Lewis, David Edward; (2000) A framework for the development of service management systems for the open service market. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Preview

Text out.pdf Download (16MB) | Preview

Abstract

An open market in telecommunication services requires standard management interfaces to ensure interoperability between the operational support systems of the increasing number of market players generated by liberalisation. In addition, increased competition between these players heightens the needs for the rapid, cost-effective development of telecommunication management systems. Service Management bridges the gap between the network management activities of a service provider and its customer care activities and overall business aims. Systems implementing service management functions, therefore, must be well integrated with other service and management systems in the same and different administrative domains. However, service management suffers from a lack of standards for suitable architectures and technologies, as well as being exposed to the varied and volatile requirement imposed by a highly competitive and fluid services market. A common Development Framework for Service Management Systems (SMS) therefore needs to accommodate a range of architectures and technologies. The main benefit of a common development framework, therefore, may be in the development of a common development methodology. For a common methodology to be usefully and widely applied it must support the requirements of the main stakeholders in service management system development, namely SMS developers, the vendors of commercial off-the-shelf software these systems may use and the developers of the interface standards to which they may conform. This thesis evaluates a variety of techniques for their suitability for a common development methodology that address the interactions and commonalities between development processes within the different stakeholder types. The techniques evaluated include those suggested in existing TMN recommendations, those using Open Distributed Process principles and those from existing general-purpose object-oriented analysis and design methodologies. The evaluation is based both on a review of the previous application of these techniques to management system development and to their application in a series of SMS development case studies in which the author was involved. Some of the latter case studies introduced a level of empirical evaluation absent from previous studies. The result of the evaluations is the validation of specific techniques, namely, Use Cases, the Unified Modelling Language, the Analysis Modelling and Component Facades concepts developed originally by Ivar Jacobsen and the integration of Business Process and Role Modelling techniques during requirements analysis. A common methodology is described in terms of UML meta-models for integrated Business Requirements Modelling and specialisation on the facade construct, termed a Projection. These are presented with examples and descriptions of how they may apply to the development processes of the different stakeholders. In addition, compatible, but loosely prescribed architectural guidelines are provided.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item