application is expected to automatically discover the resources and their attributes through a manage- ment channel. These applications will either communicate directly with the network resources or collect information using element managers. Most discovery modules will first get a status of the components or elements in the network and then drill down to get further details on the subcomponents of the discovered components. After discovery, the status of the discovered components and subcomponents are monitored using these applications. The status information collected is used by the inventory man- agement solution to reconcile its data. 52. Network testing management: These applications ensure that the network elements are working properly. Testing management is associated with both the fulfillment and the assurance process. In fulfillment, after provisioning and configuration of the network, the testing management module is invoked to verify if the configuration is as expected and to confirm sanity of the net- work for activating the service. In the assurance part, the network testing management application does fault isolation and correction. An automatic test can be triggered as part of troubleshooting to fix a bug. Most test management applications support automatic and manual test initiation. The testing application should be able to execute test cases, interpret the test results, store the results obtained and notify other applications on the test results. 53. Element management: These are applications that connect to the network ele- ments to collect management data. It can be used to perform FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security) management func- tions on the network element. Network management system will connect to multiple element managers. That is on the southbound interface the element manger interacts with the devices being managed and on the northbound interface element managers interact with network and service management solutions. These applications fall in the EML