scope:

The present document addresses the requirements of network and service providers of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cross connected networks for managing the fault alarms associated with the Virtual Path (VP) connections, which span several administrative ATM domains. These requirements are satisfied by the use of a standardized interface (the "X-interface") between Operation Systems (OSs) belonging to different Public Network Operators (PNOs). The present document describes the X-interface VP alarm management area covering the following aspects: - the Management Services (MS) and Management Functions (MF) needed that provide the necessary alarm messages for faults detected within ATM Connections which span several administrative domains; - the management information crossing the X-interface. This management information specification uses the Guidelines for the Definition of Managed Objects (GDMO) formalism, described in ITU-T Recommendation X.722 [2]. The present document has been named as "ATM VP alarm management" because it is expected to be part of a comprehensive fault management standard for ATM VP and Virtual Channels (VCs) in due course. As such it is self-sufficient for the defined scope of reporting faults on, and recovery procedures for, VPs across the X-interface.