A Network Management Platform adaptable to CIM Model evolution

Network Management application developers are facing the challenge of the constant evolution of the information model used by the applications and the escalation of the functionalities the applications need to fulfill. The main problem is to introduce the new functionalities or new services on the platform in an efficient, cost-effective, and flexible manner. The difficulty is to minimize the impact on the already developed core software and applications. This paper proposes a framework allowing the evolution of the network management platform to adapt to the changes occuring during the Platform life cycle. The proposed platform framework is based on the CIM information model and its PCIM extension. The framework allows to extend the platform capability and enables an automatic validation while elimating the need to write adaptation code. We present the platform framework in the case of the policy manager. We illustrate how the platform can easily evolve to incorporate the new classes corresponding to the new services using the example of the Virtual Private Network (VPN) policy management.