Open EMS Suite
Product Description
Version 2.1 - 002
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Contents
1 Introduction ...5
1.1 Open EMS Suite overview ...5
1.1.1 Instant adaptation...6
1.1.2 Out-of-the-box functionality ...7
1.1.3 Complete O&M interface solution...8
1.1.4 Developer tools ...9
1.1.5 Open interfaces ...9
2 Functionality of Open EMS Suite...13
2.1 Application Platform ...14
2.2 Fault Management Platform ...19
2.3 Performance Management Platform ...20
2.4 Interfaces ...22
2.4.1 Mediations Framework ...22
2.4.2 Off-the-shelf mediations ...23
2.4.3 O&M Agent mediation ...24
2.4.4 Customer mediations ...24
2.4.5 Northbound interface solution ...24
2.5 Open EMS Suite software development kits ...26
1
Introduction
Open EMS Suite is a next generation element management system (EMS) platform product combining over 15 years of experience and best practices in OSS. The deep domain knowledge has now been turned into a software product for the benefit of the whole telecom industry. Open EMS Suite provides out-of-the-box element management system functionality and an operation and maintenance (O&M) interface
solution. Open EMS Suite supports the capability to easily adapt and integrate into multi-vendor and multi-technology networks. The concept of instant adaptation in Open EMS Suite is implemented to reduce the time spent on integrating new network elements.
The next generation OSS platform can help you save in OPEX. You can convert the savings into investments in new revenue-generating
projects. The flexible architecture of Open EMS Suite allows, for
example, the development of new business specific services instead of re-implementing management systems.
1.1
Open EMS Suite overview
Open EMS Suite can be used to create different types of element management products and solutions. It increases your efficiency in solution development. It provides:
instant adaptation architecture,
complete out-of-the-box functionality for management systems,
complete O&M interface solution,
developer tools, and
Figure 1. Main components of Open EMS Suite
1.1.1
Instant adaptation
Adaptations in OES are definitions of network elements or services and their behaviours and capabilities, for example, the topology of an element and its sub-elements, or the type of alarms that can be sent by a service.
Open EMS Suite is configured to handle adaptations by the simple modification of adaptation metadata, which is information in the form of XML files. This feature enables adaptations with minimum effort and minimum interruption in the run-time system. It makes it possible to achieve better release synchronization and quick integration of new network elements. In practice, you can import existing metadata into Adaptation SDK (see 2.5) or develop adaptations with the Adaptation SDK wizard functionality.
Another benefit is that also the database schema can be automatically generated for the changed network model, so that adaptations do not require knowledge of the internal structure of the system.
A typical adaptation use case with Open EMS Suite could be as follows:
Use case:
New adaptation driven by changes in a network element (NE)
1. The Existing NE interface changes.
2. The CM adaptation is changed based on the NE interface specification.
3. The PM adaptation is changed based on the NE interface specification.
4. The tested adaptation is deployed to the Open EMS Suite server.
5. The configuration and performance management tools are used to access the new data from the NE.
Figure 2. Instant adaptation by metadata
1.1.2
Out-of-the-box functionality
Open EMS Suite offers software components with management system functionality for efficient solution development out of the box. All of the
Open EMS Suite SW components and O&M Agent allow adding support for new service types or any type of network element for a management system with minimum interruption in the run-time system.
Application Platform consists of Managed Object Framework
(MOF), a graphical user interface (GUI) framework and several other basic services. MOF provides metadata driven topology and modelling services, the basis of the Open EMS Suite capability to easily adapt to various networks. The GUI framework is designed to support web and rich Java client development for management applications. In addition Application Platform provides common services such as security management and support for licensing.
Fault Management Platform is a complete fault management
solution with a server side fault management engine for event collection, filtering, and correlation, and Monitoring Desktop as a set of GUI tools.
Performance Management Platform provides out-of-the-box PM
functionality, which can be adapted to manage any performance data coming from the managed network elements. It is an end-to-end solution for performance data extraction, loading, and
reporting.
1.1.3
Complete O&M interface solution
In addition to management system functionality Open EMS Suite provides complete O&M interface solution in order to maximise savings and efficiency in network element integration.
You can choose from the following, depending on your needs:
1. Off-the-shelf mediations – Open EMS Suite provides a set of
southbound interfaces for integrating the Open EMS Suite based product with network elements.
