Teleca - OSS for Network Operators - Mentions Service Robots - Apr02

8/8/2019 Teleca - OSS for Network Operators - Mentions Service Robots - Apr02

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OSS Solutions for Network Operators

white paper, 2002


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oss white paper_c.doc

WHITE PAPER

Prepared: Lars Andersson April 2002 For open distribution

Approved: Doc. No. B001834 Rev. C

OSS Solutions for Network Operators white paper 2002


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Contents

1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 6

1.1 About the document....................................................................................................... 6

1.2 The content .................................................................................................................... 6

1.3 About the intended reader.............................................................................................. 7

2 Multi-Service Networks___________________________________________________ 8

2.1 Market background ........................................................................................................8

2.2 The broadband multi-service network ........................................................................... 9

2.3 The services and applications ...................................................................................... 10

2.4 The access technologies............................................................................................... 11

2.5 The backbone network................................................................................................. 14

2.6 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 14

3 The realm of OSS_______________________________________________________ 15

3.1 Overview......................................................................................................................15

3.1.1 TMN architecture .............................................................................................15

3.1.2 The TMForum process map.............................................................................. 17

3.1.3 Our summarised view....................................................................................... 18

3.2 Element Managers ....................................................................................................... 20

3.3 Planning and Administration ....................................................................................... 22

3.3.1 General ............................................................................................................. 22

3.3.2 Inventory Management..................................................................................... 22

3.3.3 Workforce Management ................................................................................... 23

3.3.4 Decision Support .............................................................................................. 23

3.4 Service Provisioning.................................................................................................... 243.4.1 General ............................................................................................................. 24

3.4.2 Order Managers................................................................................................ 25

3.4.3 Workflow systems ............................................................................................ 25

3.4.4 Provisioning engines......................................................................................... 26

3.4.5 Network Provisioning....................................................................................... 26

3.4.6 Summary........................................................................................................... 26

3.5 Service Assurance........................................................................................................ 28

3.5.1 General ............................................................................................................. 28

3.5.2 Alarm handling................................................................................................. 28

3.5.3 Performance Management ................................................................................ 29

3.5.4 Trouble Ticketing Workflow......................................................................... 30

3.5.5 End-to-end monitoring; Service Robots ........................................................... 30

3.5.6 Summary overview........................................................................................... 31

3.5.7 Service Level Management .............................................................................. 31

3.5.8 Policy-based Networking.................................................................................. 32

3.6 Billing.......................................................................................................................... 33

3.6.1 General ............................................................................................................. 33

3.6.2 Architecture overview ...................................................................................... 33

3.6.3 Mediation.......................................................................................................... 34

3.6.4 Micro-payment ................................................................................................. 35

3.6.5 Rating and Billing............................................................................................. 36

3.6.6 Interconnect Billing.......................................................................................... 37

3.6.7 Sample configuration........................................................................................37

3.7 Customer (Self) Care (CRM)....................................................................................... 39

3.7.1 General ............................................................................................................. 393.7.2 The products ..................................................................................................... 40

3.8 Integration Framework ................................................................................................ 41


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3.8.1 General ............................................................................................................. 41

3.8.2 The total solution ..........................................................................................41

3.8.3 Point-to-point integration ................................................................................. 41

3.8.4 Integration Framework ..................................................................................... 42

3.8.5 Current experiences .......................................................................................... 44

4 Market analysis ________________________________________________________ 45

4.1 Technology & standards .............................................................................................. 45

4.2 ISVs............................................................................................................................. 46

4.3 Systems Integrators......................................................................................................46

4.4 Equipment Suppliers.................................................................................................... 46

5 Recommendations ______________________________________________________ 48

5.1 Select your OSS strategy ............................................................................................. 48

5.1.1 Own development............................................................................................. 48

5.1.2 The total solution ..........................................................................................485.1.3 Best-of-breed products ..................................................................................... 49

5.1.4 Integration Framework & Solutions ................................................................. 49

5.2 Define your partner strategy ........................................................................................ 50

5.3 General hints................................................................................................................50


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About the author and the company

Lars Andersson has been active in the IT industry since 1970, and he has been working for AU-

System since 1983. He currently holds a position as CTO at the OSS competence center within the

Teleca group. He can be reached via email [email protected].

In February 2002 AU-System merged with Teleca. The merger creates one of Europe's leading

high-end consulting groups focused on new technology and R&D. The group has more than 2,200

employees in 13 countries, with a strong presence in the Nordic region, UK and France.

Teleca is a world-class supplier of software engineering services for advanced systems, electronic

equipment and applications. Our business concept is to strengthen our customer's market position

and time-to-market. This is achieved by providing professional teams with specialist technical

expertise, working in partnership with development-intensive companies worldwide.

Teleca is listed on the O-list of the Stockholm Exchange.

Copyright statement

2002, Teleca AB, Stockholm, Sweden

All rights reserved. This document is protected by copyright.

No part of this document may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written

authorisation by Teleca.


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1 Introduction

OSS means Operations Support Systems. It will be used throughout this document to denote allthe support systems required to run a Network Operator business, including the Business Support

Systems (BSS).

A Network Operator we define to be a Communication Service Provider who has a network

infrastructure and provides multiple services on top of that. It could be a transport network, a

fixed-line access network of any kind or a mobile 2/2.5/3G mobile network. We also believe that

most of the OSS issues raised in this white paper are relevant to Service and Content Providers,

without any infrastructure of their own. However, these actors face a simpler task, since they only

manage services and IT infrastructure, and some of the products described in the document are not

relevant for them.

This is a white paper covering the area of OSS. The purpose is to give a tutorial on the subject and

to describe some of the trends that we are observing. Furthermore the document provides an

overview of most of the market leading products around, and makes an attempt to position them in

relation to each other. The document aims to answer questions like:

What is OSS all about, what functional scope does it cover?

There are so many products around, and they all seem to do just everything. What is the truth,

and which product do I need for what purpose?

What is happening in the industry, and how do I avoid falling in the pitfalls that are already

discovered by others?

How do I relate to all the players in the industry the Equipment Suppliers, the Independent

Software Vendors and the Systems Integrators? Who does what?

Finally a set of recommendations on how to define an OSS strategy is given for the target

organisation the Network Operator.

1.1 About the document

This white paper was produced during the Q1 2001 time frame. It comprises information of

various types and from different sources:

Material from traditional OSS-related standards and industry fora, ITU (TMN), IETF (SNMP)

and TMForum.

The observations from the OSS industry during the past 10 years.

Personal judgements from the author are interspersed throughout the text.

Product positioning is performed based on information collected from the web and during

meetings with product company representatives.

