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TL1 Interface Design Services for NMA and Transport

Network Element Providers (NEPs) that are preparing to enter the Telcordia OSMINE process often find themselves learning well into their products’ development cycle that a TL1 interface is required. This requirement alone can significantly delay a NEPs entry into the RBOC marketplace, especially if other management protocols like SNMP or CORBA are already in development. The redirection of resources to design and build a TL1 interface is not trivial as knowledge of TL1 is not ubiquitous. In addition, NEPs are faced with trying to build a TL1 interface to meet the needs of the RBOCs and the interface requirements of Telcordia OSSs. Many NEPs do not understand how typical RBOCs will manage their equipment on a day-to-day basis using Telcordia OSSs. Telcordia NEP Consulting Services can help.

Where Does an NEP Start?

Telcordia OSSs base their implementations on a number of key public-domain documents that can be ordered from Telcordia. These documents are:

  • GR-831-CORE - Defines structure and syntax for TL1 messages
  • GR-199-CORE - Contains TL1 messages supporting Memory Administration, including configuration management
  • GR-833-CORE - Defines TL1 surveillance messages
  • GR-835-CORE - Contains TL1 security management messages
  • SR-1665 - Operations System Generic Transport Network Element Interface Support

These documents are significant in size and require knowledge of TL1 and how Telcordia OSSs such as the Telcordia NMA and Transport OSSs will use the TL1. Further, many of the newer technologies including optical technologies including PON and DWDM, and Ethernet are not covered in these documents. So, extrapolations and vendor-specific extensions of these TL1 commands are needed to address newer technologies.

It is estimated that these documents will get most NEPs about half of the way in designing their TL1 interface. NEPs often find the remaining 50% of the design to be a difficult road with many unknowns. For example, NEPs often wonder:

  • How well will Telcordia OSSs interoperate and deal with new commands defined by an NEP,
  • Whether their AID structure is defined in a way to enable logical and hierarchical understanding of the entities that need to be managed and their relationships
  • About the importance of required TL1 commands and parameters and what flexibilities can be afforded the NEP in interfacing to Telcordia OSSs
  • About the impact of taking short cuts and deviating from the aforementioned documents to minimize impacts on NEP design and costs.

How Can Telcordia Help?

Telcordia can address these typical NEP questions by designing the TL1 interface for an NEP based on product requirements or derive it from other protocol interface models that have been developed by the NEP (e.g., SNMP, CORBA). This can be a complete outsourcing of the TL1 interface design or a design review of the NEP’s TL1 interface design.

Specifically, Telcordia can help an NEP with their TL1 interface design in the following areas:

  • TL1 AID structure (including use of delimiters)
  • Assignment of alarm severities
  • Definition of alarm attributes and condition types
  • Provisioning, surveillance, and performance monitoring commands
  • Restructuring and combining of TL1 commands
  • Message syntax
  • State management model
  • Autonomous messages
  • TL1 message command behavior
  • Error codes

Business Benefits

NEPs can benefit in the following ways through Telcordia’s TL1 design services:

  • Reduction of design-to-deployment costs and time frames, particularly if the NEP contracts with Telcordia for design services early in their product life-cycle
  • Minimization of "speed bumps" and "show stoppers" during the OSMINE interoperability process
  • Access to experts who understand the status and applicable of network management standards in industry forums
  • Help NEPs’ interpret complex Generic Requirements (GR) documents that define generic TL1 message and extend and customize them to support the functionality of the NEPs while still meeting the needs of Telcordia OSSs.

Telcordia Qualifications

  • "Wrote the book" on management interface design, including TL/1, SNMP, and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) protocols.
  • Expertise and knowledge to support product design, implementation, and interoperability testing across both legacy and next-generation network technologies
  • Significant experience in writing GRs and client-specific requirements on TL1 (e.g., GR-199-CORE, GR-833-CORE) to meet the management needs of RBOCs networks
  • Knowledge and experience with both traditional and emerging technologies
  • Track record of successfully integrating traditional and NGN networks and system

For More Information

Please consult the following Telcordia contact for further information relative to TL1 design.

Ernie Bayha
Telcordia Technologies
Director, Operations Solutions Consulting
732-758-5657
ebayha@telcordia.com