ility and resiliency. Over the last several decades, the application of computer technology to network operations has achieved productivity gains that have supported the explosion of growth in wireline and wireless data network traffic. Network provisioning includes planning, engineering, and implementation. Over the last 20 years, the planning horizon has become smaller due to the faster pace of technology and service innovation. In the 1970s and 1980s, long-range network planning (also called fundamental network planning) would look at the next 20 years to determine appropriate plans for the evolution of the network. Today, the fundamental planning cycle is much shorter, focused on 6-8 years out. Current network planning provides estimates of the quantities of network elements in the next 1-3 years and, even with this shorter planning horizon, it is difficult to predict how user demand and technologies of the future might impact the growth in demand on network elements. A recent example is the introduction of the first smart phone in 2007, which led to a 100,000% increase in data traffic on AT&T's wireless network over a 7-year period. Network administration ensures that network elements are used efficiently and deliver on predefined service objectives. In order to administer a network effectively, it is critical to have data on network traffic, equipment, software, and the performance of the services that end users consume, for example, voice, data, and messaging services. Most of the data required are obtained through automated systems, although service performance data are the least mature. Performance management can be either proactive or corrective. Performance metrics are defined for services and network elements and are monitored continuously. Time series data are evaluated to identify existing performance degradations and to determine whether there are trends that could lead to performance degradation. There are both manual and automated processes to handle a performance degradation. If the root cause i