The service features of the 3G NMS include:
l Performance management
l Roaming management
l Fraud management
l Position management
l Fault management
l Security management
l Software management
l Configuration management
l Accounting management
l Order management
l Quality of Service (QoS) management
l
User equipment management
8.3.1 Performance
Management
Throughout the life cycle of the 3G network, both the logic and the physical
configurations must be more or less modified to optimize network resources. All
these modifications are made through network configuration and network
engineering.
Many routine maintenance activities and
future network planning of the 3G
network require basic decision data, that is, network load and qualify of
service. To generate such data, it is required to measure the performance of
the NEs that make up the network, and then transfer these data to the external
operation support system for further analysis.
3GPP’s performance management function area
is intended to measure the cross-3G
network performance (i.e. ranging from the access layer to the service
provisioning layer) and collect the performance measurement data. It defines
the management of the measurement plan for the element manager system, the
generation of the NE measurement results and the transfer of results to one or
more operation support systems. Below are the objectives:
l To define a standard measurement set
l To define universal management technologies for measurement
maintenance & management and result accumulation;
l To define the method of batch transfer of the measurement results on
the management interfaces;
For details, please refer to 3GPP TS32.104.
8.3.2 Roaming
Agreement Management
In order for subscribers to use the
services provided by a non-home service provider, a roaming agreement/contract
should be reached between the home service provider and the non-home service
provider. The roaming agreement can either be an agreement between two
operators (known as “bilateral agreement”), or a “clearing house” (known as “multilateral
agreement”). Under the roaming agreement, the home service provider is the
customer, while the non-home service provider acts as the supplier.
Regardless of whether a bilateral or
multilateral roaming agreement, it must at least set out the following terms:
l Tariff/price
l Interconnection between signaling and service
l Bill interchange format and plan
l Troubleshooting
The roaming agreement will affect many aspects of the network and
the operation management infrastructure, like the follows such as service
implementation, service assurance and service charging in the operation system.
8.3.3 Fraud Management
Frauds as well as measures to detect and
guard against these frauds are not unusual for any network. However, mobile and
roaming services together make the fraud detection and prevention even more
complex and urgent. Things would become even worse when the mobile service
provider does not know how to locate the fraudulent customer during roaming.
The roamer is not a customer of the service provider, so the service provider
has no information enough to check whether a fraud exists.
On the other hand, the service provider could
hardly control the roamer’s activities, such as credit card overdraft and
service suspension. In such a situation, the customer can commit a fraud on the
network of another service provider, that is, the home service provider has to count
on the fraud detection level of the roaming service provider. This means, to a
great extent, neither the home service provider nor the roaming service
provider can control the subscriber properly.
Typical fraud management over the mobile
network provides at least the following functions:
l To classify the subscribers according to the level of fraud risk,
which is based on demographic statistics and credit information;
l To revise the risk level according to the utilization and the
payment (in real time or near real time);
l To detect and sample the frauds in real time or near real time;
l To take measures to suspend the service, even when the customer is
roaming on a network other than the home network;
l For visiting customers (the roamer), the roaming service provider
may consult the home network provider or the international knowledge base to
assess the potential fraud, so as to decide whether to allow the roamer to
access the network.
The fraud management service addresses the following three areas:
fraud detection, fraud termination and fraud prevention.
8.3.4 Configuration
Management
A real 3G network consists of various devices of different
suppliers, and the operator should manage these network devices properly to guarantee
QoS (quality of service) the customers has expected. The most important thing
is the standardization of 3G
system configuration management, so that the networks of multiple providers can
more or less operate properly and effectively.
1. Requirements of the 3G network configuration management:
l To enable operators to make configurations as fast and accurately as
they could, so as to avoid long-time wait and complex configuration;
l To ensure the configurations will not cause any adverse impact on
the NEs that need no configuration.
l To provide a mechanism to prevent the configurations from affecting
the communication-related services.
l To provide a mechanism to avoid data inconsistency, e.g. record the
revision reason or restore the updated data.
In brief, these principles involve
security, data validity and consistency as well as resource maintenance.
2. For configuration management, the system is expected to
provide the following capabilities for the operator:
The management system provides the
following capabilities through its service components:
-Modify system , change the network to meet
the operator’s requirements
l Create NE/network resource;
l Delete NE/network resource;
l Modify NE or network resource;
- Monitor the system, obtain an overview of
current software, equipment and data;
l Information inquiry;
l Information reporting;
l
Control over the
response/reporting;
8.3.5 Fault
Management
The fault management comprises a series of (sub-)
processes such as fault detection, fault location, fault reporting, fault
correction and fixing. These (sub-) processes are distributed on different
management layers, but most procedures (like fault detection, fault location,
fault correct and fault fixing) are mainly located on the NE and the NE
management layer so that the network equipment is capable of “self-healing”.
Logically, the network data management function is about how to
collect and use the performance and service data. When the NE gets faulty, the
fault management feature of the NE management layer is the leading responder,
while the network and the system management layer makes a preventive response.
8.3.6 Accounting Management
The 3GPP billing data mainly describes the
following:
l Planning and formatting bills of the 3G core network (circuit packet switching and IP
multimedia) node and the service node (multimedia short message service).
Please refer to [14].
l For call state data generation, billing event and other service
requirements, please refer to 3GPP TS 22.115.
l CDR format and file transfer mechanism formally described in ASN.1
language.
For the specific billing requirements of each 3G area, please refer to 3GPP TS 22.115 and TS 32.105.For the specific
billing data of each area, please refer to 3GPP TS 32.205, TS 32.215, TS 32.225
and TS 32.235.