2. Agent mediation –Agent mediation provides ‘telecom grade’ O&M
connectivity between network elements and Open EMS Suite out of the box. By deploying O&M Agent notable cost efficiency can be achieved, because you can, instead of investing heavily in O&M interface implementation, invest in core or value-adding
functionality.
3. Customer mediations – Open EMS Suite provides flexible XML
based interfaces for extending the out-of-the box functionality with new network element interfaces.
Figure 3. O&M interface solution
1.1.4
Developer tools
Open EMS Suite provides tools for customizing and enhancing Open EMS Suite into your own management system. The developer tools are optimized to perform management system development tasks on Open EMS Suite, such as FM, PM, and CM adaptations and application development. Software development kits (SDKs) provide flexible and powerful tools for common application development.
Also, with Open EMS Suite you can create new applications which seamlessly interoperate with the off-the-shelf applications that come with the Open EMS Suite, such as the tools in MOF or Monitoring Desktop.
1.1.5
Open interfaces
Open EMS Suite provides open interfaces for system developers and software designers. The open interfaces are divided into the following categories according to the services they provide and their intended use.
Access interfaces
Use access application programming interfaces (APIs) for reading and, in some cases, writing to the Open EMS Suite database. They are
intended to be used by Java applications. The interfaces are Java APIs, or alternatively, they describe database (DB) schema elements.
Client interfaces
Use client interfaces for building user interface (UI) clients. Desktop Farmework APIs support Rich Java clients and Web Scripting APIs support web clients.
Meta access interfaces
Use meta access interfaces for reading and, in some cases, writing metadata in the database. The interfaces can be used by Java
applications and mediation components. The interfaces are Java APIs, or alternatively, they describe the database schema.
Northbound interfaces (NBI)
Use northbound interfaces for integrating to a higher-level OSS system, or to other systems, such as the trouble ticketing system.
North mediation interfaces
If the NBIs supported by Open EMS Suite are not sufficient, you can build custom mediation components implementing additional NBIs and use the north mediation interfaces for getting or setting data in the Open EMS Suite database. North mediation interfaces are based on XML files. They usually implement XML data export.
O&M file formats
Use the XML-based file formats for exchanging CM, FM, or PM data between different systems of the telecommunication network.
O2ML interfaces
O2ML (O&M modeling language) consists of different metamodels that provide a uniform way to define, and introduce new, adaptation
metadata.
Self-management interfaces
Use self-management interfaces for implementing self-management, such as user management, high availability, or self-monitoring for a
system based on Open EMS Suite. The interfaces consist of configuration files and command line interfaces (CLIs).
Southbound interfaces (SBI)
Use southbound interfaces for connecting to network elements or lower-level NMS, EMS, or mediator systems. Standard SNMP-based fault management interface is generally available.
South mediation interfaces
If the SBIs supported by Open EMS Suite are not sufficient, you can build custom mediation components implementing additional SBIs and use the south mediation interfaces for getting or setting data in the Open EMS Suite database. South mediation interfaces are based on XML files. They usually implement XML data import.
2
Functionality of Open EMS Suite
Open EMS Suite employs a distributed multi-tier application model for implementing different types of management systems. Management system specific application logic is divided into appropriate components according to their function. The product design is based on mainstream technologies, such as Java/J2EE and IT middleware components like J2EE application servers and relational databases. The following chapters introduce the main functionality of Open EMS Suite.
2.1
Application Platform
Figure 4. Application Platform
Application Platform forms the basis of Open EMS Suite. The main components of Application Platform are Managed Object Framework and a GUI framework for web and Java client development. In addition, there is common functionality like Permission Management and Self-monitoring Framework. These features are described in more detail in the following sections.
Managed Object Framework (MOF) – An easily expandable and
modifiable database solution for managed network data. MOF provides interfaces, such as Java Inventory and SQL, for accessing, importing, and exporting the managed object instance and metadata. MOF can contain network and service topology information, configuration data, and network technology specific components such as network element
MOF is the framework that enables instant adaptation. It offers the ability to adapt to changes in the network structure as well as to new network element types and versions quickly and easily without the need to develop or change existing software. Instead, metadata is used to adapt the network model to new types or versions of network elements. This enables you to do basic configuration management, network topology, and resource management in a way that is in line with the quickly changing structure and contents of today’s networks.
MOF has advanced modeling power
MOF supports all the basic object-oriented modelling techniques to represent manageable objects and their associations. MOF supports the creation of new object classes with new attributes as well as
relationships between objects.
