Functional descriptions of network management

The author gives an insight into the work of the European community collaborative program, RACE. The focus is on the problems of developing network management solutions for the future Pan-European broadband network. This is explored by presenting the results of the RACE NETMAN project in conjunction with the work of associated telecommunications management networks (TMN) technology projects. As no such network exists, it is clear that a top-down approach to the perceived problems had to be adopted. The requirements capture and analysis, conceptual modeling and object oriented approach taken by the project are described. The application of a life-cycle model to the requirements and a description of the resultant network management functionality is given. The alignment with, and contribution to major standards initiatives are also described. The multi-media facets of the proposed network were also taken into account when producing the specifications and particular attention was paid to asynchronous transfer mode