2. Version controlling: The NMS solution and the network it manages will have multiple software applications running in them. Maintaining the version Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS information of these applications is essential to modify or upgrade the appli- cations. Version controlling is an integral part of the support activity associ- ated with the network and its management solution. 3. Utilization and capacity planning: Underutilized elements are reallocated or reconfigured by interacting with the inventory management, provisioning, and configuration management applications. It is also possible that the plan- ning applications collects information that shows nonsuitability of a particu- lar element and need for an upgraded version of software or new hardware to offer service as per the SLA. In such scenarios the planning application will send notifications to the intended audience on the capacity actions to be performed. 12.7 Conclusion There are multiple modules in an NMS application. Some vendors supply individual modules for managing specific network management functionality while other ven- dors provide functions as a fully functional NMS bundle. From a holistic telecom perspective, the network is just a resource or set of resources that operate to offer a telecom service. Hence resource management in the eTOM process model includes network management. This chapter uses the resource management functionalities given in eTOM to discuss functional modules that make up a complete NMS pack- age. Only a few of the NMS functions are discussed with the intension of giving the reader a clear picture of what NMS is and how it is different from an element management solution that can manage a set of elements. Process-to-process interac- tions on how the different NMS modules interact is also discussed to show how the NMS modules can be implemented as independent components in line with SOA (service oriented architecture) and integration of open source components that will be discussed later in this book unde