ridula Parihar, and Meeta Gupta. TCP/IP Bible. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. 4. Laura A. Chappell and Ed Tittel. Guide to TCP/IP. Kentucky: Course Technology, 2001. 5. Candace Leiden, Marshall Wilensky, and Scott Bradner. TCP/IP for Dummies. 5th ed. New York: For Dummies, 2003. Chapter 30 File Handling This chapter is about the file transfer that is a common method of data exchange. Performance and other data records are collected in the network elements at regular intervals and stored in files. These files in the network elements needs to be trans- ferred to the OSS solutions for analysis and plotting the data in the records in a user-friendly manner. File transfer protocol (FTP) is the most common protocol used for transfer of files across systems. This chapter introduces the reader to file handling concepts and the use of FTP in file transfer. 30.1 Introduction The transfer of files from one system to another is provided by the application layer protocol called FTP. This means that FTP can be used in telecom manage- ment solutions for file transfer between agents running on network elements and management server. FTP involves a client-server based interaction. FTP avoids the common problems present during a file transfer and favors easy file transfer by taking care of: a. The difference in the file name conventions between two systems. b. The difference in directory structures. C. The difference in representing text and data. Using TCP services, FTP establishes one connection in port 20 for data transfer known as the data connection. This connection can be used to transfer different types of data. It establishes another connection in port 21 for the control informa- tion like commands and responses known as the control connection. A line of Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS User interface Control Control connection Control process process TCP/IP Data transfer Data transfer process process Data connection Client Server Figure 30.1 Client-server model in file transfer. command or response line is transfe