OSS Essentials

1
OSS Essentials

• TTY, Automaatioverkkojen erityiskysymyksiä
• Leo Sutinen

2
3SS

• OSS Operating support system
• BSS Business support system
• MSS Marketing support system

3
Contents

• Classification of Service Providers
• Industry issues of Support systems
• Market Drivers for Support Systems
• The Service Delivery Cycle

4
Classification of Service Providers

• Due to the opportunities given by deregulation in
  many countries. there are a number of new
  entrants in the telecommunications services
  industry.
• Product and service portfolios need some fine
  tuning in most cases because customers are faced
  with overlapping offers from various service
  providers.
• Service creation and provisioning are becoming
  more dynamic and provider-customer-interconnection
  s are getting simpler by using Internet
  technology.

5
Classification of Service Providers ASP
(applications service provider)

• Emerging service provider who must combine
• Application
• Systems
• Network management
• Service level expectations are extremely high
  the whole business of a customer may rely on this
  provider.

6
Classification of Service ProvidersCAP
(competitive access provider)

• Facilities-based or non-facilities-based
• Similar to the ILEC, but bas carefully selected
  local loops for high-profit commercial customers

7
Classification of Service ProvidersCLEC
(competitive local-exchange carrier)

• Smaller, flexible provider who owns little or no
  telecommunications facilities (facilityless).
• By offering excellent customer care and new
  services, they try to build the support structure
  step-by-step.
• Their support systems are state-of-the-art,
  lightweight, and less expensive to operate.
• In certain cases, they use service bureaus for
  billing and provisioning.

8
Classification of Service ProvidersCSP (cable
service provider)

• Emerging service providers with offers for access
  networks.
• They still face technological challenges, which
  can be overcome.
• Support systems are practically nonexistent.
• In terms of support systems, they buy instead of
  build occasionally, they use service bureaus for
  billing and provisioning.

9
Classification of Service ProvidersCSP (content
service provider)

• Emerging service providers who concentrate on the
  value, Quality, and timeliness of content in
  eCommerce environments.
• They strongly co-operate with ISPs and ASPs.

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Classification of Service ProviderESP
(enterprise service provider)

• Emerging service provider from the enterprise
  environment.
• They offer services for a limited user community
  with similar attributes to the provider.
• They use and customize their existing support
  systems that may not scale well.

11
Classification of Service ProvidersICP
(integrated communications provider)

• Emerging provider with integrated services offer,
  concentrating on next generation, high-speed data
  and wireless services, in particular for
  profitable business users.
• Their acceptance in the market space is expected
  to be high.
• In terms of support systems, they buy instead of
  build occasionally, they use service bureaus for
  billing and provisioning. gtgtgt

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Classification of Service ProvidersICP
(integrated communications provider)

• gtgtgt They take advantage of the fact that
  intranet, extranet, virtual private networks,
  eCommerce, and multimedia applications require
  more bandwidth than is available over traditional
  circuit-switched voice networks

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Classification of Service ProvidersIEX
(interexchange carrier)

• Primarily responsible for long-distance services
  with stepwise penetration of the local-exchange
  area.
• They can be both incumbent and competitive
  providers with the result of the need for very
  heterogeneous support systems.

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Classification of Service ProvidersILEC
(incumbent local-exchange carrier)

• Strong provider who owns a considerable amount of
  telecommunications facilities and doesn't want to
  give away this position easily.
• Most likely, has a number of legacy support
  systems with little interoperability and
  integration in use.
• The result is high operating costs.

15
Classification of Service ProvidersISP (Internet
service provider)

• Wide variety of sizes of these providers.
• Their main goal is to provide Internet access to
  business and private customers.
• Major challenges include peering to each other
  and to other carriers, managing quality, and
  offering acceptable performance.

16
Classification of Service ProvidersNSP (network
service provider)

• They are responsible for providing a highly
  reliable networking infrastructure, consisting of
  equipment and facilities.
• Their responsibilities are usually limited to the
  physical network, but element management systems
  are usually included in their offers.

