Network working group T. Tsou
Internet Draft Huawei Technologies
Intended status: Informational October 19, 2009
Expires: 30 April, 2010
Network configuration problem statement
draft-tsou-network-configuration-problem-statement-00
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Abstract
In LTE (Long Term Evolution) bearer network, there will be a large
number of network elements and service tunnels which will bring a lot
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of configuration work. The cost will be very high if all these work
is performed manually.
In order to reduce the workload of configuration to minimum, the
following questions should be considered:
o How to establish the DCN (Data Communication Network) connections
automatically to avoid making configuration locally?
o How to establish the DCN connections automatically between
different vendors' network elements or how to pass through
different service providers' network?
o How to get network element and link information of the real
network based on the information from network planning?
o How to generate configuration scripts to setup network and service
links automatically in order to reduce configuration design
workload.
LTE is a typical scenario which involves large number of network
elements and service tunnels. Other scenarios like IPTV may also have
network configuration problems discussed in this document.
This document discusses problems related to lightening network
configuration workload and better transmission tunnel setup between
network elements and NMS (Network Management System).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................2
2. Conventions used in this document............................3
3. Configuration problems.......................................3
3.1. Configuration workload in LTE scenario..................3
3.1.1. Remote configuration................................5
3.1.2. Automatic generation of network configuration........5
4. Security Considerations......................................6
5. IANA Considerations.........................................6
6. References..................................................6
6.1. Informative References..................................6
7. Acknowledgments.............................................7
1. Introduction
The mobile network will evolve to LTE obviously. In LTE phase, the
number of base stations will be ten times more than 3G. Following
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this, constructing LTE network will take a lot of efforts due to the
large numbers of base stations and bearer network elements. SON is
considered in 3GPP to lighten this work [1]. To support SON, the
bearer network should be setup first to provide required service
links.
Several issues of configuration in the existing network constructing
should be considered:
o It takes a lot of work to design the configuration scripts for the
large amount of network elements, which will often bring
occasional mistakes.
o Some of the base station's address and links can not be acquired.
So the network topology often changes from what is planned, and
the pre-designed configuration scripts of the network elements
need to be changed in network deployment phase.
o Without DCN connection, the initial configuration scripts can only
be input locally or use MODEM/CF cards, which involve large amount
of manual work.
o The manual work cannot avoid mistakes which will cause failure of
network.
This document provides two problem statements related to minimizing
the network configuration workload.
2. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119.
3. Configuration problems
3.1. Configuration workload in LTE scenario
In a typical LTE network scenario, there will be up to 16000 base
stations, 20000 network elements and up to 200K service tunnels.
In the existing configuration method, the configuration related work
includes:
o The engineer design of the configuration scripts of each element.
o The arrival time of engineers to the place of network elements.
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o The engineer check of the network elements and links based on
network planning.
o Change of the configuration scripts by the engineer when network
topology changes unexpectedly.
o The configuration scripts input to the network elements.
After network is configured and the network element is connected to
NMS, the service tunnels can be configured from NMS. Configuring
service tunnel from NMS is already defined which is not included in
this problem statement.
The workload of network configuration in this typical scenario is
estimated and shown in figure 1.
+-----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+---------+
|Project |Config. |Arrival time|link |Temporary |Config. |
| |design |of engineer |check |change of |input |
| | | | |Config. | |
+-----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+---------+
|work load |30min/ |60min/site |10min/ |30min/ |10min/ |
| |device | | device |device |device |
+-----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+---------+
|People |Senior | |skilled |Senior |Skilled |
|requirement|engineer | |engineer|engineer |engineer |
+-----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+---------+
|Total |30*20000 |20000*60 |10*20000|30*20000* |10*20000 |
|workload |=600000 |=1200000 |=200000 |0.3=180000|=200000 |
+-----------+----------+------------+--------+----------+---------+
Figure 1 Workload of network configuration in LTE scenario
The workload of arrival time of engineer to the network elements
occupies 51% of total and configuration design of the device occupies
33% of total. Instead of local operation, remote operation is
valuable for device or link check and configuration input to avoid
manual configuration in the locale. It is also very important to
reduce the large workload of device design and temporary
configuration change which takes 33% of all the workload and requires
senior engineers. The auto configuration based on network topology
and service model is important to be realized to reduce the
workload of network configuration.
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3.1.1. Remote configuration
There are three questions to be solved for remote configuration:
o It takes a lot of work to design the configuration scripts for the
large amount of network elements, which will often bring
occasional mistakes.
o Some of the base station's address and links can not be acquired.
So the network topology often changes from what is planned, and
the pre-designed configuration scripts of the network elements
need to be changed in network deployment phase.
o Without DCN connection, the initial configuration scripts can only
be input locally or use MODEM/CF cards, which involve large amount
of manual work.
The network elements usually connect to NMS by in-band NMS channel
because the separate DCN is expensive. In the existing method, the
engineer should make some configuration manually before the network
elements connect to NMS. For example, the configuration may include
creation of interfaces, IP address assignment of the interfaces and
network elements, routing protocols enable on these interfaces and
assignment of parameters for the routing protocols.
After the above configuration is finished, the routing protocols will
take effect. Following this, the in-band NMS connection will be setup
which connects the network elements to NMS. To minimum the workload,
manual configuration should be avoided.
In addition, the network may be composed of different vendors' device,
and the in-band NMS connection may pass through different service
provider's network. How to setup in-band NMS connection which passes
through different vendors' equipments and different service
provider's network is also important.
Before remote configuration, the engineer should check the real
network topology which includes equipment and link information from
network planning. The problem we should consider is how to get
equipment and link information and sending to NMS.
3.1.2. Automatic generation of network configuration
To reduce the workload of configuration scripts design by senior
engineers, it is very important to generate network configuration
automatically. Though there are many devices and service links in LTE
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network, the topology and the service type in access and aggregation
network is simple.
Some network planning tools can generate configuration scripts, but
there are also many changes during network constructing which results
in invalid scripts and the engineer should design it again. If the
real network topology is available, e.g. equipment and link
information, the configuration scripts for the real network'
equipment can be generated, which will reduce the workload and avoid
mistakes from manual configuration.
The network elements needed for network design may include:
o service type (e.g. L3 VPN/L2 VPN),
o routing protocol (e.g. OSPF/ISIS) and,
o IP addresses and etc.
The topology elements may include:
o Role of the device including name and type
o Port of the device, i.e. connection
o Connection of the device at user side and etc.
4. Security Considerations
It is possible that there are security issues with the problems
stated above, e.g. the tunnel between NMS and network elements needs
mutual authentication before the tunnel is finally setup.
5. IANA Considerations
None.
6. References
6.1. Informative References
NGMN "A Requirement Specification by the NGMN Alliance: NGMN
Recommendation on SON and O&M Requirements", December 2008.
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7. Acknowledgments
Data on network configuration workload of LTE scenario was estimated
by Weihua, CHI.
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Authors' Addresses
Tina Tsou (editor)
Huawei Technologies
Section F, Huawei Industrial Base
Bantian Longgang, Shenzhen 518129
P.R. China
Phone: +86 755 28972912
Email: tena@huawei.com
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