To summarise, the sources vary, and they as well as the interpretations may not always be entirely

correct. And even if it was correct at some time, it may have become obsolete quickly. So please

accept this document to be what it is a subjective snapshot of the OSS world. If you as a reader

want to forward your views and corrections to the author, please do, they may be included in an

updated version!

1.2 The content

The document is comprised of the subsequently numbered sections:


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1. This is the beforehand introductory section.

2. Here we attempt to describe what a Multi-Service Network is, and what services that are

normally provided on top of it.

3. This is the main section. It is a tutorial on what we believe OSS is all about. By describing themain Network Operator processes, and how they interrelate to each other, and giving samples

of the most widely used products on the market, we aim to give a state-of-the-art crash course

in OSS.

4. In this section we summarise the generic trends we are currently observing in the industry,both from a technical perspective and for each type of player.

5. Finally, we give a set of recommendations for the target organisation, the Network Operator.

1.3 About the intended readerThe intended reader of this document is the senior architect or technical manager (CTO) at the

Network Operator, who is responsible for some or all areas of OSS. Presumably the reader also

has an impact on business and service development and the IT support required to accomplish it.

The reader is expected to be familiar with the acronyms and the jargon commonly used with the IT

and OSS community.


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2 Multi-Service Networks

The communications industry is moving towards a world where we can communicate anywhereand anytime. It is a world where we can be always on , without the hassle of waiting to be

connected. It is a world where easy and effortless communications, based on mobility and

personalized services increases quality-of-life, productivity and enables a more resource efficient

world through freedom of choice. This vision of a communicating world implies drastic

developments in telecommunication technologies, infrastructures and services.

The emerging broadband multi-service networks and 3G enabled mobile networks will create

exciting new possibilities. Users will get faster and more convenient access to services and

applications, helping them to enlighten and entertain them and to become more productive. Service

Providers will get much more effective channels to reach the most attractive part of their customer

base with new services and applications. They also face the challenges of changing business logic

and intensified competition.

The scope of this document is the emerging broadband multi-service networks IP-centric

(Internet Protocol) networks with fixed and wireless (broadband) access and high-bandwidth real-

time service capabilities.

2.1 Market background

The communications industry is on the verge of a fundamental transformation. By the middle of

this decade the Mobile Internet and broadband multi-service networks will be global mass-market

phenomenon. They will have become the dominant paradigms for all further mainstream

development of electronic communications.

This transformation will come as a result of a number of communication megatrends.

The phenomenal growth of mobile telephony and its expansion from voice services to the

Mobile Internet that will bring the Internet into the pocket of the user and create a new world

of personalized, info-centric, always-on and always-with-you services.

The extraordinary growth of the Internet and IP services and applications.

The large volumes of new mobile telephones and devices shipped every year more than 500

million in 2001 and wireless enabled communicating PCs, cars and appliances; bringing ever

more powerful communicating devices in the hands and the homes of the users.

The compelling case for B2B e-business.

New technologies and standards enabling affordable broadband access and, eventually, all-IP

multi-service networking.

Network convergence, moving from vertically integrated single -service networks to open,

horizontally layered, IP-centric multi-service networks.

Intensified competition and specialization driven by deregulation and globalization.

These trends are driven by the large investments in current and future business opportunities

enabled by the rapid development of digital technologies. Technology is and will always remain

the great enabler. But the success of new technologies will be entirely dependent on the industry s

ability to create devices and services that are embraced by the users. Thus, the ongoing

transformation also involves a shift to an increasingly user driven market place.


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2.2 The broadband multi-service network

Up till now the communications networks are autonomously implemented, and each type provides

a different set of services, as illustrated in figure 1 below:

TodaysTodays SolutionsSolutions

CATV

CellularMobile

Data(FR,etc..

)

PSTN/ISDN

Mobile

Figure 1; Todays networks providing different services

The architecture for the next generation networks is described in figure 2 below. Here we find a

number of horizontal network layers, each with a distinctly unique purpose. We also find that the

connectivity service is separated from the end-user services.


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Multi- service Core Network

Servers

Connectivity

Applications/Content

Communicationapplications &control

Clients

Mobile CATV

OtherIP/Multi- Service

Networks

OtherTelephonyNetworks

Fixed

Mobile data

Mobility

Mobiletelephony

Telephonyservices

VoIP

Telephony

PMR/SMR

Messaging Positioning

Access

AccessAccess

Figure 2; The architecture for next generation networks

The broadband multi-service network corresponds to the fixed parts of the network, i.e. the fixed

access, the backbone network and the related service control and media gateways. However, from

an OSS perspective we can include the wireless access network also.

2.3 The services and applicationsBroadband multi-service networks will be capable of supporting a wide range of services:

High Speed Internet access

From the users point of view, High Speed Internet access is the early defining service of the

(fixed access) broadband multi-service network. From a transmission technology point of view,

broadband is most commonly defined as 1.5 to 2 Mbps or more.

Dial-up Internet access

Dial-up Internet access originating from PSTN/ISDN circuit switched access, will be an important

service in all broadband multi-service networks involving migration from legacy telephonynetworks.

Classical telephony

Classical telephony will for a long time remain a key service because of its large user base

revenues. Service providers with a large customer base in classical telephony will hesitate to risk

the integrity of their service. Nevertheless, over time users will increasingly migrate to mobile and

IP telephony alternatives for their voice communications.

IP telephony

The early successes of IP telephony have been based on cost and pricing advantages derived from

uneven regulations rather than inherent technology efficiencies. Nevertheless, IP telephony willsuccessively grow its share of the telephony service market.


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Increasing investments in development of IP technology and services will enable the new,

multimedia based IP telephony services to mature and benefit from economy of scale. This will in

turn enable service providers to move to multi-service network platforms and offer attractively

priced separate or packaged IP telephony services.

Access to mobile services

First-feet radio technologies such as Bluetooth and WLANs provide a means to connect devices

wirelessly to network access points in homes, offices and suitable public places. These open

possibilities for service providers to cost effectively extend the market for and usage of mobile

services, by means of IP tunneling through fixed access multi-service networks. The benefit for

users would be the convenience of using one s personal mobile devices and services also when

physically stationary in such locations.

Mobile networks like GSM 2G, 2.5G and 3G enable users to seamlessly access telephony and

Mobile Internet services throughout the world.

Video and other streaming services

Broadband multi-service networks will open up new means for access and distribution of

streaming services such as broadcast and interactive video, radio programming and music, etc. An

example is Personal TV ,i.e. a flexible personal selection of channels and programs from a much

larger base of channels than what is normally available to the consumer over cable or satellite.

Such services will be among the most demanding in throughput and traffic loading of the network,

thus requiring appropriate feature for efficient handling. They will also require powerful, yet

simple tools for consumers to conveniently select and control channel or program viewing.