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Classification of Service ProvidersPTT (Post,
Telegraph, and Telephone)

• strong provider who owns a considerable amount of
  telecommunications facilities and doesn't want to
  give away this position easily.
• Most likely, has a number of legacy support
  systems with little interoperability and
  integration in use.
• The result is high operating costs. gtgtgt

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Classification of Service ProvidersPTT (Post,
Telegraph, and Telephone)

• gtgtgt It represents service providers prior to
  liberalization of telecommunications services.

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Classification of Service ProvidersWSP (wireless
service provider)

• Carrier who provides
• cellular,
• personal, and
• mobile communications services.

20
Industry issues of Support systemsConvergence
and telecom consolidation

• It accelerates the use of advanced support
  systems.
• Creates advantage for support systems targeting
  multiple end markets.
• It increases the complexity of telecom networks
  and the demand for the integration of support
  systems.

21
Industry issues of Support systemsDeveloping
support systems markets

• Growth is dominated by new carrier adoptions and
  incumbent upgrades.
• Developing markets, such as data solutions, and
  carrier interconnections, are likely to justify
  the next wave of support systems spendings.

22
Industry issues of Support systemsEmergence of
complex, multiplatform environments

• Reliability and scalability of large centralized
  systems remain excellent.
• Service providers incorporate a multiplatform
  strategy augmenting existing investments in
  legacy solutions with newer technologies targeted
  at profitable customer market sectors.

23
Industry issues of Support systemsEmphasis on
telecom systems integration

• Complex multiplatform, multivendor telecom
  networks require substantial systems integration
  for interoperability.
• With multiple client server and legacy support
  systems in place, integration capabilities of
  vendors are in high demand.

24
Industry issues of Support systemsGrowth of
support systems is tied to share-shift among
telecom end markets andcarriers

• The strongest near-term growth bas been achieved
  by vendors targeting the
• fast-growing telecom end markets,
• emerging local-exchange carriers (LECs),
• wireless carriers.

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Industry issues of Support systemsOutsourcing.

• Ongoing structural changes in the telecom
  industry will place new requirements on support
  systems.
• In order to concentrate on customer management,
  some back-office functions may be outsourced to
  service bureaus.
• These service bureaus might use support systems
  from the same vendors, but they use them in a
  shared fashion among multiple service providers.

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Industry issues of Support systemsProduct-based
vendor-driven solutions

• Carriers increasingly demand solutions rather
  than raw technology and development kits for
  custom-developed support systems solutions.
• The advent of technology standards encourages the
  use of best-of-breed vendor solutions.

27
Industry issues of Support systemsUpgrade cycles
in support systems

• As a result of global deregulation, carrier
  competition is driving the demand for new, more
  efficient back-office solutions.
• In addition to reducing operating expenses,
  advanced support systems improve time-to-market
  and often facilitate the introduction of new,
  revenue-producing solutions.

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Market Drivers for Support Systems

• The market is changing very rapidly.
• Support systems should be positioned well and
  should meet providers' expectations in a timely
  fashion.
• Principal market drivers are addressed in this
  segment.

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsGrowth of the
GlobalTelecommunications Market

• Explosive telecom expansion driven by internal
  growth and acquisition is forcing
  telecommunications providers to assess the
  productivity of their current support systems
• Number of subscribers grows for existing
  services new services are provisioned on
  existing infrastructures and completely new
  services on new infrastructures are deployed or
  acquired. gtgtgt

30
Market Drivers for Support SystemsGrowth of the
GlobalTelecommunications Market

• Several support system vendors have striven to
  capitalize on this opportunity with solutions
  that reduce complexity
• These vendors do not usually replace existing
  systems, but add functionality to accommodate new
  services, such as...

31
Market Drivers for Support SystemsGrowth of the
GlobalTelecommunications Market

• gtgtgt new services, such as
• - Internet, intranets, and extranet
• - Special data services on top of voice networks
• - Wireless services
• - Cable and video services
• - Voice and fax services on top of IP
• - Storage area networks
• - Web hosting
• - Content management
• - Support of ASPs
• - eCommerce services

32
Market Drivers for Support SystemsIncreasing
Network Complexity

• As a result of customer expectations, the
  time-to-market of new services is extremely
  short.
• New telecommunicatious services providers do not
  have the time to build anew, but instead combine
  existing and new infrastructures, such as copper,
  fiber, and wireless.
• They are deploying new services on the basis of a
  mixture of infrastructures.

