ASON/GMPLS/MPLS networks offer many advantages to
OSS-based management systems (SMS, NMS, EMS), for example:
Multi-Vendor-Domain Provisioning
With all the signaling, routing and discovery protocols supported
in ASON/GMPLS/MPLS networks, end-to-end provisioning to different
vendor' equipment or to different optical or transport technologies
is possible. Instead of taking days or weeks to set up a circuit
between 2 customer end points, it takes a few seconds to set up
the same path, plus a backup path or a bypass tunnel, with these
control plane protocols.
Path Protection and Restoration
With ASON/GMPLS/MPLS, OSS systems can set up shared or non-shared
backup paths, bypass tunnels, or prepare a set of restoration
plans to be provisioned immediately after a network failure, instead
of relying expensive link protection type (1+1, 1:N, 4/2Fiber
Ring) that may or may not be offered entirely in non-ASON/GMPLS/MPLS
networks.
Billable LSPs
Instead of billing based on ports, or port rates (T1/T3, 10/100
Mb Ethernet) from customer-facing interface equipment, carriers
or service providers can charge by LSPs with shared or guaranteed
bandwidths, or with different levels of quality of service. An
LSP can even be setup for a bundle of several links and its overall
bandwidth can also be easily modified.
Path Computation and Management
With topology and resource information from ASON/GMPLS/MPLS networks,
OSS systems can compute an optimized path between any two end
points using CSPF algorithm. DeriveIt is also working on a multi-circuit
path computation algorithm to find a globally optimized solution
for multiple connections at a time.
Multi-Layered, Multi-Partitioned Networks
ASON (G.8080 in ITU) presents a network with multiple layers of
connections from VC-11, VC-12, VC-3 to ODU and OCh, and multiple
partitions of geographical regions or vendor-specific technologies.
An inter-domain routing protocol is needed to deal with this hierarchical
control domain concept. DeriveIt has implemented DDRP (Domain-to-Domain
Routing Protocol) as a solution to the problem. The standard-bound
DDRP will provide OSS systems invaluable topology, traffic engineering
and resource information across multiple control domains.
Automatic Link and Signal Rate Verification
The Link Management Protocol (LMP) in ASON/GMPLS/MPLS networks
provides a way to verify and report link and signal rate properties
between neighboring nodes. LMP also allows in-band or out-of-band
communication channels, fault isolation reports, and link connectivity
reports. All these will help greatly OSS systems managing ASON/GMPLS/MPLS
networks.
Overlay vs Peer Provisioning Model
Any network can be provisioned either as an overlay model, or
as peer model. Overlay model allows separation of UNI, and NNI
in a network. Peer model allows topology and resource information
being advertised to any node in the network (as peers). OSS systems
may need to support either or both of the provisioning models
at the same time.
SPC Provisioning Model
A new Software Permanent Circuits (SPC) provisioning model has
been proposed to manage legacy devices that may be mixed with
ASON/GMPLS/MPLS-capable devices in a network to OSS systems. DeriveIt
has tools in place and experience to provision SPCs with devices
that come with different technologies (ATM, FR, pre-ASON ADM,
OXC, OTN)
Management Protocols
Besides control plane protocol stacks, DeriveIt also provides
first-class tools for management protocols, from TL1, SNMP, CMIP,
to upcoming XML standards, like tML, or OSSML, and complete solutions
for mediation among above management protocols (e.g. from CMIP/Q3
to TL1). DeriveIt also provides NE Simulator products based on
different management protocols.