Application services and access

Application Service Providers (ASPs) is a new industry set to take off and grow, very much

enabled by and in synergy with broadband multi-service networks. It is also an example of a

business that some existing service providers are interested in expanding into to be able to offer

packages of application and access services to enterprises.

Leased lines, Frame Relay and IP-VPNs

Existing Leased Line and Frame Relay services can be expected to remain for a considerable time

as many enterprises will not replace their end equipment just to change connectivity service.

Broadband multi-service networks can carry such legacy site-to-site connectivity services over

ATM.

IP-VPNs (Virtual Private Networks)are becoming an attractive alternative. IP-VPNs basically

provide tunneled connections through IP networks. The main benefits brought by IP-VPNs are the

availability of global connectivity, shorter TTS (Time To Service)and a better potential for price

reductions, as IP is in the mainstream of investments and development.

Enterprise access & local services

SMEs and enterprise branch offices typically require a mix of many service types. A straight-

forward solution is an enterprise access router interfacing the intra-site facilities with service

provider IP services.

2.4 The access technologies

Mobile networks like GSM 2G, 2.5G and 3G enable users to seamlessly access telephony andMobile Internet services throughout the world.


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There are also a number of different technologies capable of providing broadband access to

enterprises and residential users. Each of the technologies have their main field of application,

based on how their respective characteristics fit with different service provider situations and

target customer communication demographics. Thus the different technologies complement each

other to enable different types of service providers to compete.

Fiber to the office

Fiber systems with SDH/SONET are already widely used in both incumbent and new access

providers access networks. The typical applications are:

fiber to the office, to larger enterprise sites,

access network feeder and transport in metropolitan areas, providing a platform for the use of

other technologies for the subscriber drop.

The penetration of fiber systems in access networks will increase over time driven by the rapidoverall growth of bandwidth demand. Fiber will be driven by its near limitless bandwidth enabling

service providers to do a single physical installation/construction, and then handle the growth

through CPE changes. Some service providers will want to own their own transport facilities;

other will specialize in the role as carriers, offering both dark and lit fiber and other transport

services.

DSL

DSL covers a number of technologies for broadband access over existing copper cables.

Asymmetric solutions, ADSL, provide higher bandwidth downstream than upstream. Primarily

intended for residential use, the technology typically enables up to 8 Mbps downstream, and up to

about 1 Mbps upstream, both depending on distance and copper cable quality. In practice, standard

services typically offer lower speeds for consistency and reach.

Symmetric High speed solutions, SHDSL, are primarily intended for SOHOs and SMEs. The

introduction of a global standard, g.shdsl, should fuel a rapid build-out as local loop unbundling

opens up for competition in the copper access area.

VDSL provides Very high bandwidth and is considered for two applications, residential access and

extended Ethernet reach in campus and building networks Residential users will benefit from a

capacity enabling delivery of multiple digital video streams.

VoDSL refers to the technology enabling voice services to be transported over a DSL network

access by means of with ATM cells or IP packets. The functionality is implemented in a Voice

Gateway and a terminal supporting data access plus a number of voice lines.

As a technology for providing broadband access over existing copper cables, DSL is an obvious

alternative for incumbent operators. However, with local loop unbundling, giving other service

providers access to the copper, interest in DSL is no longer strictly limited to the incumbents. DSL

has now started to be deployed as a mass-market broadband access solution.

Cable modems

Cable modems is the alternative for cable operators to offer High Speed Internet access, IP

telephony and other services. They can thereby expand their business and increase revenues.

DOCSIS standard cable modems is now a rapidly growing market in North America. Europe is

lagging behind, partly because of a more unclear standards situation.

Cable modems typically provide a bandwidth of about 10 Mbps downstream and a couple of Mbps

upstream. As cable basically is shared medium, throughput per user depends on how many are


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using the network. When cable network becomes fully loaded capacity can be extended by

partitioning.

Fiber to multiple tenant buildings

State-of-the-art IT and communication facilities are increasingly seen as a competitive factor in

housing and city development. By providing a local broadband communication infrastructure,

property developers can increase the attractiveness of their property to tenants; residential as well

as SOHOs and SMEs. The infrastructure can also carry IT support for housing services, such as

security, energy management and key handling.

Fiber is a competitive alternative to provide broadband access to the buildings of such clusters of

residential and enterprise users. The last drop inside the buildings to the individual flats or offices

would typically be Ethernet over copper or fiber. Fiber is becoming economically feasible with

new low cost installation techniques, in particular, when considering future needs for very high

bandwidth services, such as video.

Wireless broadband access - LMDS

LMDS (Local Multi-Distribution Systems) are wireless high capacity point-to-multi-point

systems, typically operating in frequency bands in the 20-45 Ghz range. Wireless broadband

systems of the LMDS type are a suitable alternative for:

mobile operators looking to expand into fixed access business services, and

access providers moving into new markets with broadband business services.

Wireless broadband access BWLL

BWLL (Broadband Wireless Local Loop) will be a wireless alternative to deliver hi access.Depending on standardization and licensing, BWLL systems will typically operate at around 3.5

GHz or in other bands below 10 GHz.

The typical service provider profile would be a competitive Internet Service Provider targeting

high-end residential users, SOHOs and low end SMEs. For incumbent service providers, BWLL

can also be a complement to deliver broadband access to customers outside the reach of DSL.

Wireless LAN

Wireless LAN (WLAN) is primarily a technology for intra-site high-bandwidth wireless access. It

is also a possible unlicensed wireless broadband access alternative for hot-spot locations with high

concentrations of roaming business users, such as airports. WLAN thereby can become an

effective complement to 3G mobile and fixed access broadband networks.

Being a wireless solution, WLAN provides degree of local mobility. Nevertheless, it is basically

more of a technology for very high speed wireless portability and access to fixed broadband packet

networks.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth brings convenient personal connectivity to users, by providing wireless inter-connection

of communicating devices. As short range indoor wireless technique for connection to network

access points, Bluetooth also complements fixed access techniques.

For example, with a Bluetooth enabled wireless home or office base station, users will be able to

connect their personal mobile devices also to the broadband network for access to mobile services.Such a Bluetooth home base station, will eventually serve as a wireless micro-LAN, enhancing the

usability of the broadband access by providing local mobility and access for personal devices. It


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would also support easy installation and access for the many communicating devices of the future

intelligent homes.

2.5 The backbone network

The backbone network consists of a packet backbone running on top of transmission facilities.

Current transmission networks typically use SDH/SONET over fiber. The move to ATM and IP

will increasingly remove the need for SDH/SONET.

Optical networking

Optical networking over fiber systems is the physical transport foundation of broadband networks.

Bandwidth demand and supply develops at a much higher pace than the celebrated Moore s law

for microelectronics. This is made possible by the advances in DWDM (Dense Wavelength

Division Multiplexing) technology, that enable capacity to be multiplied by transmitting multiple

colors , or wavelengths of light, over a single fiber.

