Managing QoS in a NGN using a PBM approach

Next Generation Network (NGN) management represents an enormous challenge due to the large number of managed elements, the variety of roles the managed entities play in the network and the difficulty of orchestrating management actions. Several NGN standardization bodies point toward Policy Based Management as the best approach for NGN network management. This paper describes a management solution for a NGN IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) QoS management scenario based on WBEM technology. The proposal is for a WBEM-based policy server, a graphical policy editor application and instrumentation logic for the NGN QoS Management. The graphical policy editor reduces the learning curve imposed by the policy specification language, allowing the specification of policies through a rich and user-friendly visual interface, hiding the CIM syntax complexity but keeping CIM’s potential

Monitoring Scheduling for Home Gateways

International audienceIn simple and monolithic systems such as our current home gateways, monitoring is often overlooked: the home user can only reboot the gateway when there is a problem. In next-generation home gateways, more services will be available (pay-per-view TV, games. . . ) and different actors will provide them. When one service fails, it will be impossible to reboot the gateway without disturbing the other services. We propose a management framework that monitors remote gateways. The framework tests response times for various management activities on the gateway, and provides reference time/performance ratios. The values can be used to establish a management schedule that balances the rate at which queries can be performed with the resulting load that the query will induce locally on the gateway. This allows the manager to tune the ratio between the reactivity of monitoring and its intrusiveness on performance

Context-Aware Self-Healing for Small Cell Networks

These can be an invaluable source of information for the management of the network, in a way that we have denominated as context-aware SON, which is the approach proposed in this thesis. To develop this concept, the thesis follows a top-down approach. Firstly, the characteristics of the cellular deployments are assessed, especially for indoor small cell networks. In those scenarios, the need for context-aware SON is evaluated and considered indispensable. Secondly, a new cellular architecture is defined to integrate both context information and SON mechanisms in the management plane of the mobile network. Thus, the specifics of making context an integral part of cellular OAM/SON are defined. Also, the real-world implementation of the architecture is proposed. Thirdly, from the established general SON architecture, a logical self-healing framework is defined to support the context-aware healing mechanisms to be developed. Fourthly, different self-healing algorithms are defined depending on the failures to be managed and the conditions of the considered scenario. The mechanisms are based on probabilistic analysis, making use of both context and network data for detection and diagnosis of cellular issues. The conditions for the implementation of these methods are assessed. Their applicability is evaluated by means of simulators and testbed trials. The results show important improvements in performance and capabilities in comparison to previous methods, demonstrating the relevance of the proposed approach.The last years have seen a continuous increase in the use of mobile communications. To cope with the growing traffic, recently deployed technologies have deepened the adoption of small cells (low powered base stations) to serve areas with high demand or coverage issues, where macrocells can be both unsuccessful or inefficient. Also, new cellular and non-cellular technologies (e.g. WiFi) coexist with legacy ones, including also multiple deployment schemes (macrocell, small cells), in what is known as heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Due to the huge complexity of HetNets, their operation, administration and management (OAM) became increasingly difficult. To overcome this, the NGMN Alliance and the 3GPP defined the Self-Organizing Network (SON) paradigm, aiming to automate the OAM procedures to reduce their costs and increase the resulting performance. One key focus of SON is the self-healing of the network, covering the automatic detection of problems, the diagnosis of their causes, their compensation and their recovery. Until recently, SON mechanisms have been solely based on the analysis of alarms and performance indicators. However, on the one hand, this approach has become very limited given the complexity of the scenarios, and particularly in indoor cellular environments. Here, the deployment of small cells, their coexistence with multiple telecommunications systems and the nature of those environments (in terms of propagation, coverage overlapping, fast demand changes and users' mobility) introduce many challenges for classic SON. On the other hand, modern user equipment (e.g. smartphones), equipped with powerful processors, sensors and applications, generate a huge amount of context information. Context refers to those variables not directly associated with the telecommunication service, but with the terminals and their environment. This includes the user's position, applications, social data, etc

Konzeption einer Service-MIB

In den letzten Jahren ließ sich ein starker Trend hin zum dienstorientierten Management verzeichnen. Betreiber von IT-Diensten gehen verstärkt dazu über, den Betrieb ihrer Infrastrukturen an technischen und organisatorischen Dienstmanagementkonzepten auszurichten und versuchen dadurch, den durch gesteigerte Kundenbedürfnisse und komplexere Diensterbringungsszenarien induzierten Rahmenbedingen zu begegnen. Mit der Einführung neuer Dienstmanagementsysteme wächst allerdings gleichzeitig der Bedarf nach Interoperabilität: Hierbei stellt insbesondere das Vorhandensein einer standardisierten Managementinformationsbasis (MIB) die entscheidende Prämisse für einen anwendungsübergreifenden Austausch bzw. eine Wiederbenutzung von Managementinformationen dar. Um eine Integration des Dienstmanagements zu unterstützen, wird deshalb in dieser Arbeit eine dienstorientierte Informationsbasis (Service-MIB) konzipiert. Die Grundlage dafür bildet eine vierstufige Methodik: Zunächst wird innerhalb der Analysephase der Bedarf an dienstorientierter Managementinformation anhand mehrerer Gesichtspunkte ermittelt und somit der Frage nachgegangen, welche Informationen zur Erfüllung von Dienstmanagementaufgaben effektiv benötigt werden. Daran anschließend widmet sich die Spezifikationsphase der Modellierung und adäquaten Beschreibung von Dienstmanagementinformationen. Hierbei werden die vorab ermittelten Entitäten, Attribute und Beziehungen in objektorientierte Modelle überführt und mit Hilfe einer, in dieser Phase entwickelten, deklarativen Spezifikationssprache \emph{(SISL)} formalisiert. Ein entscheidendes Kriterium für eine Service-MIB stellt ferner ihre Aktualität dar, d.h. in ihr enthaltene Informationen müssen den aktuellen Zustand des Dienstes reflektieren. Dies wird innerhalb der Überwachungsphase durch Einführung einer geeigneten Dienstüberwachung adressiert: Basierend auf SISL-Spezifikationen werden komponentenorientierte Managementinformation mit Hilfe eines Überwachungswerkzeugs (SMONA) aggregiert und zu Dienstmanagementinformationen verdichtet. Abschließend beschäftigt sich die Nutzungsphase mit Möglichkeiten zur Einbettung in bestehende Managementarchitekturen

