Page 318 - Optical Communications Essentials

Network Management

308 Chapter Eighteen

■ G.874.1, OTN Protocol-Neutral Management Information Model for the Network
Element View
■ G.959.1, Optical Transport Network Physical Layer Interfaces

18.2.1. Performance management
In carrying out performance management, a system will monitor and control
key parameters that are essential to the proper operation of a network in order
to guarantee a specific quality of service (QoS) to network users. Among these
are network throughput, user response times, line utilization, the number of
seconds during which errors occur, and the number of bad messages delivered.
This function is also responsible for collecting traffic statistics and applying
controls to prevent traffic congestion. In addition, it examines the operating
parameters of dynamic optical components and modules.
Examples of parameters that may be monitored at the physical level in an
optical network are wavelength stability, bit error rate, and optical power levels.
The performance management includes assigning threshold values to such
parameters and informing the management system or generating alarms when
these thresholds are exceeded.

18.2.2. Configuration management
The goal of configuration management is to monitor both network setup infor-
mation and network device configurations, in order to track and manage the
effects on network operation of the various constituent hardware and software
elements. Configuration management allows a system to provision network
resources and services, monitor and control their state, and collect status infor-
mation. This provisioning may include remote provisioning of specific wave-
lengths to a user, automatically maintaining optical power-level settings in
remote equipment as wavelengths are added or removed from the network,
assigning special features requested by a user, distributing software upgrades to
agents, and reconfiguring equipment to isolate faults.
Configuration management stores all this information in a readily accessible
database, so that when a problem occurs, the database can be searched for assist-
ance in solving the problem.

18.2.3. Accounting management
The purpose of accounting management is to measure network utilization param-
eters so that individuals or groups of users on the network can be regulated and
billed for services appropriately. This regulation maximizes the fairness of net-
work access across all users, since network resources can be allocated based on
their capacities. Thus, accounting management is responsible for measuring,
collecting, and recording statistics on resource and network usage. In addition,
accounting management may examine current usage patterns in order to allo-
cate network usage quotas. From the gathered statistics, the service provider

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