Managing the management communications network in optical transport systems

Management of today's optical transport networks typically includes some or all of fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security (FCAPS) management. Carrying this management information across the network requir es the presence of a management communications network (MCN) also referred to as the data communications network (DCN). The MCN itself needs FCAPS man agement. The availability of management for the MCN is very sparse in today 's management systems, and this paper is a first step towards addressing th e problem. We describe algorithms for planning, designing, and analyzing th e MCN. Central to these algorithms is a graph representation of the entire network. Our treatment views the management of the MCN as an extension of t he management of the transport network. We envision this work as the basis for a suite of applications that can improve the management of the communic ations infrastructure in optical transport networks.