A METHOD OF MANAGING ONE OR MORE SERVICES PROVIDED OVER A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

摘要

Service providers such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other communications service providers are faced with increasing management proble ms as use of their services becomes more popular. Service level agreements (SLA s) are typically drawn up between a customer such as an enterprise, and a servi ce provider and these SLAs set out the definitions of the service that the provider agrees to give. Different classes of service such as premium rate and best effort services may be provided by service providers and this adds to management complexity. A formalised model or representation system is described for representing information about services such as information from service lev el agreements and definitions of classes of service. This formalised model is then mapped onto a model of a communications network in order to determine a relationship between the services and the communications network. The determined relationship is then used to assist negotiation of service level agreements; to automatically generate configuration details to enable services provided on the network to meet SLA commitments; and to automatically configure operations support systems, such as fault and performance monitoring systems.