At the trunk level the front line is to achieve Terabit transmission. At the metro level the challenge

is more to provide the means for effective engineering of capacity deployment and allocation. At

the access level cost effectiveness is the key concern.

Advances in IP technology will enable cost savings by running IP directly on optical systems.

Optical line interface standards are not sufficiently defined to guarantee interoperability of line

systems from different vendors.

The packet backbone network

A packet-switched backbone capable of handling and scaling a wide variety and services is a key

foundation for any broadband multi-service network. A multi-service packet backbone networksmust be capable of handling different types of traffic with widely differing characteristics, e.g.:

real-time traffic for person-to-person communication

Internet traffic

enterprise communications

video and voice streaming.

It must deliver true carrier-class resiliency and serviceability, and support powerful IP border

routing for peering with other IP networks and to migrate gracefully without degrading existing

services. Multi-service packet backbone networks also need to support advanced quality of service

and network engineering features, and operate with comprehensive, unifying managementarchitecture.

2.6 Conclusion

From the above walk-through of the subject we conclude that multi-service networks is a vast

area of communication products and technologies, that all combined aim to provide a solution

capable of delivering a unified set of end-user services, irrespective of the users locality, his

device and the access technology.

The challenge to manage and operate the beast is of course immense. If we also add the

complexity of multi-vendor networks and a complex new-economy world of providers and clients

in an ever-expanding value chain, it does not get any simpler. Please proceed to the next section!


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3 The realm of OSS

3.1 Overview

The tasks of administering a set of services, and the infrastructure, on which they are based, are

some of the major challenges of a Network Operator. It involves recruiting a good group of

people, organising the work into efficient processes and to set-up the IT systems required to

support them - and all this in a limited period of time. In this section we will discuss some of the

problems, solutions and principles that apply to this area, which is often referred to as Support

Systems, Operations & Maintenance, OSS/BSS or Telecom Management. We hereafter refer to it

as OSS (Operations Support Systems).

3.1.1 TMN architecture

As can be understood, the OSS area is huge, and several attempts to slice it into understandablepieces exist. One, which has gained a general acceptance, is the TMN (Telecommunications

Management Network) model M.3100 by ITU. They introduced the TMN pyramid where the

management is divided into a number of layers, as illustrated in figure 3 below:

BusinessManagement

ServiceManagement

Network

Management

ElementManagement

NetworkElements

Figure 3; The TMN pyramid

The meaning of the layers is described below. Please note that each layer is dependent on the

services provided by the adjacent layer below:

Network Elements Networking equipment; the single boxes, servers, etc. that

constitute a single resource.

Element Management The management functionality that is required to operate a

single piece of equipment.

Network Management When multiple network elements are interconnected they form

a network. An end-to-end connection or a telephone call uses a

set of network resources. Network Management refers to thefunctionality required to control the network.


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Service Management The network provides services. A leased line subscription, an

email account and a telephone subscription are a few examples.

The Service management refers to the controlling of these

services.

Business Management The services are provided to subscribers (customers). The

customer management and related issues like billing is referred

to as Business Management.

The strength of the TMN model is that it provides the capability to reach a level of abstraction that

is increased through the layers. Ideally there is no need for interference between layers that are not

adjacent. Another contribution from the TMN model is the division of management functionality

into a number of functional areas, the FCAPS model:

Fault Management Handling of alarms.

Configuration

Management

Installing and configuring the object in questions, be it a

service or a physical port.

Accounting Management The creation and mediation of resource usage data and

the subsequent rating and billing of the service usage.

Performance

Management

The creation, collection and aggregation of statistics

related to resource usage. The creation and handling of

reports related to the collected statistics.

Security Management All aspects related to security of the managementfunctionality. The area spans from authentication of the

operators to access control, i.e. who is allowed to do

what, when, from where.

Note that the FCAPS model and the TMN pyramid are complementary, as depicted in the figure 4

below. The functional areas are applicable to all layers. An example an error condition on a

physical port (network element layer) is a service interruption (service management layer) which is

a customer problem report and possibly a discount on the next bill (business management layer).

NE

EM

NM

SM

BM

F C A P S

Figure 4; The FCAPS model defined by the TMN standard


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3.1.2 The TMForum process map

A good overview of what the OSS world really is intended to cover is provided by the organisation

TMForum, via the process overview Telecom Operations Map (TOM). It contains a detaileddescription of the most important processes involved in running a Network Operator operation. In

the figure 5 below a graphical presentation of TOM is provided, and an online clickable version

is available at www.tmforum.org/clickmap/tomv2.1/index.htm.

Customer

Physical Network and Information Technology

OrderSales Problem

Handling

CustomerQoSManagement

Invoicing/

ServiceConfiguration Discounting

Service

DevelopmentPlanning/

ServiceQualityManagement

Rating and

Customer Interface Management Process

Customer Care Processes

Service/Product Development and Operations Processes

Network and Systems Management Processes

InformationSystemsManagementProcesses

Collection

ServiceProblemResolution

Handling

NetworkProvisioning

NetworkPlanning/Development

Network DataManagement

NetworkMaintenance& Restoration

NetworkInventoryManagement

Figure 5; The Telecom Operations Map (TOM) provided by TMForum
http://www.tmforum.org/clickmap/tomv2.1/index.htmhttp://www.tmforum.org/clickmap/tomv2.1/index.htm


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3.1.3 Our summarised view

In order to simplify the continued discussion throughout the document, we have summarised

TOM, the Network Operators network infrastructure as described in the previous section and the

required OSS systems into the figure 6 below:

IP / ATM / FR Network

Element

Managers

Service

Assurance Billing

Multi ServiceProvisioning

Planning &

Administration

Customer Care

Servers&ITInfrastructure

Transport Network

Access

Network

Figure 6; Our summarised view of the OSS realm

The main objects found in the figure are:

A network infrastructure; this will often be comprised of a variety of network technologies

from different vendors. Some portion of the network capacity is often rented from another

Network Operator.

A set of server platforms provides some of the value-added services like web hosting or email,i.e. the services above the connectivity services. These services often interact with each other

and they together form what is sometimes referred to as the ServiceNetwork.

Element Managers, one or several per network technology and server platform. The ElementManagers are used to set-up, configure, provision, monitor (status and performance), operate,

test, etc. the equipment.

The main (groups of) processes that are performed by the Network Operator. These are:

Planning and Administration; to plan, design and administrate the services and the

infrastructure.

Multi-Service Provisioning; to activate instances of services for particular customers.

Service Assurance; to monitor and uphold the quality of the delivered services.


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Billing; to charge for the services.

Customer Care; to provide an interface to the customers for all issues related to sales,

ordering, problem handling and billing of the services.

