Data communication platform in distributed operations system based on TMN

Describes the data communication platform (DC platform) in a distributed operations system based on TMN (telecommunications management network). Our operations system has a load-share/function-share structure, and is composed of a large number of application servers and communication servers using commercially available workstations interconnected through a duplicated high-speed LAN for high reliability, availability, serviceability, and expandable. Because of the large scale of the supervised networks, one feature of our operations system (OpS) is the use of a discriminator managed object (MO) for each association implemented in the network element (NE) so as to reduce the number of less important event-reports from one NE. However, the OpS has several manager applications (AP), and if they establish associations to the same NE one by one, it overloads the discriminating process. Thus, we devised a scheme for the sharing of an association by several manager APs. This scheme raises three issues: assigning invoke IDs, delivering notifications, and managing associations. The first issue is the system for composing invoke IDs that makes it possible to assign IDs that are unique system-wide. The second issue is a filtering system that can deliver an event-report from an NE to correct manager AP. The third issue is the management of associations; we propose that the state of association to be expressed by standard state attributes. Moreover, to unify the interface with the NE, we propose that the association interface be an MO