challenges in inter-operator network and service...

Challenges in Inter-Operator Network and Service Management

Hiroyuki OkazakiNetwork Laboratories, NEC Europe Ltd.

Heidelberg, [email protected]

© NEC Corporation 2002

Why is Inter-Operator Management a European Problem?

• Pan-European services– The economical and political integration of the

European Union leads to a need for pan-European services

– Is not unique to Telecom, but also banking industry etc. faces this challenge

• Each European Country had one state owned large Telecom Company– Are not used to cooperate– Are not willing to cooperate– Do compete but also need to

collaborate at the same time


European PNO Situation

• Traditionally, single (state-run) PNO per country

• De-regulation leads to a lot of competition within the countries

• However, despite several PNO mergers, take-overs and alliances, most providers and alliances still cover only a small number of countries (exceptions: Vodaphone, Worldcom, ...)


Services

• Potential Pan-European services– International leased lines– international VPNs– support for roaming user

• They can be only realized as

Multi-Provider Services


Technical Challenges for Multi-Provider Services

• Integration of individual business models• Managed network interconnection

– NNI interface– X interface

• OSS interconnection– FCAPS

• Roaming– User (e.g. IP VPN)– Terminal (e.g. GSM)


Problems of Inter-domain Network and Service Management

• Different business models of participating PNOs– different usage charging: per byte, per peak rate, per mean

rate, ...– different tariffs– different tariff changes per hour/day

• Different QoS technologies– DiffServ, MPLS with shaping, …

• Information about each participating network required– performance– resource availability– service tariffs– event notifications– Providers hesitate to provide this

kind of information to competitors


Inter-Domain Interface Design

• Inter-domain interfaces must be designed carefully– Disclosing as little domain-internal information as

possible (but at the same time as much as required) to other domains

– Modeling information rather general:• business model• charging scheme• QoS guarantees• resource availability• fault or other event notifications

– Alignment functions might be required• Consequence: Inter-domain interfaces can hardly

re-use intra-domain interfaces


R&D Institutions in Europe

• ETSI– European standardization body

• Eurescom– Owned by the large Telecom companies– Performs pre-market studies and joint technology

development and evaluation

• EU IST Research Program– European Union funded university and company

research


GSM Standardization at ETSI

• European 2G and 2.5G standardization– Not just technology, also business

models were harmonized– Inter-provider roaming integrated

• at an early stage of technology development

– Inter-provider interfaces for accounting & charging available

– Alliances and mergers between different providers are technically simple


EURESCOM Projects (1)

• P805 / P914: Internet Roaming (1998-2000)

– Goal: Study realization of Internet roaming using local telephone access

– Issues:• PNO characteristics

– terminal characteristic – access network interface– different customer

management

• Accounting

– Result: Framework for several currently available roaming services

• P811 / P908: OSS Interconnection (1998-2000)

– Goal: Reference framework for interconnecting OSS systems of different PNOs

– Issues:• Number portability• Charging & Accounting• Carrier Pre-Selection

• Infrastructure Capacity Ordering

• OSS interconnection gateways

– Participation of gateway manufacturers.


EURESCOM Projects (2)

• P813: ATM Services (1998-99)

– Goal: Enable Pan-European ATM services

– Required: specifications of inter-PNO NNI and X interfaces for

• service provisioning• interoperable management• repair, configuration and

security

– Problem: Modeling of information exchanged between different PNOs:

• providers want to reveal as little internal information as possible

– Result: Interfaces standardized by ETSI,but never realized

• P806 / P1008 / P1103 Inter-Operator IP QoSFramework (1998- )

– Goals:• Common and harmonized QoS

Framework• Inter-operator QoS interfaces• VoIP and UMTS case studies

– Issues• DiffServ QoS• SLA negotiation and

provisioning• Cost models and business

models• Accounting and billing

– Results: Guidelines for UMTS inter-operator VoIP services


EU IST InterMon

• Goal: Designing and implementing a system for monitoring IP-based inter-domain services with QoS requirements.

• 12 partners, including Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Siemens, NEC

• Issues: – modeling & visualization

of inter-domain traffic– modeling of

per-domain QoS• Expected results

– inter-domain trafficmodel and simulator

– traffic monitoring toolkit (led by NEC)

– traffic database andvisualization tools

end user

network provider 1

service provider

Domain 1

Domain 2Service X

owns

uses

provides

network provider 2

owns


Examples of INTERMON inter-domain services/applications

• SLA (Service Level Agreement) validation for traffic crossing different domains (e.g. losses, delay, jitter within agreed limits).

• Traffic engineering: e.g. reconfigure BGP path selection algorithms based on increased knowledge of the AS level inter-domain connectivity and of current status in neighboring domains

• Network planning: dimensioning of inter-domain links and border routers.

• Usage-based accounting/charging


INTERMON main components

Measurements toolkit(traffic volume, end-to-end traffic performance, inter-domain traffic performance, event detection)

Modelling & Simulation toolkit(traffic and topology models)

Visual Data Mining toolkit(GUI for end user, network operator, service provider, data mining functions etc)

INTERMON database


INTERMON architecture (current proposal)

Tools

Adapters

ISP localInterMon DB

MeasurementData

Collection

Tool Configurationand Control

Task processing Access (AAA)

INTERMONDB

Client Client Client ClientClients

Visualization

Simulation Modelling Data mining

AccessRouter

MonitoringProve

AccessServerr

Topology Detector

ProcessingGroup

CoreGroup


Conclusions

• The European telecommunications market shows a large number of locally operating PNOs

• The economical and political integration of Europe requires inter-operator service provisioning more than in many other regions

• The big challenge is Offering Pan-European Multi-Provider Services

• ETSI, Eurescom, and EU-funded research are attacking the problem

• Focus shifted from PSTN and ATM towards IP and UMTS inter-domain services

• First results are available: GSM standard, roaming service, UMTSguidelines, ...

• Still, there is a lot of work ahead: modeling and alignment of – business model, charging schemes,– QoS guarantees, resource availability, – fault or other event notifications,

and standardization of inter-domain interfaces.

challenges in inter-operator network and service...

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