of both the computation and the information viewpoint some method is needed to map between Information and Computation Objects. This paper explores the solution suggested by the PRISM project and describes how this has been tested out by work in its VPN case study.