Company Profile
Motorola is a global leader in providing integrated
communications solutions and embedded electronic solutions. Motorola's
Network Solutions centre in Cork develop cellular network management
systems which include features such as fault management, alarm and event
management, configuration management, performance management, operator
administration and security.
Situation
Motorola already had an existing UNIX based system in use by
customers for some time. The decision was made that all new systems would be
developed using WindowsTM
in order to take advantage of the
platforms many benefits including usability , reduced Total Cost of
Ownership, and integration with desktop productivity tools such as
Microsoft Office.
Solution
Without experience in Microsoft technologies, Motorola turned to
outside help in the prototyping, requirements specification, analysis,
architecture, design and development of their new Network Management
System.
Measuresoft, a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider, was a major contributor
to the project from the very start. Measuresoft engineers were part of the team
that created the overall system architecture, project framework and selected the
technologies to be used:
Subsequently, individual Measuresoft engineers were responsible for the design
and development of particular key areas of the system. Measuresoft continues to be
involved in the evolution of this major project.
The N-tier architecture started off as a simple 3-tier architecture:
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Presentation - GUI applications and client side support components.
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Business – Logical objects, business
rules, system versioning, services, relationships, etc.
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Data – Data and event source abstraction layer.
However, as the design was refined, we found it beneficial to add extra tiers,
particularly in the lower presentation tier and throughout the business tier in
order to isolate tiers above from features of the lower tiers. The system also
supports ‘plugging in’ new components at specific tiers in order to dynamically
add new features to the system. The system is also ‘meta data driven’, which
allowed new device types to be supported by simply describing the new device in a
meta-data file.
GUI applications leverage a variety of technologies including ActiveX Controls,
ActiveX Document Architecture, DHTML and scripting. The business tier allows
applications to focus on presentation and hides the complexities of multiple data
sources, multiple event sources, business rules and services, security, versioning,
etc. The data tier hides differences between many different data source and event
source technologies, both standard and proprietary (e.g. ODBC, OLE-DB, SNMP, CMISE,
OSP).
The system was developed using Microsoft's DCOM technology for component-based
systems. It is fully scalable, as the architecture allows modules to be placed on
either the same server or split across multiple servers at deployment time. COM
also helps to make the system extensible as new components can be added to the
system. One new feature currently in development is a logging feature using MSMQ
(Microsoft Message Queue) to ensure that all logs are guaranteed to reach the log
server even if the server or connection is broken for an interval. MSMQ also helps
prevent the logging feature from impacting the main server’s performance, even when
networks are busy and / or the logging needs to do extensive log processing.
Benefits
Originally intended for use with the GSM standard, this system has
been successfully extended to manage GPRS networks, and is being
considered for management of 3rd generation mobile networks such as
UMTS. It is a feature of the innovatively designed N-tier architecture
that the system can be so readily extended to support new networks as
they emerge.
This system has helped to position Motorola as a leader in Mobile Network
Management Systems and ready to quickly embrace 3rd generation technologies as
they roll out. Measuresoft continues to work closely with Motorola providing
hi-tech network management solutions for mobile networks.
Network Management System
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Navigator - provides overall context
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Map - physical location and connected equipment
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Alarm Window - describes the problem, person responsible and status of problem
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Tabular View - details of equipment on the network
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Forms - display and edit of parameters on equipment