MOF supports more advanced modelling constructs like constraints and relationships that are calculated at runtime. This and the above
mentioned features enable you to properly represent your network resources in the MOF database without missing important information. Application Platform contains the following off-the-shelf tools for visualising and managing objects:
Object Explorer for browsing objects in the MOF database
Object Editor for creating, editing, and deleting objects
Network View Tool for placing objects into graphical view and displaying status information
Managed Object Search and Working set for creating advanced object grouping and search definitions
Notes Tool for managing user comments related to objects MOF also provides an optional functionality to record creation,
modification and deletion of managed objects. A query mechanism for historic data is available through open interfaces.
Desktop Framework – A software platform for integrated user
interfaces, it forms an integration platform for modular applications providing graphical user interfaces (GUI). The framework supplies basic components and services common to Java desktop applications.
Figure 6. Desktop Framework
Desktop Framework provides support for typical operator workflows out of the box. You can concentrate on the value add and content instead of spending time on building a framework for tool interoperation. A typical operator use case could be as follows:
Navigating from FM to PM to CM
Radio network controller (RNC) shows an alarm open a KPI report the report indicates traffic problems in a base station open related element manager to check the CM value create a trouble ticket for the RNC alarm
By utilizing Desktop Framework and the Open EMS Suite Monitoring and Reporting Desktop tools you can efficiently create highly
interoperable and user-friendly element management systems.
Web Scripting – A platform for creating web applications. The range of
applications is not limited to the OSS domain but is open for generic web development. Web Scripting is based on Java Server Page (JSP) technology and can be easily enhanced. It comes with ready-made tag
libraries, and it also provides an interface for developing your own tag library with the SDK.
Figure 7. Web Scripting Platform
Some of the capabilities of Web Scripting are:
easy and secure access to Open EMS Suite functionality
possibility to combine performance, configuration, and fault information
enables building your own reporting suites and has simple interactive web forms for selecting the data to be visualized
data post processing (rearranging data in tables beyond plain SQL capabilities) and export functionality
web site providing centralized access to the Open EMS Suite database (or any other database)
possibility to build extranet reporting with SLA web reporting service
possibility to combine data from different sources (like separate databases or a multivendor element manager) in one report
Permission Management – Permission Management provides
centralized functionality for controlling whether a certain user is
authorized to perform a given operation (for example, cancel alarms) on a given target object. As part of the permission management
functionality there are also interfaces for querying and managing authorization information.
Self-monitoring Framework – An out-of-the-box self-monitoring
solution for Open EMS Suite based systems. Self-monitoring
Framework offers flexibility in managing alarms, for example with the possibility of forwarding alarms to third party monitoring solutions. It is also extensible with Open EMS Suite’s scripting capability.
2.2
Fault Management Platform
Open EMS Suite Fault Management Platform includes all the
components needed in a powerful FM solution: Event Collection Engine, Event Correlation Engine, and Monitoring Desktop. Northbound and southbound interfaces are also in the offering. FM platform is ready for use after the completion of adaptations for the monitored network resources.
Event Collection Engine – consists of scalable alarm pipes that collect alarm events from various network elements and resources. The engine processes basic alarm rules to synchronize the alarm status between network elements and the alarm database of Open EMS Suite. Inbuilt persistency mechanisms provide reliability. Additional features provide enhanced alarm management functionality like reclassification or alarm lifting.
Event Correlation Engine - Provides filtering and correlation
techniques that concentrate the alarm event flow on the root cause. The engine provides model-based, time-based and rule-based correlation techniques, such as event compression, event suppression, event counting, and informing delay, among others.
Monitoring Desktop - Provides out-of-the-box integrated alarm event
management tools. Monitoring Desktop supports flexible list and view based alarm monitoring. Fast access to related information and analytic services are provided with the tool’s integration in Desktop Framework. Graphical filter, and rule management and design are supported with templates and tools supporting regular expression.
Monitoring Desktop provides a comprehensive set of tools for the FM solution. Some of the tools are:
Event List and Event History – List based monitoring tools for active and cancelled alarms respectively
Event Help – for displaying alarm descriptions
Notes for Events – for managing user comments related to alarms
Alarm Correlation Rule Explorer and Rule Editor – for administering and maintaining filter and correlation rules
Network View – for displaying alarms in a graphical network view
Trouble Ticket List and Trouble Ticket Details – for displaying and managing trouble tickets, with configurable attributes
2.3
Performance Management Platform
Open EMS Suite Performance Management Platform provides a strong framework for measurement collection, warehousing and reporting solutions.
