The Service Management layer is concerned with management of those aspects that may directly be observed by the users of the telecommunication network. These users may be end users (customers) but also other service providers (administrations). Service Management builds upon the management information that is provided by the Network Management layer, but does not `see' the internal structure of the network. Routers, switches, links etc. can therefore not directly be managed at Service Management level.
Examples of functions performed at the Service Management layer are:
The notion of Service Management can be regarded as the most valuable contribution of TMN and other management frameworks, most notably the Internet management framework, may take advantage of this idea and extend their management frameworks with this notion.