 layer of the TMN model. The element manager can manage one or more network elements. It discovers the man- aged elements and routing audits the status of the elements. The EMS is used to execute commands on the network elements as part of network provision- ing, where the individual elements in the network need to be configured to interoperate and offer a service. 54. Customer query knowledge base: These applications are intended to help the customer support professional to efficiently handle the customer queries. Customer query solutions have a centralized knowledge base with details of Management Applications common customer queries that can be referred using links and search utilities to identify how to troubleshoot a problem. These applications support work- flows to assign customer complaints to the appropriate help desk when the user makes a call. Tracking of the status of a customer complain can be done with these applications. To achieve this functionality the support solution interacts with trouble ticket management solution. It is quite common to have the solution offered from a Web portal through which customer issues can be submitted and the central knowledge base can be accessed. Some of the functionalities in this solution will be available in an integrated customer relationship man- agement solution. 55. Traffic monitoring: These applications are used to identify potential conges- tion in traffic over the network. Identifying a possible congestion helps to route traffic appropriately to avoid an actual congestion. The traffic moni- toring solutions usually interact with the configuration modules doing traf- fic control and with inventory modules to allocate resources to fix traffic problems. Most traffic monitoring solutions are not limited to identification and analysis. The corrective action to fix a problem is either suggested by this solu- tion to the operator or a predefined set of actions is executed to fix a potential congestion. The corrective actions are applied based on resource utilizat