The Network Trouble Ticket Data Model (NTTDM)

Handling multiple sets of network trouble tickets (TTs) originatingfrom different participants inter-connected network environments posesa series of challenges for the involved institutions, Grid is a goodexample of such multi-domain project. Each of the participants followsdifferent procedures for handling trouble in its domain, according tothe local technical and linguistic profile. The TT systems of theparticipants collect, represent and disseminate TT information indifferent formats. As a result, management of the daily workload by acentral Network Operations Centre (NOC) is a challenge on its own.Normalization of TTs to a common format for presentation and storingat the central NOC is mandatory. In the present document we provide amodel for automating the collection and normalization of the TTreceived by multiple networks forming the Grid. Each of theparticipants is using its home TT system within its domain forhandling trouble incidents, whereas the central NOC is gathering thetickets in the normalized format for repository and handling. XML isused as the common representation language. The model was defined andused as part of the networking support activity of the EGEE project(Enabling Grids for E-sciencE).