Network Working Group L. Andersson
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Intended status: BCP H. van Helvoort
Expires: September 30, 2011 Huawei Technologies
R. Bonica
Juniper Networks
D. Romascanu
Avaya
S. Mansfield
Ericsson
March 29, 2011
"Guidelines for the use of the OAM acronym in the IETF"
draft-ietf-opsawg-mpls-tp-oam-def-08.txt
Abstract
At first glance the acronym "OAM" seems to be well known and well
understood. Looking at the acronym a bit more closely reveals a set
of recurring problems that are revisited time and again.
This document provides a definition of the acronym OAM (Operations,
Administration, and Maintenance) for use in all future IETF documents
that refer to OAM. There are other definitions and acronyms that
will be discussed while exploring the definition of the constituent
parts of the OAM term.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 30, 2011.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. OAM and O, A and M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. OAM as a Functional Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. The Acronym Broken Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.1. O in OAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2. A in OAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.3. M in OAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Recommendations on the use of the OAM Acronym . . . . . . . . 7
4. Recommended Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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1. Introduction
The main purpose of this document is to provide a definition of the
OAM acronym such that it is useful for the IETF.
The acronym OAM is frequently used in the data and telecommunication
industry. One would assume that something that is so widely used is
very clearly defined. However a closer look reveals some points that
need to be clarified.
The examples below show a number of different ways that the OAM
acronym has been expanded in previous documents.
o OAM = Operation, Administration, Maintenance
o OAM = Operations, Administration, Maintenance
o OAM = Operations, Administration, and Maintenance
o OAM = Operations, Administration, Management
o OAM = Operations and Maintenance
o OAM = Operations and Management
o O&M = Operations and Maintenance
o O&M = Operations and Management
o O&M = OAM and Management
Sometimes there is a fourth letter added to the acronym:
o OAM and P = Operations, Administration, Maintenance and
Provisioning
If such an important piece of our technology is so poorly defined, or
if there are dialects of the technology with different understandings
of such a key concept, this will eventually cause problems.
Trying to understand the use of an acronym that is as "content-rich"
as OAM reveals two levels of complexity. First, each letter in the
acronym represents an integrated piece of functionality; secondly the
acronym as such represents something that is more than just the sum
of its parts.
There is also the issue of how each piece of the acronym is defined.
This document provides an analysis of how each piece of the acronym
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is defined and provides possible interpretations of the acronym.
Finally a recommendation for the interpretation of the OAM acronym is
provided.
Another useful document to make the OAM term understandable in a
wider scope is found in An Overview of Operations, Administration,
and Maintenance (OAM) Mechanisms [I-D.ietf-opsawg-oam-overview].
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2. OAM and O, A and M
2.1. OAM as a Functional Unit
Operations And Maintenance (OAM): A group of network management
functions that provide network fault indication, performance
information, and data and diagnosis functions. ATM OAM ITU-T I.610
[ITU-T-I.610] is an example specification that uses this expansion of
the OAM acronym.
Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM): A group of network
management functions that provide network fault indication, fault
localization, performance information, and data and diagnosis
functions. Examples where this acronym is used are Clause 57 of IEEE
802.3-2008 [IEEE.802.3-2008] and ITU-T Y.1731 [ITU-T-Y.1731].
The ITU-T M.3010 [ITU-T-M.3010] Recommendation defines operations
systems function as a function block that processes information
related to the telecommunications management for the purpose of
monitoring/coordinating and/or controlling telecommunication
functions including management functions (i.e., the TMN
(Telecommunications Management Network) itself).
The Metro Ethernet Forum refers to OAM as the tools and utilities to
install, monitor and troubleshoot a network, helping carriers run
their networks more effectively MEF 17 [MEF-17].
2.2. The Acronym Broken Up
2.2.1. O in OAM
The O in the OAM acronym invariably stands for "Operations".
However there is some ambivalence in the definition and scope of the
term "Operation".
Examples of tools related to "operations" are performance monitoring
tools used for service level agreement (SLA) measurement, fault
management tools used to monitor the health of nodes and links in the
network, and network provisioning tools.
2.2.2. A in OAM
The A in the OAM acronym stands for "Administration".
Examples of "administration" tools are network discovery and planning
tools.
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2.2.3. M in OAM
In the list above the M in the OAM acronym stands for "Maintenance"
or "Management".
Maintenance and Management may have different interpretations.
Maintenance is defined further in Section 3, while Management is a
broader term applicable to many functions applied to the network as
described in Section 3.
Since these terms have different interpretations, it is not a good
idea to use them interchangeably. This document defines the "M" in
the OAM acronym to mean Maintenance.
Examples of "maintenance" tools are implementations of connectivity
check, loopback, link trace, and other tools that can be used to
monitor and diagnose failures in a network or network element.
The Recommendation ITU-T M.20 [ITU-T-M.20] defines maintenance as the
whole of operations required for setting up and maintaining, within
prescribed limits, any element involved in the setting up of a
connection (see the ITU-T M.60 [ITU-T-M.60] Recommendation). The
purpose is to properly plan and program the maintenance operations
required to establish and maintain a network.
