Alcatel NMS Measurement Point

From GEANT2-JRA1 Wiki

1 Overview
2 Objectives
3 Achievements
- 3.1 Downloads
4 Ongoing Effort
5 Future Work
6 Contact Information and Feedback

Overview

Alcatel's Network Management System (NMS) provides the capability to manage SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) and WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) network infrastructure by providing the functionality of configuring, visualizing and monitoring the status of Network Elements and Performance Measurement Points.

The Alcatel IOO is a proprietary module which provides a "north bound interface" or "an interface towards the client" for the retrieval of monitoring data present within the NMS. With the help of the IOO module, network health information such as SES, UAS, ES, etc (see SDH Vocabulary section) being monitored by the Performance Measurement Points (PMP) can be obtained. The IOO interface also provides an SNMP Trap based alarm notification mechanism.

[edit]

Objectives

The status and performance of the lower layer network infrastructure is becoming increasingly important due to their provision by backbone networks such as GEANT2 and their direct usage by projects such as LHC (Large Hydron Collider, CERN). Monitoring, retrieving and displaying performance monitoring information from such types of network infrastructure is also a new area for mostly IP based monitoring system developers.

The purpose of the Measurement Point Service for Alcatel Network Measurement Point is

To be able to retrieve metrics such as SES, UAS, ES and BBE being monitoring by the PM Points
To handle alarms being generated and sent by the NMS. The alarms basically provide indications of faults and defects in different "lightpaths" configured within the NMS
Act as a reference implementation which can be used by other NRENs in order to build/modify perfSONAR compliant services which can retrieve similar data from similar/different types of Network Management Systems

The above high level requirements are mapped into following functional objectives

Data retrieval
- Provide the capability to retrieve a defined set of metrics (SES, ES, UAS, BBE) on demand
- Provide the capability to periodically and automatically retrieve the above defined set of metrics and store/push them towards clients such as Measurement Archives
- Periodic data retrieval should be configurable
- Provide the capability to learn the capabilities of the Measurement Point

Alarm Handling
- Provide the capability to handle alarms generated by the NMS
- Provide the capability to register information about clients interested in particular types of alarms
- Provide the capability to push alarms to registered clients
- Provide the capability to learn the capabilities of the Measurement Point

System design
- Provide necessary functionalities to do all the above in an efficient, reliable, secure manner
- Compliance with perfSONAR framework and NM-WG in order to ensure multi-domain data exchange capability

[edit]

Achievements

The work done so far has tried to use the perfSONAR framework specifications and supporting software. Where missing (perfSONAR is Work In Progress) contributions are provided to the perfSONAR effort.

The Alcatel NMS Measurement Point Service development effort has been successful in implementing some of Data Retrieval specifications mentioned above. The current status of development can do the following:

It can provide information about its capabilities
It can retrieve data from the NMS on demand (some restrictions apply, see release documentation)
It makes use of certain efficiency measures to improve its performance

Besides the implementation, design thoughts and experiences gained from Alcatel NMS MP are being passed on to the perfSONAR group to be included into their effort. This includes:

Design of PUSH Mechanism whereby a service can asynchronously PUSH information onto the client
Design of mechanism whereby the service can store a list of clients interested in specific data that the MP can provide
Thoughts on designing perfSONAR compliant services for similar functionality but for different types of Network Management Systems

[edit]