In the remainder of this section, each of these areas will be covered. Each of the five main

processes will be explored ands broken down into components and information flows. For each

component the market-leading products found to cover the required functionality will be

described.


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3.2 Element Managers

The Element Managers (EM) are proprietary solutions developed and provided by the equipmentvendors themselves. However, referring to the discussion above about the TMN layers, this is a

very misleading name.

Element Managers normally address the entire FCAPS scope, to the extent that is applicable to the

services provided by the networking equipment. They also cover several of the TMN layers, from

the Element layer up to the Network and sometimes the Service Management layers. This also

means that they are involved in supporting all of the major processes referred to above. That is, the

Element Managers do have to provide functionality for Service Assurance, Service Provisioning,

Planning and Accounting. Hence, what we in this section describe as the Element Manager is

normally a very complex and comprehensive type of management systems. The limitation in scope

is that they address only the areas applicable to the specific type of equipment.

Some Equipment Suppliers tend to make their Element Managers generic and claim that theypossess multi-vendor capabilities. This we believe is unfortunate, since we have never seen that

one Equipment Vendor in the long-term can handle all the interfaces required for successful

management of his competitors equipment.

A significant portion of the Element Manager functionality is nowadays often embedded within

the NE (Network Element) itself. Other parts, that address the Network and Service Management

layers, are often based on commercially available platforms like Windows NT or Unix. A common

notion is to refer to them as Network Element Management Systems or Sub-Network

Managers.

What about Element Managers for the Servers and IT infrastructure? Well, here we find tools and

methods from the enterprise world. They manage configuration and monitoring of NT and Unix

servers, applications, databases, hubs and routers. MIB polling, intercepting log files, proprietary

agents, system and database administrator applications etc. are some of the techniques that are

being used for managing the IT infrastructure.

In order to enable easy plug-in of the Element Manager(s) into a Network Operators OSS

environment, the requirements for integration capabilities on the EM are high. They are expected

to provide well-defined interfaces to forward alarms, to retrieve performance data, to allow

services to be provisioned etc. Few Element Managers are built in this open way, so this is an

important evaluation criterion. The concept of IRPs (Integration Reference Points), as a method to

describe standardised interfaces, has recently been introduced. Some of the common integration

points are illustrated in the figure 7 below:


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Network

Elements

Service

Assurance Billing

Multi Service

Provisioning

Planning &

Administration

Customer Care

Element

ManagerF C A P

Figure 7; The Element Managers and how the integrate into the Network Operators environment

In the figure the arrows represent:

Alarms originated in the Fault Management component of the Element Manager being

forwarded to the Service Assurance components.

Accounting data being sent to the Account and Billing area of the OSS space.

Performance statistics which is retrieved by the Service Assurance component.

Service Activation orders that are sent from the Multi Service Provisioning area to the

Configuration Management part of the Element Manager.

Configuration and topology data that is uploaded by the Planning and Administration area

from the Element Managers Configuration Management part.

It should also be noted that the need for integrated Security Management aspects is seldom

supported.

From the Network Operators perspective the Element Managers are often seen as useful and

necessary tools, to be used for configuration and trouble-shooting activities. They may become a

complicating factor when there are often many of them, since they are difficult to master because

they do not provide a uniform user interface.

When a Network Operator only has one or a few network technologies in place, he sometimes

bases his OSS solution solely on the Element Managers and a Billing system.


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3.3 Planning and Administration

3.3.1 General

This is an important and often neglected part of a Network Operators processes. To administer

and keep track of what he has in terms of equipment and services, and to make intelligent

forecasting and planning are efforts that very quickly give a return on investment.

Once a decision has been taken to add equipment, it has to be ordered, installed, configured and

prepared for service provisioning. Preferably it should be possible to schedule services already

when the equipment is ordered. Also the activities to actually send out an engineer has to be

managed.

3.3.2 Inventory Management

To keep track of the equipmentwhere it is, how it is configured, its status (like planned, ordered,in operation - an Inventory system is needed. Until recently this Inventory component was often

considered to be off-line, and it was more a tool for the planning and purchasing department,

than the operations staff.

However, in order to increase the quality of the data in the system, and to minimise the

administrative burden of re-keying data, this component more and more is being put on-line, with

a direct connection to the underlying Element Managers, including an ability to upload the current

configuration. As such an Inventory system also has an increased value as a repository of the

production network.

The Inventory Management component is often used in the execution of several other processes as

well. A few examples are:

1. In the pre-provisioning process, e.g. a router could be added to the Inventory and marked asplanned. It then may be enabled for scheduled service provisioning. Once the equipment

arrives a work-order is created to assist the service engineer in the installation process.

2. During provisioning the Inventory is used to find a free resource. The resource is activated forthe service, and it is marked in use in the Inventory.

3. The Inventory is used by the Service Assurance components to find the service and customer

impact of a fault.

To summarise, the Inventory is used to support the planning, administration and forecasting

activities within the Network Operator organisation. The Inventory is involved in information

exchange with components residing in the Service Provisioning and Service Assurance processes,

as well as the network itself.

The aspects described above are sometimes also referred to as Inside Plant Network

management. In addition to this we have the Outside Plant Network, which is composed of

ducts, cables, masts, city maps, etc. Here the GIS (Geographical Information System) aspects are

important to locate an object to a specific set of co-ordinates. For some Network Operators with

a complex infrastructure it is very important to keep a good record of this information. Some

Operators have two separate systems, while others have one.

Some of the vendors and their products in this area are listed below. Their support for Outside

Plant Networks and GIS vary:

Granite; and their product Xpercom

Cramer; Dimension


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GE; Smallworld

Arkipelago; Rome

Incatel; NIMS

Visionael; ServiceBase

Other vendors of Inventory systems are Telcordia, Eftia and Metasolv.

3.3.3 Workforce Management

Once it has been decided to perform a manual operation within the network it is essential to keep

track of its progress. This involves steps like selecting a suitable sub-contractor, assigning the

work-order to him, ensure that he is equipped with proper spare parts and ensure that he reports

back the result of the operation in due time. The area is called Workforce Management, and it is

covered by a multitude of products. Often the software support is found within the Inventory

Management components described above, but it can also be covered by traditional workflowsystems.

3.3.4 Decision Support

To cover a variety of planning purposes the Operators nowadays utilise data warehouse

technologies to gather statistics from a variety of sources (like other OSS components and the

network technologies) and produce reports. The area is sometimes referred to as Decision Support.

In the figure 8, below the components within Planning and Administration are visualised:

Customer Care


Element

Managers

Service

Assurance Billing


Transport Network

Access

Network

Planning

and Administration

Workforce

Management

Config.Upload

Inventory

workorder

Decision

Support

reports

stats

Figure 8; The components utilised within the Planning and Administration process


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3.4 Service Provisioning

3.4.1 General

Service Provisioning, or Fulfilment, is the common name for the overall process of implementing

and activating services for a customer. This process addresses the need to speed up and automate

the provisioning process, i.e. the efforts required from the time the service is ordered by a

subscriber until he can start to use it.