8.3.7 Software Management
In the 3G network, the software
management covers host software management processes and software fault
management. The host software management processes consist of software request,
receiving, installation, monitoring, documentation, database update and
feedback to the supplier. The sub-process is also applicable to the whole
software release and the installation of patches for defective software of the
NE/element manager system. The software fault management focuses on the
monitoring and troubleshooting of network faults resulting from software
failure.
1. Host software management process
It refers to the management of new software
and patch release. It is very important to ensure high QoS of the network
without interrupting existing services during new software integration on the
network. The main steps of this process are:
l Delivery of the software by the supplier
l To deliver the software to the NE/element manager system for local
storage
l To verify the validity of the software to ensure the software is not
misused
l To activate the software
l To verify the validity of the software to ensure the software can
run properly
l
To accept or reject (in the case
of changes to software of previous versions) the software according to the
verification result
2. Software fault management
The software fault management involves the
following steps:
- To check software fault/failure on the
network
- To analyze the problems, to determine the
root cause of software failure and the necessary corrective measures. The
measures that may be taken include:
l To roll back to previous version through loading or activation
l To load and activate correct software
l
To restart current software
8.3.8 Security
Management
Similar to the 2G network, the security management feature of the 3G network is also to guard the system against
malicious attacks, in order to ensure stable network operation. Generally, the
network security is ensured by an ideal authentication mechanism. This function
is in fact the application of the service layer or the application layer.
It should be noted that the 3G network trends towards full-IP network, so the IP security
assurance mechanism is even more important for the security of 3G network. Generally, the O&M IP network
is considered unsafe due to its scale, complexity, limited physical security
and the possibility of remote access through dialup or Internet. Thus, the only
way out for security is to logically isolate the O&M IP network from the
Internet. Largely, the IP infrastructure is secured with basic IP features,
such as the address mechanism, DNS, DHCP, BOOTP and the firewall. These features
mainly serve to protect the network layer.
8.3.9 QoS Management
In the 2.5G/3G network, the QoS management mainly provides two functions:
QoS policy provisioning and QoS policy monitoring. The
QoS policy provisioning refers to the process of configuring and maintaining
the selected NE according to the QoS policy generated on the basis of the SLAs
and the observed network
performance. The QoS policy monitoring is the process of collecting the QoS
performance statistics and the alarm data. The collected performance data is
used to generate the analysis report, based on which the network will be
changed or upgraded.
In the 2.5G/3G
network, the network domains must interact to achieve end-to-end service
quality for end user applications. To achieve the QoS required by a network
operator, all the NEs from various network infrastructure suppliers should be
configured in the same way, adding to the complexity of interaction. NEs must
be configured with many QoS functions, such as admission controller, policy
manager, shaper, queue manager and scheduler. To configure these heterogeneous
networks to provide expected QoS, the operator needs a management solution
satisfying the following high-level requirements:
l Automation of management tasks
l Centralized management to reduce the types of management interfaces
l Abstracting and simplifying the management data
l End-to-end network provisioning
l Consistent and unified provisioning over all NEs
l To allow interoperation between the NE and the OSS, a standard-based
solution is needed
l Scalability of the solution for large networks
1. QoS policy
provisioning on the NML layer
The QoS policy provisioning on the NML
layer serves to provide network-level operation support for network-wide policy
management points. It includes the following functions:
l To be the user interface for the network policy maintenance
l To be the master network policy base to store all the network
policies of all domains
l Capability to assign policy data to the EML policy server
l To detect global policy conflicts
The policy base adopts the LDAP-based
directory to store the policy information.
2. QoS policy provisioning on the EML layer
The QoS policy provisioning on the EML
layer provides NE management function for the policy management point of the
network domain. A domain refers to a network section that contains devices used
to implement logic-related functions. Among network domains are the access
network, the core network and the transmission network.
QoS policy provisioning on the EML layer provides
the following functions:
l To be the optional user interface for the policy maintenance of the
EML layer
l To be the particular policy base of the EML layer
l To assign the policy data to the policy decision point
l To detect local policy conflicts
It is clear that the optional EML-level
user interface for policy maintenance is necessary on the small networks
without network-level policy provisioning support system.
It should be noted that the EML-level
policy base includes the policy used in this domain, as well as the general
network policy across domains.
3. Policy Decision Point (PDP) and Policy Enforcement Point
(PEP)
The Policy Decision Point (PDP) is the
point to determine the policy of the policy enforcement point under the
network’s control. So, the PEP is a function in the network node, while the PDP
may be an independent functional entity that resides in a standalone policy
server (like the application server). The PDP will make decisions according to
the policy information in the policy base.
The Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) is the
functional part of the network element that implements the policies defined in
the policy management system. It includes the following functions:
l To store the data related to the local policy
l To enforce the policy according to the network conditional command
l To support the policy mechanism of differential services
At the beginning, the PED will request the
PED of its parent node to download all the policy data necessary for the
operation.
4. QoS monitoring
In the 2.5G/3G
network, the QoS monitoring functionality is intended to collect/process such data
as performance statistics, utilization data and QoS-related faults. For end-to-end
QoS monitoring, the QoS monitoring process should be included in the NE, the
network element management layer and the network management layer. Alarms and
performance data are collected at the NE layer, while the convergence, reporting
and analysis of alarm data and performance data are performed at the network
element management layer and the network management layer.
The process of QoS monitoring provides the
following functions:
l To manage QoS fault information from NEs
l To query QoS performance data from NEs
l To collect and process utilization data
l To analyze the key QoS parameters to generate a QoS report
l To audit/analyze the collected QoS parameters by comparing them with
the expected values.
In fact, the above service features
required in the 3G NMS may not be provided at a specific service layer. To deliver a
specific service feature, several layers or even various networks must work
together, share information and invoke services among one another, to develop
an integrated solution. The principle of 3G network construction is to build an open,
multi-layer and highly scalable network with an integrated architecture.
