A management concept for automatic switched transport networks (ASTNs)

Automatic switched transport networks provide innovative functionality such as configuration of connections via signaling and routing functionality implemented in a control plane. This paper describes a management concept that has been tailored to the specific needs of this novel network technology which brings together transport network and IP-based paradigms. The concept proposed comprises a network and a network element level information model where the latter is subdivided into two representations of this model. The first representation communicates with the agent implementation and uses the concepts and terminology derived from IP/MPLS. The second representation communicates with the network level management system and talks the language of M.3100 that is the guiding principle for transport networks. This approach allows to combine the best of both paradigms and reuse existing specifications thus fostering the interoperability of future management systems for ASTN.