OPTINET-methodology and reusable tool support for network planning

The authors describe how the OPTINET methodology produces object-oriented database models that can be implemented in the OPTINET tool. The well-defined adaptation of the tool and the implementation in the EIFFEL object-oriented environment ensure the reusability of the tool. The authors highlight important tool features such as the dimensioning and cost evaluation and its capacity to assist in estimating the robustness of scenarios with regard to traffic increase and tariffication politics. Practical problems encountered with reusability are outlined. The OPTINET methodology has been applied to very different planning problems such as the design and optimization of the data network of one of the biggest French banks (2000 sites) and the strategic planning of the telephone system of a national administration. In both cases the methodology has helped the designer to perform modeling and to reuse the tool support