Page 567 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

4-98 CRC Handbook of Modern Telecommunications, Second Edition

Peering Point
Provider A Provider B

Data Exchange

Management Management

Station A Station B
FIGu RE 4.5.13 Separated measurements to support SLAs.

• Integration services (events, monitoring and alarm management, reporting, policy determina-
tion, central security for management systems, information management)
• Multifunctional services (trouble ticketing, hotline, support desk)

The management applications are based on the traditional FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting,
performance, and security), extended by SLA management. These applications groups are:
• Fault Management
• Configuration Management
• Accounting Management
• Performance Management
• Security Management
• Management of Service-Level Agreements
It is assumed that general security measures have already been decided by the contracting partners.
Accounting models will be addressed in a separate agreement. In this section, fault, performance, and
configuration management should be addressed in greater detail.
First of all, it is very important that contracting partners agree on these management applications and
use them as a basis for a checklist.
In collaborating with each other, trouble tickets may play a significant role. There are no standards
yet, but the majority of service providers exchange trouble-related data using XML. Otherwise, CLI-
based (Command Line Interface) solutions are still preferred. When XML-based solutions are selected,
trouble tickets may be exchanged and distributed on the Web. Each partner summarizes the required
information, completes the symptoms using entries from the inventory database, and forwards the trou-
ble ticket to the next partner, eventually as part of a joint workflow process.
In the field of measurements, service providers may support SLAs with customers in the following
two ways:

• Separate measurements (Figure 4.5.13) and
• Collaborative measurements (Figure 4.5.14)
In both cases, at the very beginning, a number of questions should be answered by contracting parties:

• Art of information collection
• Time of measurements
• Overhead due to measurements