Experiences with the integration of a legacy management system into a TMN environment

In this presentation, the issues involved in integrating an existing non-TMN management system into a TMN environment are investigated. We draw on practical experiences gained in a project to integrate iRIDES, a system for the management of optical access networks, with a TMN service manager. Challenges encountered in the realization are exposed as well as proposals for solutions discussed. Major issues included the replication of inventory, the integration of GUIs, but most importantly the way in which management is being modeled: TMN´s ambition is generally to provide generic models that will be applicable to any management application. As is the case with access networks, this can lead to models that are overly complex and therefore impractical for most applications. We argue therefore to follow a “TMN lite” approach which avoids many of these problems and, in our opinion, achieves a reasonable balance between TMN compliance and practicality. The proposal presents accordingly the attempt to preserve and indeed bring out TMN´s true value while avoiding the unnecessary overhead and cost associated with it