An experience on implementing TMN interfaces for an OBP satellite network

The management of a satellite network and its components is usually achieved using proprietary access methods between the management application and the managed resources. This fact makes difficult to integrate the satellite network management with the management of other resources, or even to integrate different network management applications of the satellite network. This paper describes an experience on implementing a standardized network management architecture for the management of an on board processing satellite network which will link hundreds of small user ground stations across Europe in an ISDN environment. The architecture is based on the telecommunication management network (TMN) architecture, defined by ITU-T. The main characteristics of TMN are the definition of a standardized interface (Q3) for the operation systems, and several entities (mediation devices and Q-adapters) to reach heterogeneous network resources from these operation systems. This experience is based on the definition, design and a prototype implementation of a mediation device, to allow the standardized management of an on board processing network. This entity, defined in the TMN architecture, acts as a management gateway (proxy) between the proprietary access method of the satellite network and a standardized network management protocol. The paper concludes with some lessons learned in this experience about the adequacy of the current architectures and technology of network management for its application to the satellite networks