Telecommunication management; Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Integration Reference Point (IRP) study
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is gaining acceptance in the IS/IT industry. It promises to manage change [1], automate and simplify IT processes [1], optimize implementation [2], maximize (implementation) flexibility and scalability [3], facilitate integration beyond the enterprise (between companies, between partners and customers)  [4], simplify development [5] and maintenance; etc.
IRP (Interface Reference Point) is the predominant standard for wireless network management since 2000. 3GPP developed it with 3GPP2 close collaboration. IRP architecture follows closely with that defined by ITU-T TMN work [6]. Besides publishing the IRP specifications, 3GPP also publishes its IRP methodology (e.g., the guidelines, templates on how to develop, maintain and publish IRP specifications). Today, the IRP specification methodology is being shared and jointly evolved and maintained by consortium of SDOs, such as ITU-T.
We note that the principles of SOA are currently being applied to the field of network management [11,12,16,17].
The purpose of this document is to analyse the IRP architecture and to provide a "gap analysis" on what enhancement is needed for the current set of IRP specifications such that it can claim to have the full set of characteristics of SOA.