ticket needs to be raised for tracking or for informing the customer about an event related to performance. Network data collection and distribution: Performance management module relies on the data collection and distribution module for its operation. The performance data first should be collected from the network elements by the data collection module before it can be analyzed by the performance manage- ment module. The reports generated by the performance modules using the collected data would be distributed to external OSS/BSS applications using the distribution module. QoS management: Performance management has a direct impact on the qual- ity of service. While QoS is a term used in the service level, performance is mostly used when discussing the network layer. Degradation of performance from a resource would in most cases impact the service that the resource fulfills. The QoS itself depends on a set of network level KPIs that can be monitored by the performance management (PM) module. So the QoS module interacts and collects valuable data from the PM module. It can also request the PM module to collect records on specific performance parameters from the NE or create customized reports that the QoS management module can work on. NMS Functions Network configuration management: One of the functions of the perfor- mance management module is to control performance parameters. This might require configuration changes in the network resources including reconfiguring of the elements. Performance variables can also be collected by configuration module as attribute values during an audit or discovery operation. Some NMS solutions display resource attributes when they are discovered and represented in GUI. These attributes are updated with cur- rent status during an audit operation or from asynchronous event notifica- tions as logs. Some of these attributes can indicate performance and hence these performance variables do not need a bulk report download to get the current status. Network planning and development: The