An open signaling system over VIVID ATM switches.

Abstract

With the endeavor for "open distributed" network software architectures, some new issues, such as "network programmability" and "open signaling", are raised. With the support of Distributed Object Computing (DOC) technology, such as CORBA, it is possible for the communication network to be exploited as a "programmable entity", in which not only the software components but also the hardware resources are to be programmed as "objects" with well defined interfaces. Since the low-level hardware resources are also wrapped with "programmable" software interfaces, the service creation and deployment can be done in a high-level, as well as in a consistent manner, by simply interconnecting (or binding) a set of computational objects. In terms of easier service creation and deployment, the connection management service can be seen as the basis within broadband networks. Based on the above paradigm, when the interfaces for the control and management of the transport network elements are available, the resource control and management of the transport network can be simply performed by binding the transport network objects. This is so called "open signaling" approach. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)