Achieving interoperability in synchronous digital hierarchy network management through RM-ODP

Ever since the introduction of computerized digital switching systems and related management systems, network operators have been struggling with the question of how to circumvent the issues of customized and proprietary network management solutions. This topic became of paramount importance to network equipment manufacturers and telecommunications service providers with the advent of the SDH and TMN standards in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is in the context of this problem that the authors and their colleagues, as telecom standards experts, discovered the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). This paper describes the approach taken by the authors and their colleagues to use RM-ODP to these issues in the ITU-T study groups, how those efforts were applied and the relevance of RM-ODP to current computing systems based on the concepts of Cloud Computing. This paper thus describes “real-world” business needs that have been addressed by and illustrate the benefits of RM-ODP.

► Rigidly partitioning functionality works against optimal distribution. ► Interoperability can be achieved using object-oriented specifications. ► Only the specifications of the objects' functional interfaces is required. ► Employing ODP viewpoints lead to appropriate levels of abstraction. ► ODP viewpoints are relevant to specifying cloud computing architecture.