Application of object-oriented techniques to the OAM&P of telecommunications networks

The author examines the recent efforts of the ANSI T1M1.5 working group and T1M1 committee to apply object-oriented (O-O) data modeling techniques to the development of standards for the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) of telecommunications networks (TNs). The use of these state-of-the-art data modeling techniques is launching the North American telecommunications network into an open, standard, multi-vendor communications environment. The author presents a description of the organization of the T1M1 standards body, a brief overview of the Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) model, the basic principles of O-O data modeling, a description of recent network management standardization efforts in T1M1 that use these techniques, and a brief description of current T1M1 work