Alcatel 1354 RM

Network Manager for SDH/SONET and Optical Networks

How can network operators optimize high-quality services at competitive prices, using SDH/SONET and optical transport networks? The key is effective network management. The Alcatel 1354 RM Regional Network Manager is an integrated, centralized network layer manager that oversees complete end-to-end connectivity. The system allows real-time network alarm surveillance that quickly diagnoses network failures, as well as provides provisioning and customer service quality monitoring for end-to-end paths and circuits across the managed network.

The Alcatel 1354 RM belongs to a family of integrated network management products the Alcatel 1350 Management Suite that is backed by Alcatels longstanding reputation and experience in building telecommunication networks. The Alcatel 1350 Management Suite offers a comprehensive range of network management applications, eld-proven with hundreds of deployed systems, that allow operators to respond to the changing needs of their customers with faster time-to-market for new services.

The 1354 RM is supported by the 1353 Element Manager and to be in line with rapidly evolving multi-service transport networks by a plug-in application (the 1354 BM - Broadband Manager), which extends the data transport (ATM, Ethernet) services management. Moreover, to cater for the needs of a specic Operator, which vary according to kinds of networks, variety of services, the used OSS/NM architecture, the 1354 RM + BM provides interworking with other Alcatel OS applications as well as other party OS applications

Fig. 1: Integrated Data and Optical Network Management

Alcatel 1354 RM

Product Overview
Along with the Alcatel 1353 SH/GEM, the Alcatel 1354 RM is targeted to manage sub-networks consisting of various optical network elements, such as ADMs, DXCs, OMSNs, OMSGs, C/DWDMs and O_ADMs. The 1354 RM provides a coherent, simple and powerful Network Management solution for all types and sizes of the multi-service SDH/SONET and WDM networks and it protects investments using upgradable technologies, with exible and scalable architecture: > Remote supervision and control of network and circuits carrying trafc (including monitoring, preventive maintenance, fault detection and localization to help eld maintenance staff) with advanced path management including "point-andclick" centralized path provisioning across complex network topologies > Network and system administration (performance monitoring data management for higher service quality, network inventory data management for planning activity, service information) Moreover, with the convergence of data and traditional TDM-based services, transport networks are more and more multi-service networks, including an assortment of data transport services efciently integrated into the SDH/SONET and WDM networks using Alcatels powerful and exible dataaware products, such as: > WDM Metro Span systems equipped with 4xANY 2.5Gb/s TDM concentrator plug-in card (Fast/GigabitEthernet, ESCON, FICON, Fiber Channel, FDDI, Digital Video grooming into SDH/SONET signal) > OMSNs (Optical Multi-Service Nodes) equipped with ISA plug-in card (Integrated Services Adapter with ATM, Fast/GigabitEthernet). And so the 1354 RM has a plug-in application, the 1354 BM Broadband Network Manager, for extended management of data transport services, which permits a tight integration with SDH/SONET and WDM network management. Moreover, for bringing-into-service, in preventive maintenance, localizing faults, repair verication, and support for service assurance and billing, the 1354 RM provides fault management including advanced alarm surveillance and performance monitoring.
Fig. 2: OTS physical connection str ucture

Supervision and Control

For effective supervision and control over multi-technology transport networks, the 1354 RM provides a clear view of the integrated network, together with the facilities to properly manage network construction and path management including the various protection schemes, which can then be used for providing different protection levels for transported services to satisfy SLA. Operator is assisted by wizard tools in provisioning tasks.

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Clear view of integrated multitechnology transport network The 1354 RM is designed to handle partitioning and layering for transport networks (i.e. ITU-T G.803, G.805 and G.872). Using the 1354 RM, the transport network may be partitioned into a level of interconnected sub-networks. Each sub-network may be divided into elementary topologies (e.g. linear links, rings, meshed) and nodes. In addition, the 1354 RM can handle client/server relationships of the managed layers (i.e. Optical Transport Section, Optical Multiplex Section, Optical Channel, SDH/SONET physical, Multiplex Section, Higher Order Path, Lower Order Path) and the payload trafc structure in the transport network. It also provides facilities to construct, represent, and to display the network accordingly. Exploiting transport infrastructure The network construction process provides NML operators with the means to dene in the database and to represent on the maps the transport network resources (SDH/SONET and DWDM NEs) derived from the managed transmission network and made available by the element managers. Maps offer the operator views of the managed network. The network construction process denes and implements the payload structure of the physical link connections among nodes.

It also congures protected/unprotected infrastructure trails, which are terminated in the nodes where lowerorder trafc must be inserted or extracted. Single lambda (i.e. OPS) and multiple lambda (i.e. OTS) physical links can also be managed in DWDM networks. Path management The Alcatel 1354 RM can manage different kinds of paths according to termination type, service (point-to-point, point-to-multipoint), protection level (unprotected, end-to-end protected, enhanced protected by means of "drop and continue" facilities) and concatenation (contiguous, virtual). Moreover, it can upload underlying Optical channel connectivity to discover OCh trails and Optical client Path and allows Operator to see and easily manage Optical channels end-to-end across WDM portion of network.

When setting up a new path, the Operator at minimum selects endpoints and indicates some path/service information. Then the 1354 RM autoroute algorithm is used to assist the Operator in determining the route of the path implemented inside the underlying network: > Automatic resource allocation Operator simply selects the endpoints and RM automatically chooses the best route across the network according to autoroute algorithm criteria > Manual resource allocation The Operator can also specify routing constraints within the network to force the 1354 RM to use (or avoid) specic network resources. Thus, Operator can specify complete route or can specify partial constraints (and be automatically assisted by 1354 RM for remainder).