33
Market Drivers for Support SystemsIncreasing
Network Complexity

• - Emerged technologies
• Voice networks, Integrated Services Digital
  Network (ISDN), circuit switching, packet
  switching, message switching, frame relay, Fast
  Ethernet, Fast Token Ring, and Fiber Distributed
  Data Interface/Copper Distributed Data Interface
  (FDDI/ CDDI)
• - Emerging technologies
• (Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), mobile and
  wireless, SMDS, SONET /SDH, cable, xDSL, and
  Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN).

34
Market Drivers for Support SystemsIncreasing
Network Complexity

• Each of these technologies bas its own support
  system solutions. In a PSTN, the element that
  should be managed are the switches themselves.
• Multiple elements per subscriber in digital loop
  carrier systems, digital cellular networks, or
  hybrid fiber-coax systems may cause an explosion
  in terms of managed elements. As a result, the
  size of configuration databases have grown
  exponentially over last 20 years.

35
Market Drivers for Support SystemsIncreasing
Network Complexity

• Growth in the number of network elements bas been
  accompanied by an increase in the complexity of
  items to be managed. SONET /SDH, ATM, and digital
  wireless are highly complex, with a high degree
  of interdependence among network elements.
• This makes service activation and fault isolation
  a challenge.
• Support systems must adapt to this new situation.

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standardsfor Telecommunications Providers

• When services are offered in combination, support
  systems should be modified and connected to each
  other.
• This opens new business opportunities for support
  systems vendors
• The introduction of standards for support systems
  is accelerating the demand for third-party
  support systems.

37
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TMN

• The introduction of technology standards,
• Telecommunication Management Network (TMN)
• Distributed Common Object Model (DCOM
• Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)
• Telecommunication Information Network
  Architecture (TINA)
• Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)
• have begun to gain critical support by new
  support systems vendors.

38
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TMN

• Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) is a
  special network that is implemented to help
  manage the telecommunication network of the
  service provider.
• It interfaces to one or more individual networks
  at several points in order to exchange
  information. It is logically separate from the
  networks it manages, and may be physically
  separate as well.

39
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TMN

• Telecommunication Management Network is an
  extension of the Open Systems Interconnection
  (OSI) standardization process.
• It attempts to standardize some of the
  functionality and many of the interfaces of the
  managed networks.
• When fully implemented, the result will be a
  higher level of integration.
• TMN is usually described by three architectures

40
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TMN

• 1 The functional architecture
• describes the appropriate distribution of
  functionality within TMN.
• 2 The information architecture
• gives the rationale for the application of OSI
  systems management principles to the TMN
  principles.
• 3 The physical architecture
• describes interfaces that can actually be
  implemented together with examples of physical
  components that make up the TMN.

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TMN

• Telecommunication Management Network distributes
  management responsibilities into several layers,
  such as
• business management layer (BML),
• service management layer (SML),
• network management layer (NML),
• element management layer (EML),
• and into the actual network element layer (NEL).

42
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards DCOM

• Distributed Common Object Model (OCOM) is the
  heart of Microsoft's ActiveOSS suite.
• DCOM is an integration framework infrastructure
  designed to facilitate communication between
  software components operating on the same host or
  with DCOM on multiple-networked hosts.
• It was originally developed to create
  interoperability between components.

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards DCOM

• ActiveOSS acts as a centralized management and
  translation point for an OSS network.
• Conceptually, applications ride on top of the
  framework, but communicate through it.
• The common model allows the various applications
  to communicate in a uniform manner within the
  framework or across multiple-networked frameworks

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards

• The framework is intended to create uniformity
  among application services without any
  modifications to source code.
• Application services are built into and managed
  by the framework. The overall architecture also
  incorporates the Smart TMN business process model
  and related work by TINA.

45
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards CORBA

• Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)
  is a generic communication framework to connect
  various network management applications.
• The object request broker (ORB) is the
  coordinator between distributed objects. The
  broker receives messages, inquiries, and results
  from objects, and routes them to the right
  destination.

