s the systems used to support the daily operations of the service provider. These include business sup- port systems (BSS) such as billing and customer management, service operations such as service provisioning and management, element management, and network management applications. In the layered management approach, BSS corresponds to business management and OSS corresponds to service management, while the network level operation support is done using a network management system and individual resources are managed with an element management system. The same terminology is used in the title of the book to explain the different layers of telecom management that are covered in this book. Fundamentals of EMS, NMS, and OSS/BSS completely covers on the basics of telecom resource and service management. This book is designed to teach all you need to understand to get a good theoretical base on telecom management. The book has four sections: Element Management System, Network Management System, Operation/Business Support Systems, and Implementation Guidelines. The first section covers element management system in detail. Initial efforts in xviii Preface managing elements to the latest management standards are covered in this part. The second section deals with the basics of network management; legacy systems, management protocols, standards, and popular products are all handled in this part. The third section deals with OSS/BSS, covering the process, applications, and interfaces in the service/business management layers in detail. The final section gives the reader implementation guidelines to start developing telecom manage- ment solutions. This book is dedicated to my beloved wife for her patience and consistent sup- port that helped me a lot in completing this book. I would like to thank the product engineering team at Infosys for giving me numerous engagements in EMS, NMS, and OSS/BSS space with a variety of telecom clients in multiple countries that went a long way in giving me the knowledge to write this book. 