Position Statement for the Joint EMANICS / IRTF-NMRG Workshop on Future Direction of Network and Service Management Research Network Management Research Centre, NMRC Ericsson Ireland BACKGROUND The Ericsson portfolio of Telecom Management systems provide advanced tools for efficient management of GSM, WCDMA, & CDMA radio networks, core networks both circuit switched and packet switched, service networks, transport networks and so on. The network management functionality is developed based on our expertise in network technologies and in network operations. Ericsson is the largest provider of Telecom Management systems worldwide. Ericsson is a large-scale user of network management systems as part of its managed services business. The role of the NMRC is to provide Ericsson with network management architectures, concepts, applications and competencies of strategic importance to secure long term product and service offerings in the Network Management domain. MANAGED DOMAIN Managed networks of all types are increasingly characterised by their inherent and growing complexity. First, there is growing complexity introduced by the move to a packet based (IP) infrastructure and the proliferation of different access types and technologies. The increasing number and types of nodes and information, the high rate of change and diversity of network technology types, and continuing fixed-mobile convergence provide a challenge to today's management systems. The scale of managed networks is set to increase significantly as customer premises equipment and even terminals comes into the scope of management. Second, there is service complexity today that did not exist in the past. Rapid introduction of new services aided by the advent of IMS puts high demands on the service delivery and service assurance organizations of operators as they strive to ensure a high quality of service. As service delivery often extends over several different networks, the demands of provisioning, management and quality control become more complex and difficult to manage. Third, there is more complexity in the business conditions and environment, as competition hardens and price pressure increases. Ericsson considers that, as the networks, services, and business needs become more fragmented and more complex, competitive advantage will accrue through advanced and flexible management systems and applications which are scalable, robust, and largely autonomous. FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT RESEARCH The Ericsson NMRC believes that network management systems must evolve to become more scalable, flexible, open, self-configurable (on network level), autonomous, reliable, robust, and easier/more intuitive to operate. In order to achieve this goal, we identify the need for distributed management as being critical. We further identify the following research domains as having priority for investigation and exploration in the next 5 years: o Distributed Data Management Systems o Discovery o Openness and Flexibility o Scalability o Reasoning and Learning o Automated Deployment o Network and Data Visualization o Self Managing Systems o Information Modelling o Security o Real Time Distributed Data Access o Information Categorization o Closed Loop Management