Traditionally it has been a back office activity that has been allowed to take a considerable amount

of time, but this is not the case any more. The objective of the industry is one-touch provisioning

or, as it is also called, flow-through provisioning. The ability to offer self-service with instant

activation of services is becoming a necessity among the Network Operators.

This was often a relatively simple task adding a new telephone subscription involved finding a

free port in the nearest switch. But now a service could be comprised of multiple networkconnections, authentication characteristics and service components like email accounts and

application subscriptions. Therefore Service Provisioning is now identified as one of the prime

areas for automation, requiring the largest share of the OSS investment budget.

Service Provisioning is the most complex discipline within the OSS area. Here are a few highlights

of what needs to be considered:

The activation of a service may involve both automatic and manual steps. They all have to be

executed in an optimal and yet well-defined order.

The manual activities may be performed by back office staff, contractors and / or the customer

himself.

While investigating the possibility to deliver a service for a customer, it may become evidentthat for instance the network resources are not available. Hence an expansion has to be

planned.

The factor of time and the status of an activation order are significant. There may be an

agreement that the service is to be delivered on a specific (later) date. While awaiting that date

the order may be cancelled or modified. And the fact that the service delivery is deferred may

be due to that the required resources are not yet installed, hence when the additional switch or

router is added, a set of pending service orders should be activated.

It involves inter-working with service components in a multitude of network elements and/or

their management systems, application servers, etc., all in a multi-vendor environment, with

proprietary interfaces and interrelated configuration information.

Self-service, i.e. allowing the subscriber to do the provisioning by himself and expecting the

result to be immediately available is as already stated becoming a necessity. This involves

enforced mechanisms for authentication, auditing and access control of user activities.

Transaction control if a part of a multi-step service provisioning fails, then the others have

to be roll-backed.

High speed and volume.

As can be concluded from the by no means complete list above, provisioning is a very complex

area. Also the implementation of it is very much related to the organisation and processes of the

Network Operator. Hence, the solutions vary significantly between different Network Operators,

and the market architecture as defined by the available products is equally fuzzy. We believe that


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this area is a candidate for significant simplification. Today there are too many components needed

to achieve a flow-through provisioning support.

We have found the following categories of products addressing the provisioning area. Note thatthere is a great deal of overlap between them.

3.4.2 Order Managers

The Order Manager receives an order from a Customer Care system, a custom-tailored web

interface or any other type of interface to a help desk or self-service interface. It then performs a

series of pre-defined tasks in sequence to accomplish the order. These may involve manual tasks

spanning several weeks, as well as instant interactions with the existing OSS system.

The typical characteristics of an Order Manager cover features like:

Flexible (often graphical) definitions of the process flow required to handle the order

The entire flow, from customer inquiry till delivery confirmation is supported

Workflow functionality required to support the manual steps

Process and activity scheduling

Worklists to support the provisioning staff

Summary views of ongoing business order status, delivery times, etc.

We have the found the following vendors and products that address the area:

MetaSolv (previously Architel and Nortel) with the OMS (Order Management System)

Lucent (previously Kenan) with their Arbor OM (Order Manager)

Oracle and their Order Manager, part of the e-Business CRM suite

Ceon and Tertio are another type of provisioning systems. They address a wider scope with their

products, from Order Managers down to activation of network elements.

3.4.3 Workflow systems

Another category of products originates from the workflow area. These products are designed to

facilitate the implementation of a set of processes within an organisation. A process is often a

mixture of manual and automated activities. We often find these products in the provisioningarena. The main difference from the Order Managers above is that they do not have a built-in

knowledge of the concept of orders. On the other hand they can be used to support many of the

other processes within the Network Operators environment, like Trouble Ticketing, CRM, etc.

Clarify

Remedy; ARS

HP; ChangeEngine

Staffware, ActionFlow, etc. are other workflow engines. We do not see them very often in the

telco domain.


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3.4.4 Provisioning engines

In this category we have placed the products that are dedicated to the task of service activation.

They are not supporting the manual tasks, they rather focus on parallel high volume interactionswith underlying network elements, Element Managers, Network Management Systems or

application hosts. They often comprise a library of adapters to various vendor systems. They

support transaction control, i.e. the capability to roll-back already performed operations when the

order could not be completed.

Nortel (previously Architel) with the ASAP product (Automated Service Activation Platform)

Oracle SFM (Service Fulfilment Manager, part of the Oracle e-Business suite

Ericsson SOG (Service Order Gateway)

Ehpt Service Initiator

The TIBCO Telco Hub is an extension to the TIB/Rendezvous set of products. It originates

from the acquisition of InConcert. (See also the section on Integration Framework.)

3.4.5 Network Provisioning

When it comes to provisioning of common network related services a specific category of products

has evolved. These support the activation of services like end-to-end connections within ATM,

Frame relay and SDH/WDM networks, IP VPNs etc. For a single vendor type of network they

often compete with the vendors own Network Management System.

The area is complex, especially if the connectivity to be provisioned spans multiple vendors and

network technologies. The TMForum defined CaSMIM standard describes an approach to model

connectivity.

We have found the following products targeting the network provisioning area. They normally

operate in two steps first the network topology is imported from the network itself, or from an

external inventory system. When a connectivity set-up request is received via its northbound

interface, the best route through the network is calculated and configuration commands are issued

to the underlying network equipment or their management systems.

Syndesis NetProvision (this product is also licensed by Cisco as their Cisco ProvisioningCenter).

HarmonyCom and their Harmony product.

Astracon and their Connection Manager (for layer 1 and 2 networks). The Astracon product isalso licensed by Compaq, Telcordia, Lucent and Alcatel.

Orchestream and their Service Activator.

Cisco VPN Solution Center.

3.4.6 Summary

Below in figure 9 an attempt is made to visualise the discussion above. The Order Manager /

Workflow system receives an order form the Customer Care / Selfcare domain. It performs the

control of the manual tasks itself and send activation orders for network connectivity to a Network

Provisioning system, and activations of host based subscriptions to a provisioning engine:


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Element

Managers

Service Operations

and Assurance Accounting

and Billing

Planning &

Administration


Transport Network

Access

Network

Provision

Engine

Multi Service

Provisioning

ServiceActivation

Service

order

Order

Manager

Network

Provisioning

Customer Care

Config.

Upload

Figure 9; The components needed to fulfil the Provisioning process

It should also be noted that the provisioning process interacts with the Inventory, both to verify

that the resources are available, and once the reservation is made to reflect the actual on-line

configuration of services as well.

