Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Object Management and OSI Systems Management: A Technical Guide to IEC 10164-1-95
Understanding the Systems Management Object Management Function Standard for TMN and CMISE Networks
1. Scope of IEC 10164-1-95
IEC 10164-1-95, formally aligned with ITU-T Recommendation X.701 and the ISO/IEC 10164-1:1995 standard, specifies the Object Management Function for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Systems Management. This standard is fundamental to the management of network elements, providing the framework for creating, deleting, retrieving, and modifying managed objects in a distributed environment. It defines the application context, services, and protocol required for a managing system (manager) to interact with a managed system (agent) and its Management Information Base (MIB).
Harmonized Standard. IEC 10164-1-95 is technically identical to ISO/IEC 10164-1:1995 and ITU-T X.701. Implementations against any of these texts are directly interoperable.
2. Technical Requirements and Core Concepts
The standard is built upon the Manager-Agent paradigm. The core technical requirements mandated by IEC 10164-1-95 include support for specific Common Management Information Service (CMIS) primitives, the definition of filtering and scoping, and the synchronization of multiple operations to manage the lifecycle of managed objects.
2.1 Object Management Services (OMS)
IEC 10164-1-95 defines how the generic CMIS services are applied to the lifecycle of managed objects within the MIB.
| Service | CMIS Primitive | Functional Description |
|---|---|---|
| Create | M-CREATE | Creation of new managed object instances within the Managed Information Base. |
| Delete | M-DELETE | Deletion of existing managed object instances. |
| Get | M-GET | Retrieval of attribute values from selected managed objects. |
| Set | M-SET | Modification of attribute values in selected managed objects. |
| Action | M-ACTION | Invocation of a defined operation on a managed object. |
| Event Report | M-EVENT-REPORT | Notification from the agent to the manager regarding a managed object event. |
| Cancel Get | M-CANCEL-GET | Aborting a previously issued M-GET operation. |
Implementation Tip: When implementing the M-CREATE service, the agent must verify the existence of the Managed Object Class (MOC) definition and respect the containment tree permissions defined in the naming schema per IEC 10164-1-95.
2.2 Filtering and Scoping
A major technical requirement introduced by this standard is the ability to operate on multiple objects efficiently.
- Scoping: Defines the subtree of the Management Information Tree (MIT) upon which the operation is to be performed (e.g., the base object, the n-th level subordinates, or the entire subtree).
- Filtering: A boolean expression (CMIS Filter) composed of attribute value assertions (AVAs). Only objects within the scope that match the filter will have the operation performed.
Performance Warning: Complex filtering and deep scoping can lead to significant processing overhead on the agent system. Implementations must handle the M-CANCEL-GET service gracefully to mitigate lock-ups during large management operations.