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Abstract
A Model-Driven Approach to Facilities Management
Track: Telecommunications
Author(s): Thomas Counts
Learning objectives:
1. Define simple and complex facility models.
2. Review model creation.
3. Compute efficiencies of model-driven data.
Facilities management on a GIS has long been considered a graceful method of simply documenting the network of equipment creating the user's inventory. Facilities have historically equated to simple graphical objects with intelligence conveyed to them through links to one or more database records. "Rules," or behavior characteristics, were either hard-coded connectivity and symbology sets or other database driven characteristics. Manipulation and management of these facilities have been at best a quagmire of cross-referenced database tables or, at worst, hard-coded inflexible facility components. Leveraging Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) techniques to develop intelligent facility models creates a new paradigm in facility placement. The challenge in OOP facility management to date has been the ability to create flexible facility objects that no longer require a fundamental understanding of OOP development skills. With a model-driven approach, not only can facilities management on the GIS be much more than a drafting tool for the network engineer, it can evolve into a design tool for the entire network operation by creating intelligent facility objects and moving beyond placing generic facilities and attempting to "educate" those facilities at time of placement.
Thomas Counts
Telcordia/MESA Solutions
7800 Highway 20 West
Tower Building, 4th Floor
Huntsville, AL 35807
USA
Phone: 256-864-0400
Fax: 254-864-0251
E-mail: tcounts@mesahq.com