The close integration with the Inventory has spawned a new set of provisioning solutions. The

vendors Axiom and Xenicom have combined workflow and project planning functionality with an

inventory into their respective products. Also traditional inventory vendors like Cramer and

Granite are adding workflow capabilities into their solutions.


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3.5 Service Assurance

3.5.1 General

The Service Assurance process at the Network Operator targets the need to monitor and assure a

high quality of the services delivered to the customers. The objective of the industry today is to be

able to implement Service Level Agreements (SLA), i.e. a contract where the quality of service

delivered by the Network Operator to his customer is stipulated. Offering SLAs implies the ability

to monitor, act and report the level of service.

To an increasing extent the ambition is to move from reactivity to pro-activity, i.e. to detect and

circumvent errors before they have had any impact on the service.

This area is compared to some of the other areas within OSS relatively well organised, and

industry forces have come to a form of de facto standard of what component types there are, and

what their main functionality is. The prevailing products often provide off-the-shelf integrationwith each other.

3.5.2 Alarm handling

In a Network Operations Center (NOC), responsible for the supervision of a large network

comprised of heterogeneous equipment and systems, the focal point for alarm handling is very

important.

Alarms are to be collected from various sources, transformed into a unified format, logged and

presented to different operators depending on their defined responsibilities. The operators all have

preferences in views and shortcut operations. The alarm console is often the tool to make a fast

connection to an Element Manager to perform any required testing, diagnostic or bypass operation.

It is important that the amount of alarms can be reduced by elimination of duplicates, applying

correlation rules (to find primary and secondary alarms) and automatic handling of alarm on/off

situations. It is also important that the service and customer impactof a serious alarm is presented,

to govern the further handling of the error. This capability to map an equipment alarm to the

affected service and customer is crucial and one of the major problems within the industry, since

the inventory required is not commonly available in a standardised way.

Maps with status coloured icons at various levels of detail are important to give status overviews

to the staff. By operator action, or automatically, some alarms could be used to trigger the creation

of a Trouble Ticket in the TT system.

It should be noted that, depending on the size of the Network Operator, this is an area wheredistribution of the responsibility may be desirablerouter backbone, access network, server & IT

infrastructure etc.

A multitude of products exists. All of these alarm consoles collect alarms via SNMP traps,

CMIP events or proprietary agents. Their ability to perform correlation and show the service

impact varies. Some of the most commonly used products are:

The Micromuse Netcool/Omnibus product is well established among all types of Network

Operators. It is also marketed by Cisco as Cisco Info Center. It is today considered the market

leader, with well over 900 installations world-wide.

Netcool supports the customer and service impact feature raised above by the Impact

product feature. Impact supports a configurable rule-based engine capable of interrogating

external information sources (network inventory, customer database, etc.) residing inrelational databases, LDAP directories, flat files etc. for customer and SLA data related to an

alarm source.


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HP OpenView / Service Assurance (formerly OEMF).

Compaq TeMIP.

Agilent OSI NetExpert.

Evidian OpenMaster.

TTI Nettrac

RiverSoft and their product OpenRiver (recently OEMd by HP; also recently in an agreementwith Cisco and Motorola around 3G management)

CoManage and Entuity are two fairly new entrants.

For monitoring the IT servers a product category for intelligent systems management agents has

been established. These agents are capable of monitoring processes, CPU and I/O utilisation, logfiles, database systems and even some of the more commonly found application packages (like

SAP). Examples of these agents are SystemEdge, BMC Patrol and Emanate. They will normally

signal errors and exceptions to configured thresholds via SNMP to the Alarm handlers listed

above.

3.5.3 Performance Management

This is a component that normally is capable to:

Auto-detect the current configuration of the infrastructure by browsing the IP network and the

MIBs.

Collect performance data at specified periods or intervals. MIB polling, ping, remote ping,RMON (I and II) and ftp are techniques used to obtain (and even create) measurement data.

The data is normalised and stored into a common database. Here it also may be retrieved and

utilised for long-term planning purposes.

Perform threshold checking and generate alarms (to the Alarm handler) when thresholds are

passed.

Produce customised reports regularly or on demand.

This area is complex. It is easy to collect huge amount of data and to produce reports, but the

complication is more related to what to measure and to whom to report. QoS (Quality-of-Service)

and SLA are acronyms that are frequently used, but the definitions vary.

This is an area where we currently see intensive development. Several products claim that they can

actively measure response times and availability (through ping) and compare to SLA defined

thresholds per application or Internet service. Some attempt to find traffic patterns over the day,

and report when exceptions are found. Most products support the IP layer, and some provide

options for Frame Relay, ATM, servers, LAN equipment, etc.

Several products exist on the market; here are the most widely adopted in the network performance

area:

InfoVista

Crosskeys Resolve (recently acquired by Orchestream)

Concord Network Health

Trinagy (formerly DeskTalk) TREND


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Lucent VitalSuite

Proviso from Quallaby

Ericsson Net-tuner

Prospect from WatchMark (only mobile networks)

ClearView from Clear

Trendium

ADC Metrica (this product as well as the Ericsson Net-tuner has a background from the

telephony and circuit switched environment, but they now also support the datacom side)

The products vary in their ability to handle large volumes of data, ease of customising the reports,

and handling of physical objects (links and ports) versus services and customers.

A common form of pre-integration between Alarm handlers and Performance Managementproducts is organised as follows:

a) The PM component reports SLA violations to the Alarm Handler

b) From the Alarm handler it is possible to launch the PM component to achieve a performancereport of a designated service or network component.

3.5.4 Trouble Ticketing Workflow

The TT/workflow components are used to administrate the workflow and logistics around efforts

that normally require human intervention. To send out a field engineer to perform repair or

installation work, and letting him report back into the TT system when he has completed his task is

a common usage. Since these tasks are often initiated by customer complaints the TT component issometimes also used as a helpdesk tool.

This component normally has interfaces towards the Alarm manager (both directions) and

provides user interfaces towards the customer help desk, the operations staff and the service

personnel.

The Remedy ARS is the most well known and established product within the telecoms industry.

Other products are Clarify, Vantive and HP Service Manager (Prolin).

3.5.5 End-to-end monitoring; Service Robots

The area of end-to-end application performance management is of increasing interest. Because

many business-critical applications are distributed across multiple platforms, residing at differentApplication Service Providers, and are interconnected across multiple networks, it is becoming

evident that the performance has to be measured end-to-end.

