Operations, Administration and Management (OAM) includes the following five broad functionalities for any service and transport infrastructure

As Ethernet technologies made their way into the Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) and the Wide Area Networks (WAN) from the conventional enterprise level usage, they are now widely being used by service providers to provide end-to-end connectivity to customers. Such service provider networks are typically spread across large geographical areas. Additionally, the service providers themselves may be relying on certain internet backbone providers, referred to as “operators”, to provide connectivity in case the geographical area to be covered is too huge.