A major aim of the concept of maintenance is to minimize both the
occurrence and the impact of failures and to ensure that in case of a
failure the correct actions are taken.
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3. Recommendations on the use of the OAM Acronym
In Section 4 the recommended acronyms are listed. This section gives
some background on the definitions provided.
"Mgmt" will be used if an abbreviation for "Management" is needed.
This draft does not define Management. It is noted, however, that an
important part of management functionality relates to tools to report
the state of the network.
The OAM acronym is to be used for "Operations, Administration, and
Maintenance", excluding provisioning.
OAM tools and protocols, and the "Management space" are complementary
in nature. Management focuses on FCAPS (Fault, Configuration,
Accounting, Performance, and Security) functionality and on manager
(or NOC (Network Operations Center)) to device (or network)
interaction.
From an architecture point of view OAM protocols and tools deployed
in the data plane tend to be "horizontal", i.e., network element to
network element. The management protocols tend to be "vertical",
i.e., between management stations and network elements.
The components of the OAM acronym (and provisioning) are defined as
follows:
o Operations - Operation activities are undertaken to keep the
network (and the services that the network provides) up and
running. It includes monitoring the network and finding problems.
Ideally these problems should be found before users are affected.
o Administration - Administration activities involve keeping track
of resources in the network and how they are used. It includes
all the bookkeeping that is necessary to track networking
resources and the network under control.
o Maintenance - Maintenance activities are focused on facilitating
repairs and upgrades - for example, when equipment must be
replaced, when a router needs a patch for an operating system
image, or when a new switch is added to a network. Maintenance
also involves corrective and preventive measures to make the
managed network run more effectively, e.g., adjusting device
configuration and parameters.
"Provisioning" is outside the scope of this document, but the
following definition is provided for completeness.
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o Provisioning - Provisioning activities involve configuring
resources in the network to support the offered services. This
might include setting up the network so that a new customer can
receive an Internet access service.
In general, Provisioning is used to configure the network to provide
new services, whereas OAM is used to keep the network in a state that
it can support already existing services.
Sometimes it is necessary to talk about the combination of functions
and tools supplied by OAM and Management, it is preferred that this
is spelled out as "OAM and Management". In cases where an acronym is
needed O&M should be used.
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4. Recommended Acronyms
OAM - Operations, Administration, and Maintenance
O&M - OAM and Management
"Mgmt" - Management
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5. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
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6. Security Considerations
This document provides guidance for the use of the OAM acronym in
other documents. This document does not have direct security
implications.
Misunderstanding of an acronym may lead to incorrect specification or
implementation which may, in turn, open up security concerns with
protocols or deployed networks. Clarifying the meaning of OAM is,
therefore, a benefit for future stability of specifications.
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7. Acknowledgments
The following individuals significantly contributed to this document.
o Malcolm Betts from M. C. Betts Consulting Ltd.
o Kam Lam from Alcatel Lucent
o Dieter Beller from Alcatel Lucent
o David Harrington from Huawei Technologies
Thanks to the experts of ITU-T SG 15 for their review and comments.
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8. Informative references
[I-D.ietf-opsawg-oam-overview]
Mizrahi, T., Sprecher, N., Bellagamba, E., and Y.
Weingarten, "An Overview of Operations, Administration,
and Maintenance (OAM) Mechanisms",
draft-ietf-opsawg-oam-overview-03 (work in progress),
January 2011.
[IEEE.802.3-2008]
IEEE, "Information technology - Telecommunications and
information exchange between systems - Local and
metropolitan area networks - Specific requirements - Part
3: Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection
(CSMA/CD) access method and physical layer
specifications"", IEEE Standard 802.3, December 2008.
[ITU-T-I.610]
International Telecommunication Union, "B-ISDN operation
and maintenance principles and functions", ITU-
T Recommendation I.610, February 1999.
[ITU-T-M.20]
International Telecommunication Union, "Maintenance
philosophy for telecommunication networks", ITU-
T Recommendation M.20, October 1992.
[ITU-T-M.3010]
International Telecommunication Union, "Principles for a
telecommunications management network", ITU-
T Recommendation M.3010, February 2000.
[ITU-T-M.60]
International Telecommunication Union, "Maintenance
terminology and definitions", ITU-T Recommendation M.60,
March 1993.
[ITU-T-Y.1731]
International Telecommunication Union, "OAM functions and
mechanisms for Ethernet based networks", ITU-
T Recommendation Y.1731, February 2008.
[MEF-17] Metro Ethernet Forum, "Service OAM Requirements &
Framework - Phase 1", MEF Technical Specification MEF 17,
April 2007.
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Authors' Addresses
Loa Andersson
Ericsson
Email: loa.andersson@ericsson.com
Huub van Helvoort
Huawei Technologies
Email: hhelvoort@huawei.com
Ron Bonica
Juniper Networks
Email: rbonica@juniper.net
Dan Romascanu
Avaya
Email: dromasca@avaya.com
Scott Mansfield
Ericsson
Email: scott.mansfield@ericsson.com
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