6 Basic objectives for PLMN Management Physical Architecture

32.1023GPPArchitectureRelease 17Telecommunication managementTS

The management of a 3GPP system will put a lot of new requirements to the management systems compared to the second generation of Mobile telephony. Some of the challenging requirements affecting the physical architecture are:

– To be capable of managing equipment supplied by different vendors.

– To enable TM automation in a more cost efficient way – TM optimised for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

– To provide PLMN configuration capabilities that are flexible enough to allow rapid deployment of services.

– To report events and reactions in a common way in order to allow remote control.

– To allow interoperability between Network Operators/Service Providers for the exchange of management/charging information.

– To be scaleable and applicable to both larger and small deployments.

– Accessibility to information.

– To profit from advances and standards in IT and datacom industry.

The second generation of mobile networks can – from a management point of view – be characterised as the era of vendor-dependent NE managers. The different OSs had very low interoperability with other systems and functional blocks could rarely be re-used. The Mobile Telecom Management Networks were far away from the TMN vision where one vendor’s OS should be able to manage other vendors’ network elements.

PLMN Organisations need cost-effective management solutions and better time to market focus. Interoperability, scalability and re-use are keywords for the new generation of management systems.

Many of the new requirements on the management of PLMNs can only be solved by defining and establishing a suitable physical architecture. Though it is not possible to standardise on one single TM physical architecture, it is evidently so that the success of a Telecom Management Network of a PLMN Organisation will heavily depend on critical physical architectural issues. The present document will identify those architectural critical issues.