The VITAL Network Resource Architecture

TINA aims to provide an architecture based on distributed computing technologies that will enable telecommunications networks to support flexible introduction and control of new advanced services. The provided services and the supporting network and computing infrastructure will be managed in an integrated fashion. Network management aspects in TINA are addressed by its Network Resource Architecture (NRA), which has so far concentrated on connection and configuration management, with accounting, fault and performance management aspects to follow. VITAL (Validation of Integrated Telecommunication Architecture for the Long term) is a European collaborative research project that aims to validate a long-term telecommunication architecture, based on TINA, through the design, realisation and trials of a large-scale system. This paper presents the VITAL work related to the realisation of the NRA in the areas of resource configuration, connection and accounting management. The problems encountered are highlighted and the architectural solutions adopted are presented, together with examples of operation that illustrate the design of the VITAL NRA system.