Konzeption einer Service-MIB

In den letzten Jahren ließ sich ein starker Trend hin zum dienstorientierten Management verzeichnen. Betreiber von IT-Diensten gehen verstärkt dazu über, den Betrieb ihrer Infrastrukturen an technischen und organisatorischen Dienstmanagementkonzepten auszurichten und versuchen dadurch, den durch gesteigerte Kundenbedürfnisse und komplexere Diensterbringungsszenarien induzierten Rahmenbedingen zu begegnen. Mit der Einführung neuer Dienstmanagementsysteme wächst allerdings gleichzeitig der Bedarf nach Interoperabilität: Hierbei stellt insbesondere das Vorhandensein einer standardisierten Managementinformationsbasis (MIB) die entscheidende Prämisse für einen anwendungsübergreifenden Austausch bzw. eine Wiederbenutzung von Managementinformationen dar. Um eine Integration des Dienstmanagements zu unterstützen, wird deshalb in dieser Arbeit eine dienstorientierte Informationsbasis (Service-MIB) konzipiert. Die Grundlage dafür bildet eine vierstufige Methodik: Zunächst wird innerhalb der Analysephase der Bedarf an dienstorientierter Managementinformation anhand mehrerer Gesichtspunkte ermittelt und somit der Frage nachgegangen, welche Informationen zur Erfüllung von Dienstmanagementaufgaben effektiv benötigt werden. Daran anschließend widmet sich die Spezifikationsphase der Modellierung und adäquaten Beschreibung von Dienstmanagementinformationen. Hierbei werden die vorab ermittelten Entitäten, Attribute und Beziehungen in objektorientierte Modelle überführt und mit Hilfe einer, in dieser Phase entwickelten, deklarativen Spezifikationssprache \emph{(SISL)} formalisiert. Ein entscheidendes Kriterium für eine Service-MIB stellt ferner ihre Aktualität dar, d.h. in ihr enthaltene Informationen müssen den aktuellen Zustand des Dienstes reflektieren. Dies wird innerhalb der Überwachungsphase durch Einführung einer geeigneten Dienstüberwachung adressiert: Basierend auf SISL-Spezifikationen werden komponentenorientierte Managementinformation mit Hilfe eines Überwachungswerkzeugs (SMONA) aggregiert und zu Dienstmanagementinformationen verdichtet. Abschließend beschäftigt sich die Nutzungsphase mit Möglichkeiten zur Einbettung in bestehende Managementarchitekturen

Distribuição de políticas de gerenciamento de redes com ênfase em qualidade de serviço

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação.O gerenciamento redes tem com finalidade conservar o funcionamento da rede como um todo, desde os serviços apresentados aos usuários à transmissão dos dados. Conforme a evolução das redes, o gerenciamento assumiu papel cada vez mais destacado, onde os administradores de rede aprendem que adicionar largura de banda não é capaz de resolver problemas relacionados ao tráfego. Logo, reservar ou diferenciar recursos não é garantir qualidade de serviços. Neste contexto desenvolver novas formas de gerenciamento de rede é fundamentalmente importante

A Generic Network and System Management Framework

Networks and distributed systems have formed the basis of an ongoing communications revolution that has led to the genesis of a wide variety of services. The constantly increasing size and complexity of these systems does not come without problems. In some organisations, the deployment of Information Technology has reached a state where the benefits from downsizing and rightsizing by adding new services are undermined by the effort required to keep the system running. Management of networks and distributed systems in general has a straightforward goal: to provide a productive environment in which work can be performed effectively. The work required for management should be a small fraction of the total effort. Most IT systems are still managed in an ad hoc style without any carefully elaborated plan. In such an environment the success of management decisions depends totally on the qualification and knowledge of the administrator. The thesis provides an analysis of the state of the art in the area of Network and System Management and identifies the key requirements that must be addressed for the provisioning of Integrated Management Services. These include the integration of the different management related aspects (i.e. integration of heterogeneous Network, System and Service Management). The thesis then proposes a new framework, INSMware, for the provision of Management Services. It provides a fundamental basis for the realisation of a new approach to Network and System Management. It is argued that Management Systems can be derived from a set of pre-fabricated and reusable Building Blocks that break up the required functionality into a number of separate entities rather than being developed from scratch. It proposes a high-level logical model in order to accommodate the range of requirements and environments applicable to Integrated Network and System Management that can be used as a reference model. A development methodology is introduced that reflects principles of the proposed approach, and provides guidelines to structure the analysis, design and implementation phases of a management system. The INSMware approach can further be combined with the componentware paradigm for the implementation of the management system. Based on these principles, a prototype for the management of SNMP systems has been implemented using industry standard middleware technologies. It is argued that development of a management system based on Componentware principles can offer a number of benefits. INSMware Components may be re-used and system solutions will become more modular and thereby easier to construct and maintain