Figure 9. Overview of PM Platform
PM Platform is composed of the following main parts:
Southbound and northbound mediation interfaces provide an
easy way to import or export PM data. Both are based on the Open Measurement Standard (OMeS) XML format.
The Measurement Collection Engine for the PM data loading is a highly available, cost-efficient, and scalable solution using IT industry standards. This minimizes the need for investments in hardware and in your own software development.
The considerable quantity of collected raw data requires
summarization in order for data to be stored for longer periods or to speed up the data access. The way of summarizing
(aggregating) the data needs to be versatile in order to match different operator needs. PM Warehouse (Aggregation Engine) is a comprehensive warehousing solution using the Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) standard already suited to the performance management domain. This reduces the costs of customizing or integrating your own solution or another standard warehouse solution.
Available on top of OES, the Web based reporting provides the user with an easy-to-use web based GUI to query and visualize the data conveniently without the need of typing SQL queries.
2.4
Interfaces
Open EMS Suite provides interfaces for integrating element
management systems into networks and network management systems. Open EMS Suite provides complete solutions for the managed network and northbound directions. The managed network interface is here called O&M interface solution and includes off-the-shelf mediations, Agent mediation, and customer mediations.
The O&M interface solution and northbound interface solution are described in detail in this chapter.
2.4.1
Mediations Framework
Mediation Framework (MF) is a software platform based on the principles of SOA using the Java Business Integration (Standard JSR-208). MF provides the necessary foundation to easily develop integration layers abstracting the vendor-dependent interfaces and improve the application integration agility. Technically, transforming from one protocol/data model to other, preprocessing network data, providing commonly required non-functional features are some of the functions where MF can be applied at best.
MF Value proposition
Writing code has been the most common approach to integration and it has exposed service providers to the following payoffs:
• Increased maintenance / cost due to increased complexity • Increase in cycle time / delayed projects
• Unforeseen breakages in other systems • Cost overrun
• Application-specific integration code resulting in tight coupling of systems
• OSS databases not completely in sync with network
Reduce cost with re-usable integrations / mediations
Mediation Framework utilizes mainstream, open and standards based technology Java Business Integration. It leverages from open source community and it is based on common architecture pattern that enables reuse of mediation components (connectors, transformation engines, etc.).
Faster time to market
Model driven development enables faster time to market together with easy adaptation to new interface or protocol versions by model
adaptation rather than coding. Rich SDK (developer tooling) is available to cut down development time.
Additional gain is achieved from eco-system partners committed to develop mediations on the platform.
Reduce cycle time for customer delivery projects
Mediations are decoupled from OSS applications and are created as rapid customization projects rather than as traditional R&D projects. This will enable live deployments of mediations.
Gain predictability with productized integrations
Mediations built using Mediation Framework are productized libraries that are licensable assets instead of custom made point integrations. Maintenance is more efficient and easier to commit for these libraries.
2.4.2
Off-the-shelf mediations
Southbound interfaces (SBI) are used for connecting Open EMS Suite based systems to network elements or lower-level EMS and mediator systems. OES provides the following off-the-shelf SBIs.
Standard SNMP SBI that supports FM event collection and PM counter collection. Management Information Base (MIB) importing functionality is included together with flexible MIB attribute
selection in Adaptation SDK
NE3S/SNMP SBI compatible with O&M Agent that supports FM event collection and PM counter collection.
NE3S/SOAP SBI compatible with O&M Agent that supports FM event collection and PM counter collection.
2.4.3
O&M Agent mediation
As part of the complete O&M interface solution Open EMS Suite offers O&M Agent for reducing the adaptation effort. You can harness O&M Agent and its verification counterpart technology in the network element equipment to enable easy and fast adaptation, with rich functionality, to the Open EMS Suite solution.
O&M Agent provides a reliable and efficient interface implementation towards the management system in fault management, performance management, and basic configuration management areas. In order to enable fast and accurate application integration and verification, O&M Agent provides verification tools to be used immediately after the O&M Agent deployment to the target system.
