TMN Xuser interface specification for Pan-European ATM networks

Currently, international broadband ATM communication networks are managed mostly by manual operations. The situation is certainly not adequate to the increasing demands and the versatility of the broadband applications. The ATM virtual path service can be regarded as one step towards co-operative, automatic management of the international ATM broadband public network operator (PNO) networks. The article presents the study results obtained in the Eurescom P408 project on the TMN Xuser management interface for the monitoring and control of the Pan-European ATM virtual path service. The X reference point is located, as defined in the ITU-T recommendation M.3010, between operations system functions in different TMNs. The Xuser is defined as the interface between the private network management system and the public network management system, and is situated at the service management responsibility level of the TMN logical architecture hierarchy. The Xuser interface which is described, defines the set of messages exchanged across the interface to provide virtual path services to the ATM virtual path service users. To provide and control the public virtual path connections which cross several public network domains and connect two network access points towards the private network domains, the Xuser interfaces cooperate with the Xcoop interfaces, the latter being defined between public international network management systems and situated at the network management responsibility level of the TMN layered logical architecture.