INTEGRATED APPROACH TO OPEN DISTRIBUTED MANAGEMENT

Due to the liberalization of the telecommunications market, we expect public and private organizations to compete in an open market of basic and value-added services. Broadband networks, high performance multim edia and mobile end systems, distributed information systems, open dis tributed applications, user and terminal mobility, and multimedia tele -services with different qualities will form the basis for various ser vices to be provided at different costs and with various modalities of use. The provision of such services in a way which meets the users' r equirements can be guaranteed only if all the required resources, incl uding the underlying network and the available end systems, are superv ised and controlled effectively by an adequate open distributed manage ment system. In addition, the size and scale of future networks, the o penness of applications, and the global use of tele-services will requ ire management systems which cross the boundaries of different autonom ous management domains. The coordination and cooperation between auton omous operators and managers will be inevitable. This paper describes an integrated approach to open distributed management. It is based on an inter-domain management concept, and comprises an architecture whic h provides a framework for the development and operation of management services. The architecture includes a development and a run-time envi ronment. The runtime environment consists of an administration platfor m, an inter-domain management information service and a trader. The de velopment environment comprises a tool-box and construction kits for m anagement services and management user interfaces. Open distributed ma nagement applications used for the validation of the architecture and its components are outlined. An overview of future activities conclude s the paper.