Verification Suite
It is often difficult and costly to implement a real network management system while simultaneously implementing the network element side O&M. Verification Suite can be quickly installed to any workstation and, when configured to reach the network element under implementation, it verifies that the O&M side implementation complies with the O&M interface definitions and protocols. By providing this simulator type of tool to O&M developers, the burden of final network element integration can be dramatically reduced.
Basic resource monitoring
In addition to useful application-level integration, O&M Agent provides ready-made configuration called basic resource monitoring. This is used to monitor UNIX like operating system level statistics covering statistics collection from CPU load, memory and disk usage, system availability and network interface performance. It is also possible to use the ready-made configuration of alarm triggering thresholds if any of the above statistics exceed the defined limits.
2.4.4
Customer mediations
When SBIs supported by Open EMS Suite are not sufficient, it is possible to build custom mediation components for implementing additional SBIs using Mediation Framework.
2.4.5
Northbound interface solution
Northbound interfaces
OSS through Java™ Trouble Ticket API
The Trouble Ticket API provides J2EE/EJB based interfaces for
creating, querying, updating, closing, cancelling, and escalating trouble tickets. Interfaces and mechanisms are provided for trouble ticket notification management. Open EMS Suite provides the client side of this interface.
XML Alarm Forwarding
XML Alarm Forwarding is a configurable interface for sending alarm information to a third party network management system in XML format using FTP. The interface also provides alarm forwarding and upload functionality with filtering capability.
Alarm Forwarding to E-mail
Certain alarms from the managed system need to be forwarded without delay to the personnel responsible for fault analysis and correction. Alarm Forwarder forwards the key alarms automatically to specified e-mail addresses.
North mediation interfaces
When NBIs supported by Open EMS Suite are not sufficient, it is
possible to build custom mediation components implementing additional NBIs, and to use north mediation interfaces for getting data in/from the
Open EMS Suite database. North mediation interfaces are based on XML files and they usually implement XML data export.
2.5
Open EMS Suite software development kits
Open EMS Suite based solutions can be developed using a set of software development kits (SDKs) that either guide development tasks or are optimized for creating certain mandatory application components. Open EMS Suite SDK offering provides integrated tools and
environment for network management platform and application
development. The development tools are based on the Eclipse and are easy to use. In addition, the Open EMS Suite development environment can be easily extended for other development needs that you may have. The Open EMS Suite SDK is
a powerful set of development tools for network management platform and application development
developed to simplify network management system development and integration
based on flexible and adaptive development platform and a rich set of integrated development tools
Benefits:
Enables easy and modular introduction of new adaptations, integration and features
Figure 10. Open EMS Suite SDK architecture
Adaptation SDK - Used for creating adaptations, which are descriptions
of managed objects (metadata). Adaptation SDK can configure adaptations to different application components: Java GUIs, web components, business components and mediation components. Application development concentrates on describing the metadata structure and application component-specific adaptation-driven extensions.
Adaptation SDK facilitates, for example, easily creating and deploying PM adaptations. The following SDK modules are available:
Adaptation umbrella wizard,
Common object attributes and topology,
Fault Management (basic and alarm descriptions),
Performance Management (raw data, aggregations and content),
SNMP PM and NE3S PM for MIB-mapping, and
NE3S PM for definition of OID, data and file formats.
Desktop Framework SDK – Used for creating Java GUIs to application
clients built on top of Desktop Framework. Application development concentrates on J2SE based standalone application tasks.
Web Scripting SDK – Enables the creation of customized Web
applications based on Web Scripting Platform. Application range varies from simple interactive web forms to comprehensive reporting suites.
The creation of J2EE applications or mediation components is supported by providing Open EMS Suite interfaces, end-to-end application
examples, and documentation for the software developer that come with the Open EMS Suite. Any modern software development and testing tools such as Eclipse can be used.
3
Reference environment and third-party
requirements
Open EMS Suite needs the following third-party software:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, with Red Hat Directory Server 8
Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
Oracle Database 11g
WebSphere Application Server 6.1
The minimum hardware configuration for Open EMS Suite is the following:
Server side:
x86 processor, 2 CPUs (e.g. Intel Xeon 5000 series, or better)
8 GB RAM
50 GB hard disk drive (with at least 10 GB free space after installation for downloaded Java GUIs and temporary data) or more
DVD/CD-ROM drive
Network connection (for example an Ethernet connection) Client side:
1 GB RAM, 300 MB used by OES
Intel Core2 Duo 1.86GHz or better
For demo and development purposes smaller hardware configurations are possible.