Towards standardized and automated fault management and service provisioning for NGNs

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), already widely recognized as a fundamental core component of Next Generation Networks (NGNs), enables proliferation of a huge variety of value added services. Simultaneous to the emergence of triple play services there is a strong need for establishing standardized methodologies for service fulfillment and assurance, maintaining service execution parameters at advertised levels. Traditional Operations Support Systems (OSS) are not adequate for managing NGNs. This work shows experiences gained from implementing OSS for NGNs. It describes a solution that combines extensive NGN development expertise with a new generation, of policy-based, service oriented OSS solutions in order to provide enhanced levels of automation and reliability to the NGN service delivery and session control environment. Primary focus of this approach is put on service assurance and service fulfillment mechanisms for remote monitoring, automated control and configuration of standard compliant IMS infrastructures, such as the Open Source IMS Core (OSIMS) based Open IMS Playground. This work describes state of the art NGN OSS design principles and knowledge attained by integration of standardized fault management as well as service and subscriber provisioning procedures showing how the full cycle from service deployment to service advertisement to service execution can be delivered in an automated way.