Information Systems
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Contents 7 A data flow approach to interoperability, Guest editorial, Tor M Jansen 3 Arve Meisingset 52 Overview, Arve Meisingset 4 8 The draft CCITT formalism for specifying human- machine interfaces, Arve Meisingset 60 1 CHILL – the international standard language for telecommunications programming, 9 The CCITT specification and description language – Kristen Rekdal 5 SDL, Astrid Nyeng 67 2 Human-machine interface design for large systems, 10 SDL-92 as an object oriented notation, Arve Meisingset 11 Birger Møller-Pedersen 71 3 Reference models, 11 An introduction to TMN, Ståle Wolland 84 Sigrid Steinholt Bygdås and Vigdis Houmb 21 12 The structure of OSI management information, 4 Formal languages, Astrid Nyeng 29 Anne-Grethe Kåråsen 90 5 Introduction to database systems, 13 Network management systems in Norwegian Ole Jørgen Anfindsen 37 Telecom, Knut Johannessen 97 6 Software development methods and life cycle 14 Centralised network management, models, Einar Ludvigsen 100 Sigrid Steinholt Bygdås and Magne Jørgensen 44 15 The DATRAN and DIMAN tools, Cato Nordlund 104 16 DIBAS – a management system for distributed databases, Eirik Arne Dahle and Helge Berg 110 17 Data design for access control administration, Arve Meisingset 121 Telektronikk Editorial office: Telektronikk Norwegian Telecom Research Volume 89 No. 2/3 - 1993 P.O. Box 83 RESEARCH ISSN 0085-7130 N-2007 Kjeller, Norway Editor: Editorial board: Ola Espvik Ole P Håkonsen, Senior Executive Vice President Tel. + 47 63 80 98 83 Karl Klingsheim, Vice President, Research Bjørn Løken, Vice President, Market and Product Strategies Feature editor: Arve Meisingset Graphic design: Tel. + 47 63 80 91 15 Design Consult AS Editorial assistant: Layout and illustrations: Gunhild Luke Gunhild Luke, Britt Kjus, Åse Aardal Tel. + 47 63 80 91 52 Norwegian Telecom Research 1 Guest editorial BY TOR M JANSEN 681.3 This issue of Telektronikk is sell to the lowest prices. The concerned with software for same will happen to basic telecommunications applications. software, which will be modul- Since the early sixties, it has been arised with standard interfaces. clear to all involved in both the This will lead to the same computer industry and the telecom- situation we have in the computer munications industry that computer industry today, with hundreds and technology will inevitably become hundreds of competing and, rela- the basis of telecommunications tively speaking, small companies. equipment and services. What was The challenge is to plan the not foreseen was the enormous network and implement the ser- challenge of making this happen. vices in a cost effective way. We will at the same time see more There are three main areas where international co-operation, and computer technology is now also a more competitive and applied. The first is in the network closed attitude of the actors in the elements. The second area is business. operation and maintenance of the network and the services. Thirdly, For Norwegian Telecom Re- customer support and customer search, it is important to have service is an area of great competi- a long term perspective, a med- tive concern. ium term view, and also produce results that are useful in the pre- In the very early days of telecom- sent situation. This means that we munications, the limited number of have to watch the whole area of subscribers and the limited number and simplicity of the ser- informatics, but concentrate our work in selected areas. vices, i.e. telephone and telegraph, made it possible for an operator to handle most problems that emerged, such as network Presently, we give special attention to management and special services to the customer. The size of - Strategies for the use of information technology the operation was such that it could easily be handled manually. Today, in a world with many and complex and evolving ser- - Languages, methods, and tools, both for system design and vices, hundreds of millions of customers, booming traffic, and human interface design fiercely increasing competition in new and old markets, the - Database technology, especially aspects of real time per- situation has changed dramatically. Computer technology, formance, reliability, ease of application design, distribution especially software, at present seems to be the only way to cope and maintenance with the problems and challenges. - Standardisation of methods and languages for the use in The network itself is a good example of the role of computers Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) and also and software. Previously, all functions relevant to communi- harmonisation with service creation and provisioning (IN) cations resided inside the network elements, be it for maint- - Implementation of computer based systems for optimal enance or service provision. The network elements, i.e. switches network planning. and transmission equipment, limited by their design, controlled what could be offered to the customer. The cost and lifetime of As a conclusion to this introduction, the importance of being telecom systems were such that introduction of new services competent in informatics is becoming more and more obvious. and improvement of old services by necessity had to be slow. This issue addresses fields that are being worked on by The first “improvements” came with digital switching and Norwegian Telecom Research now. However, we are aiming at digital transmission in the sixties and seventies. When computer a moving target. Awareness of the main areas of importance is programmers tried to design communications systems, and essential, and future needs will be the guideline for the prioritis- telecom engineers tried to program computers, the results were ing. invariably bad. After these first experiences, one realised that the problem area had to be approached much more systemati- cally and proactively. It is often said that in the future, there will be fewer telecom equipment and systems suppliers world-wide than the scarce dozen we have today, because of the cost and complexity of developing new generations of systems. My view is different. With increased standardisation, the hardware will be bought from vendors who can manufacture most effectively, and thus 3 Overview BY ARVE MEISINGSET This issue of Telektronikk will provide both basic and new - (6) How to carry out and control software development is knowledge about information systems. We bring knowledge addressed by development methods and life-cycle models. which we believe is important, but we do not aspire to give a Different views on the software development process, complete or representative overview of all relevant topics. characteristics of conventional and non-conventional software development and interests to be supported, are some of the The magazine is organised into two sections; an overview issues in this overview article on software development met- section introducing central topics, and a technical section going hods and life-cycle models. into more detail about various topics. The numbers used refer to the article numbers in the contents list. The technical section of this magazine goes into more technical detail than the articles of the overview section. The technical The overview section addresses the following issues: section is divided into three subsections: - (1) In the first article, ‘the father of CHILL’, Kristen Rekdahl, - The first subsection presents work on formal languages going puts software development for telecommunication into on in the ITU – the International Telecommunication Union – perspective. He surveys the status and history of the CHILL Study Group 10 (Languages and Methods). (7) The first programming language and gives a short introduction to the article provides a theoretical background for and extensions language and its programming environment. to the HMI reference model. (8) The second article introduces and explains the formalism of the Data Oriented HMI Speci- - (2) Software is only valuable in so far as it is valuable to its fication Technique. (9) The third article introduces the Speci- users. The software and data are made available to the users fication and Description Language, SDL. (10) The fourth via the Human-Machine Interface (HMI). The author puts article presents its object oriented extension OSDL. We are forward some doubts about current metaphors for HMIs, he proud to observe that Norway has given key contributions to presents a new framework for work on HMIs and outlines the many areas of SG10 work. challenges involved. - The second subsection presents Telecommunications Network - (3) Even if current software systems are becoming very large, Management (TMN). (11) The first article provides an current development techniques are mainly addressing pro- overview of the TMN functional architecture and introduces gramming on a small scale rather than programming of very its basic terminology. (12) The second article introduces the large systems. In fact, the area of architecture for information notions of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) Manage- systems is poorly developed. Therefore, we present this intro- ment information model. (13) The third article provides an ductory article on reference models for software systems. overview of most network support systems in Norwegian - (4) At the core of automatic information systems lies the Telecom. (14) The last article presents key database appli- notion of formal languages. Formal languages are used to cations for central network management in Norwegian instruct the computer what to