Fig. 3: Path list

Alcatel 1354 RM

Additional path management facilities permit the Operator to request > Inventories of the paths: different and powerful ltering criteria are available for selecting paths, in order to get the related information structures as lists > Details of each path: can display the path information of selected paths and the path route (visible either via browser or via map manager) > Path reports: Synthetic or detailed path route reports can be generated, stored and/or printed > To add/remove protection branches of a given path without impacting trafc > The automatic execution of some operations on the path at a predened time, or a path scheduling via deferred actions Network protection and restoration The 1354 RM manages protection & restoration schemes for SDH/SONET, WDM: > Path protection (SNCP; Optical-SNCP; UPSR), section ring protection (MSSPRING), which can be enhanced via drop and continue facilities > Restoration at HO layer > Protection + restoration combined for submarine networks Surveillance and managing alarms, performance monitoring Using the 1354 RM, and availing of features supported by underlying EML and network equipment, the Operator has many facilities for checking /supervising: > Enable alarm and performance monitoring: higher order and lower order Path Overhead Monitoring; PM and Tandem Connection Monitoring data collection; Threshold Crossing Alerts; Forward Error Correction, Section Monitoring alarm (B1) > Loopbacks control > Setting & checking section, higher order, lower order traces The relevant alarm, degrade events and PM data are collected by 1354 RM so that the Operator can be automatically alerted of network problems (faults or degrade in quality). X.733 compliant network alarms (i.e. physical links, trails, paths for different layers of SDH/SONET, WDM) are generated by the 1354 RM alarm handling process, following the reception of the elementary alarms received from the EMLs. 1354 RM's advanced alarm surveillance then gives an easy & quick access to check alarms by use of: > Alarm summary in categories, severities > With sub-lists and navigation for more details > Indications for new alarms and update ags to indicate variations Also, on-demand, the Operator can examine the network to analyze performance, check where alarms, degraded and irregular conditions (e.g. loopbacks, forced protection) are present.
Fig. 4: Fault localization (e.g. OCH Trail failure)

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Network and System Administration

Among the many areas covered by 1354 RM for Network and Systems Administration are: > Centralized visibility of network links, trails, paths > Centralized views of non-nominal conditions (e.g. loopbacks, forced protection commands) currently present in network > Inventory of network resources including links, trails, paths by advanced query with scope and lter capabilities > Operators management for secure reliable multi-user access including to protect against unauthorized access and prole application capabilities
Fig. 5: PM repor ts

against Operators hierarchy, according to both Functional Access Optionally, the 1354 RM can forward alarms to an external trouble ticketing system. Performance Monitoring (15m and/or 24h granularity) can be enabled for given transport entity (trail or path) so that the PM data is automatically retrieved. Then on-demand, the Operator can view the performance data for trails and paths. It is also possible to monitor intermediate points of the selected transport entity. For path performance measurements, reports can be produced automatically (e.g. print the PM data once per month, for example) or on user request Performance data can be displayed in an easy-to-read graphic, archived, backed up and exported to an external system. Domain (FAD: mapping Operators prole with access to a subset of management operations) and Network Access Domain (NAD: dening resource domains - e.g. link connections, trails, paths, nodes - to which Operators have access or not) permissions > System management tools: set-up and supervise application processes, system backup and restore, system start-up and shut-down, data archiving

The 1354 RM allows operators to decide the Alarm Severity Assignment Prole for different types of alarms. To assist fault localization, the Operator can get the elementary alarms to which a given network alarm is related. Prioritization in handling alarms is integrated in the system in order to handle alarms efciently. All network topological objects (nodes, sub-network, link connection, etc.) containing the alarmed objects are displayed graphically, and the color of the impacted object reects the alarm severity. Network alarms are recorded in the Current Alarms List and, after acknowledgement and clearing, are put in the History Alarm Log.

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Interaction with other OSS/NM applications

As shown in g.1, the 1354 RM+BM application supports interaction with other OS applications e.g. for more automation between other back-ofce OS applications for inventory, service assurance, maintenance, troubleticketing, as well as Network Management OS applications managing other networks (data services, mobile). And so interfaces (1359Isn, 1359Ioo, CORBA/TMF) are provided for various purposes: > Inventories of network resources, conguration information and including implemented paths/circuits/connections > Path/connection provisioning > Collecting of monitoring data/counters (PM/QoS data) > Handoff of network alarms

1354 RM Platform
Different hardware congurations can accommodate the size and load of managed networks, which vary according to a given Operator context (dimensioning requirements for network, number of Users; co-hosting of other NM applications on same server; resilience level...). The 1354 RM has multi-user architecture and the operator presentation stations can be locally or remotely connected to the main operation center. For more demanding applications, the system can be duplicated locally or remotely. The Presentation stations can be PC-based.

This leaet provides a product overview including the major benets that end-users can gain from Alcatel 1354 RM. For a more complete list of product features and more detailed technical descriptions, please contact your Alcatel account representative in order to get product documentation. Additional information can be also found by visiting our www.alcatel.com web site.

www.alcatel.com Alcatel and the Alcatel logo are registered trademarks of Alcatel. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Alcatel assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the product information presented, which is subject to change without notice. 06 2003 Alcatel. All rights reserved. 3AL 61246 AAAA Ed.03. Printed in Italy.