Telecommmunications demonstrators

The SODA telecommunications demonstrators are related to PMR (Professional Mobile Radio) networking systems and equipment, in particular those commercialised by EADS Secure Networks. They also involve participation of Bull Evidian, with its OpenMaster network and system management platform, and the support of SOGETI based on its implementations of the WS-Management protocol.
Two demonstrators are provided; one pertains to network management applied to PMR networking equipment, the other to PMR terminal management.

Network management demonstrator
The PMR network is made up of different types of networking gear, including devices like base stations and switches. These devices have been DPWS-enabled, some natively, some through DPWS proxies. The devices use heterogeneous platforms, in terms of operating systems and programming languages. Therefore, both the C-based and the Java-based DPWS stacks are used, whilst some devices will also use a C#-based stack.
All management interactions take place through the WS-Management protocol that complements DPWS. The generality of WS-Management allows all categories of management functionality to be supported, according to the FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, security) model. The resources managed through WS-Management are described using XML Schema definitions. Thus, the management functionality remains entirely platform-agnostic, which greatly eases the task of integrating a new type of equipment into an existing management infrastructure. The present demonstrator does indeed show the interoperability between heterogeneous implementations.
As illustrated in the figure shown below, DPWS’s plug-and-play discovery capability is used for dynamically discovering the devices to be managed. Since network management takes place on a dedicated wide-area network, multicast discovery messages can travel long distances without incurring a performance penalty.

Terminal management demonstrator
Thus far, a PMR terminal is usually configured from a remote controller connected via proprietary communication links and protocols. At the terminal side, these communications are subject to real-time constraints.
For its next generation of PMR terminals, EADS prefers using standard communication links ? in particular, Ethernet over USB ? and protocols ? in particular DPWS for configuration purposes and RTP for audio traffic. Here again, platform-neutrality is beneficial: the terminal uses the C-based DPWS stack running on top of a real-time Linux OS, whilst the remote controller uses the Java-based DPWS stack operating in an ordinary Linux environment. The C-based DPWS stack proves to stand the real-time constraints of this particular environment.
In this context, DPWS’s plug-and-play discovery mechanism favours application simplicity. More generally, the use of standardized communication protocols introduces a degree of openness thus far unheard of in this particular domain; it may indeed pave the way for the emergence of a new market where third-party applications enrich the manufacturer’s base platform.

The PMR terminal demonstration was shown at the ITEA/ARTEMISIA Symposium in October 2008.