Some of the products targeting this subject monitor the traffic between appointed workstations and

application servers, and measure the availability and response times. They could do it by installed

agents at the application client side, by RMON type agents on a LAN segment close to the client,

or by providing an API that the application can call at defined points. Here we find products like

CompuWare Application Expert & ecoSYSTEMS

HP OpenView VantagePoint

Concord

Tivoli Application Performance Management

CA Unicenter, Application Response Option


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Another alternative is to simulate a user. This is what the service robots do. They connect to the

Network Operators network, request web pages, initiate file transfers, send and receive e-mail, and

measure the availability, the response time and the correctness of the responses.

Products addressing this area are:

Netcool ISM (Internet Service Monitors) is comprised of seven Internet specific service

components testing DNS, FTP, HTTP, NNTP, POP3, SMP, and RADIUS.

Avesta Trinity

Firehunter from Agilent

Also several of the Performance Management products listed above nowadays include this

option, like InfoVista and Cncord.

3.5.6 Summary overview

The components supporting the Service Assurance process and their information exchange is

given in figure 10 below:


Element

Managers

Accounting

and Billing

Multi Service

Provisioning

Planning and

Administration


Transport Network

Access

Network

Service Assurance

Alarm

Mgmt

Perf.Mgmt

Robot

TT/

Workflow

Simulated

users

Alarms

PM data

Reports

TT

TT

Alarms

Customer Care

Reports

Figure 10; The components involved in the Service Assurance process

Note that missing in the figure above is the interaction from the Alarm handler to a Network

inventory and / or a Customer database to find the customer and service impact of a fault.

3.5.7 Service Level ManagementEach of the above components within Service Assurance, as well as components within the other

processes, monitors and provides information related to various aspects of SLA fulfilment. Several


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of them claim to support SLAs, but of course only in the areas where they actually perform any

actions, be it alarms, performance, response times, availability monitoring, TT or whatever. SLA

could also stipulate so much more, like delivery time, response time at the help desk, etc.

However, more and more the leading products above attempt to address the whole area, often

referred to as Service Level Management. This means that they strive to cover all the areas of

network and application performance, end-to-end service quality etc. as well as monitoring against

set-up SLA parameters andreport of violations against these. Trendium is a new vendor

addressing this is space.

3.5.8 Policy-based Networking

The industry effort towards Policy-based Networking actively helps both in monitoring and

increasing the customer-experienced performance of a service in a given network. This is achieved

by keeping track of and prioritising users and service in accordance with their QoS requirements

and agreements. Hence, instead of passively monitoring if the SLA is fulfilled, the networkactively attempts to accomplish the objectives of the SLA. The policy for QoS and CoS (Class of

Service) is often configured in a central location, like an LDAP directory, and then distributed to

Policy Decision Points in switches and routers to effectuate the policy.

Many of the new Multi-Service Networks implement Policy-based Networking on the IP level for

routing, prioritisation, security and error handling.


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3.6 Billing

3.6.1 General

The present flat-fee pricing structure in the Internet business is about to be replaced by other

business logic. Also traffic volume related pricing is being disputed, since it is difficult to

understand and predict for end users.

Network Operators are working hard to win their customers acceptance for new pricing-structures

by offering services with an indisputable added value recognised by the market. More and more

we see a move towards Content billing, i.e. letting the user actually pay for the experienced

services and their business value, as he uses them. The mode towards Content billing also

encourages the role of a Payment Provider running a micro-payment service, separated from the

Network or Network Operator.

For the foreseeable time we anticipate that there will be a mix of all these billing options, and thatthe Network Operators will differentiate by creating combinations of them.

To meet this, billing system vendors are in the process of solving the technical problems involved

in

Collecting network data from routers, switches etc.

Collecting data about Content usage. This often includes involving the applications residing atthe Content providers, who are located anywhere on the Internet.

Aggregating, correlating and transforming data to parameters relevant for billing of different

types of services.

Detecting new usage patterns which may be indications of churn or fraud.

The ability to define and implement pre-paid services.

Finally mapping these parameters on specific customer accounts and producing bills

In addition to this, the billing products should preferably also provide the end-customer with:

Real-time or near real-time service selection facilities and subsequent instant billinghandled by and visible to the customer.

Support for secure payment transactions for received services.

To support such on-line service ordering, payments etc. no matter how the customer choose toaccess their Network Operator, we firmly believe that customer access and authentication,

authorisation and accounting capabilities (AAA) are required in the network.

All this should be carried out in a highly heterogenous environment of routers, servers, security

systems, customer databases and billing systems where interface standardisation is lacking or

multiple.

Numerous products are currently emerging in this field. They all cover different sets of the listed

functionality above. Many of the vendors have also teamed up around integrated solutions with

broad functionality coverage.

3.6.2 Architecture overviewIn Billing, as in many other areas, an architecture comprised of a set of components and ISV

products has also evolved. It is still changing, the recent needs for pre-paid services and e-Business

over the Internet are signs of that. In the figure 11 below our interpretation of the current


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architecture as defined by the market is shown:


Element

Managers

Service Assurance

Multi Service

Provisioning

Planning and

Administration


Transport Network

Access

Network

Mediation

Rating and

Billing

Accounting

and Billing

UDR

InvoicerecordsCustomer Care

Accounts

Receivable

Micro-

payments

CPs

around

the

Internet

Interconnect

Billing

To other

SPs

SDR

Figure 11; The components supporting the Billing process

The figure above tries to summarise the various steps performed from the time a Usage Data

Record (UDR) of some sort is extracted and causes a Service Data record (SDR) to be created, till

a bill or billing record is produced. In the subsequent sections below the components involved in

this processing are briefly discussed.

3.6.3 Mediation

Billing Mediation is a software product category in itself. The mediation products collect or extract

information from the network about resource usage (UDRs). The UDR could reflect a telephone

call, a file transfer, a start of a video download, etc.

The mediation products handle the complexity involved in

Interfacing different types of networks and devices and their respective proprietary formats.

Ciscos NetFlow is a common format for IP devices.

Safestoring of the collected information; this is essential because it represents direct income

for the Network Operator.

The mediation system creates an SDR by combining (aggregating) the collected information

in order to reduce the amount of information, but also to create a record that could be rated.

Matching the start and the stop UDRs of a video download is one example.

High volume processing; often a large network may create thousands of UDRs per second. Toprevent this data from overwhelming the network, the mediation system needs to have a


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distributed, real-time policy-based filtering and aggregation scheme that extracts only billable

records and eliminates duplicates.

Often the mediation system should add information to the billable record. One example couldbe to add the subscriber identity. This is done to keep simple and capacity demanding tasks

out of the Billing and Interconnect systems. Also pre-rating can be performed here.

Adaptability to different high order systems for various purposes, be it fraud management, hot

billing or pre-paid services.

The market leading mediation products and vendors of today we believe to be:

Comptel

XACCT

HP Smart

Teleca - OSS for Network Operators - Mentions Service Robots - Apr02

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Transcript of Teleca - OSS for Network Operators - Mentions Service Robots - Apr02