Rediscovering TMN

Fluctuation in the telecommunications service industry is shaking a long-standing operations support system architecture at its core. Factors such as competition, network unbundling and new service rollouts are dictating that the traditional Telecommunications Management Network framework be examined from an altogether different perspective.

Those industry variables have given rise to a curious phenomenon: Even as new technologies are being introduced into the network topology and making it more complex, the TMN framework itself is becoming decidedly less technical. Or, more accurately, the process of interpreting and applying TMN is becoming more conceptual and less protocol-specific.

"We have tried to pull the industry into a wider view of what the problem is," says Elizabeth Adams, president of the TeleManagement Forum, the industry's de facto voice on OSS issues. "We've used this traditional TMN model as our starting point, but we've gone well beyond it."

That approach seems to have caught on. Carriers, software platform developers and relevant industry organizations appear to be rallying around the idea of managing carrier business and network processes from a higher level-and using an adapted form of the TMN framework to get there.

Old-school TMN Traditional TMN is a product of the standards-makers. The International Telecommunication Union defined the TMN model to specify a set of standard functions and interfaces for network management. The ITU definition of TMN specifies protocols such as the open systems interconnection stack and interfaces such as common management information protocol.

At a higher level, TMN is also a method of addressing broad-based carrier management issues in manageable horizontal chunks. The TMN framework is typically viewed as a four-level pyramid composed of element management, network/systems management, service management and business management layers.

Critics of the traditional TMN concept generally fault its rigidity. They say TMN as a conceptual framework makes sense but that its underlying protocols and interfaces are not flexible enough to support quick and easy network technology and service changeouts in a fast-paced competitive environment.

"TMN started out as a techie thing in the labs," says Mark Effinger, executive director of network management solutions at software developer Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore). "At some point they lost track of the goal they were trying to accomplish, which was supposedly rapid implementation of new technology in a way that allows you not to have to turn everything upside down."

Proponents of TMN's evolution say that every carrier's OSS makeup is necessarily different depending on the carrier's infrastructure selection-or whether it owns its own network at all-and its service delivery goals. TMN was designed to facilitate standard interfaces, but things are changing so fast that carriers and their OSS vendors must create what they need to make things work. Therefore, standard interfaces cannot always be applied universally.

"We're finding that standardization is a great idea, but it doesn't really happen in practice," says Betty Zackheim, vice president of marketing at InConcert. "The carriers are faced with an alphabet soup of interfaces. They would like to link this all together, but they can't."

"This is not a single-technology world," Adams says. "If you look at the breadth of OSSs needed, you very quickly realize that the traditional TMN technologies are not the best choices. It's counterproductive to say everything has to be a certain technology."

The TMF's own effort to transform TMN-with the goal of making carriers into what it dubs "smooth operators"-has been the development of its Smart TMN interpretation. Smart TMN is a collection of models, process guidelines, information flow maps, specification libraries and demonstration projects that essentially create a new overarching OSS approach that is more general and more adaptable.

Despite the apparent uprising against traditional TMN, investment by software developers and carriers in the framework-as well as legacy systems based on it-would suggest more of a migration than an elimination.

"There's a lot of good conceptual stuff in TMN that's a lot more important than what protocol you use," Effinger says. "It's being constantly refined, so it's an evolving standard."

Process vs. protocol It remains to be seen how the complex TMN framework will adapt, and whether that adaptation will be universally accepted or further fragmented. In an industry focused on service differentiation and quality improvement, however, the one clearly universal goal of OSS overhaul is the streamlining of crucial business processes.

"The challenge ahead of service providers is a business challenge," Adams says. "How do they get the most bang for the buck out of OSSs? How do they get to the point that they can buy them instead of maintaining internal development shops?"

Competitive local exchange carrier-turned-integrated communications provider ICG Communications is one of the carriers following the TMF's lead in its interpretation and application of TMN. As it maps out the evolution of its OSSs to meet its service delivery needs into the early part of the next century, ICG is using a combination of traditional TMN thinking and the TMF's new applications of TMN.

"The area where TMN has had the greatest promise is in our enterprise architecture plan," says Ken Hunter, vice president and chief information technology architect at ICG. "Where the TMN architecture has not really been fulfilled is when you cut vertical paths through the horizontal layers."

That's exactly what the TMF's Telecom Operations Map-one of the elements of the organization's Smart TMN concept-is designed to address (Figure 1). Essentially, the map shows a cross-section of the TMN framework to demonstrate where customer-facing business functions fit into TMN's horizontal layers.

ICG is applying the map to shift its OSS design strategy from a technology- and tool-based approach to one based on specific applications that reside in the upper TMN layers.

"Part of what the TeleManagement Forum is trying to do is put more into the high-profile, money side of the equation," Hunter says. "The money side is not in tools anymore."

The TMF's view is that carriers' OSS goals are based on automation-functions such as flow-through provisioning and end-to-end service fulfillment. The Telecom Operations Map lays out a common view of the business processes used by service providers.

"TMN is systems-based. Our approach has been around the processes used by the carrier," Adams says. "That map has probably opened more eyes in the industry than anything else that's come around. Instead of looking at everything and designing agreements in a protocol-specific way, we're putting everything in a technology-neutral form."

Top-down thinking A growing contingent of software developers is attempting to turn the industry's newfound focus on the business management category of TMN to its own advantage. Increasingly, software developers are creating OSS platforms that emphasize the upper reaches of the TMN structure.

"We approach the software market from the perspective of enterprise planning-things like inventory management and capacity planning," says Dana Brown, vice p resident of marketing at MetaSolv Software. "We're trying to emphasize the service fulfillment and assurance aspects."

For its part, InConcert has created a system based on the underlying theory that TMN can give carriers a single view of their processes by bringing together disparate information and presenting carriers with a unified view of information. The vendor's product attempts to address issues related to the upper levels of the TMN pyramid (Figure 2).

"What are the business and service questions being asked at that level? Where are my bottlenecks, and why are orders slowing down? How much does it cost?" asks Jeremy Davis, CEO of InConcert. "Those types of questions can be answered through this single view. All of that information resides somewhere."

The target category for many of the OSS developers producing integrated product for the top of the pyramid is the new carrier market-the unencumbered, non-legacy operators that can usually risk new operational approaches without penalty.

"The [incumbents] still tend to see the world in a more insular fashion," says Jay Lark, vice president of marketing at TCSI. "The emerging carriers need to have something that's integrated, that's fast and that's going to help them drive revenue growth."

The gradual modification of the TMN framework and how the concept is applied to operations software development and carrier OSS structuring raises important questions about the model's position in the future of telecom operations. Could efforts such as the TMF's Telecom Operations Map mean TMN's demise?

"The model is being revised, but as a model it has a longevity to it," says Tom Chatt, product manager for TMN platform products at Vertel, a strong proponent of TMN. "It doesn't change the basic tenets that went into the model."