46
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards CORBA

• If the objects are in a heterogeneous
  environment, multiple brokers are required.
• They will talk to each other in the future by a
  new protocol based on Transmission Control
  Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

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Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards CORBA

• There is no information model available no
  operations are predefined for objects.
• But an object does exist containing all the
  necessary interfaces to the object request
  broker. For the description, the Interface
  Definition Language (IDL) is being used.
• There are no detailed management information
  bases (MIBs) for objects.

48
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards CORBA

• The functional model consists of the Object
  Services Architecture.
• It delivers the framework for defining objects,
  services, and functions.
• Examples of services are instantiation, naming,
  storing objects' attributes, and the
  distribution/receipt of events and notification.

49
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TINA

• Telecommunications Information Networking
  Architecture (TINA) is is actually a concept
  integrator from intelligent network (IN), TMN,
  open distributed processing (ODP) from ISO and
  CORBA from object management group (OMG).

50
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards TINA

• The core is OSI-based network management,
  expanded by the layered structure of TMN.
• The emphasis with TINA is not on the management
  of network elements, but on the network and
  services layers.
• TINA is going to be standardized by a consortium
  consisting of telecommunications suppliers and
  computer and software vendors.

51
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards WBEM

• Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is a joint
  initiative of many manufacturers led by Compaq,
  Microsoft, and Cisco.
• The initial announcement called for defining the
  following specifications

52
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards WBEM

• HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS). It was to be
  further defined by the Desktop Management Task
  Force (DMTF).
• HyperMedia Object Manager (HMOM). C reference
  implementation and specification, defined by
  Microsoft and Compaq, to be placed in the public
  domain.

53
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards WBEM

• HyperMedia Management Protocol (HMMP) A
  communication protocol embodying HMMS. running
  over HTTP, and with interfaces to SNMP and DMI.
• Common Information Model (CIM). It is the basis
  of the information exchange between various
  management applications.

54
Market Drivers for Support SystemsEmerging
standards WBEM

• Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is helpful
  to unify and simplify network management.
• The combination of CIM and eXtensible Markup
  Language (XML) is going to set the basics of a
  new standard that significantly facilitates the
  interoperability between various support,
  documentation, and management systems.

55
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Telecommunications service competition began in
  the 1980s in the USA led by MCI with 3SSs playing
  a key role.
• Under the pressure of the European Commission
  (EC), Europe is in the process of deregulation
  and privatization.

56
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Key issues are
• Local Number Portability (LNP) It allows
  customers to retain their telephone numbers even
  if they change service providers.
• Customers also typically want to retain access to
  advanced features they have come to expect from
  an intelligent network.

57
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Key issues are
• Extranets connecting support systems of ILECs and
  CLECs. ILECs are required to provide access to
  information on five classes of support systems.
  They are preordering, ordering, provisioning,
  repair, and maintenance. This is now the
  principal focus of local and access service
  providers.

58
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Key issues are
• Directory services. Real-time service processing
  requires additional customer-related data. The
  expanded directory role includes end-user
  authorization and authentication.
• Directory enabled networks (DENs) are tackling
  the standardization of directory information.

59
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Innovation and reengineering on behalf of the
  incumbent carriers show a trend toward
• Better customer care. Based on call detail record
  (CDR) and other resource utilization-related
  data, unsophisticated customer analysis can be
  accomplished. It includes discovering trends in
  customer behavior and traffic patterns, etc.

60
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Convergent billing.
• The customer may expect to receive one bill for
  all services, such as voice, data, video, and
  Internet. The minimal requirement is to receive
  multiple bills with electronic staples.

61
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Rapid provisioning of new services. Based on
  additional support systems, provisioning can be
  expedited by better interfaces and more accurate
  data.

62
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Service differentiation. Still using the same
  infrastructures, new services can be created and
  deployed. By carefully defining the value-added
  nature, they may be considered by customers as
  differentiators

63
Market Drivers for Support SystemsDeregulation
and Privatization

• Offering new services, such as Internet access,
  xDSL, VPN, and VoIP. Also, incumbent service
  providers are expected to react rapidly to new
  communication needs, including offering Internet
  access for reasonable money, the deployment of
  xDSL, digital subscriber line, virtual private
  networks (VPNs), and voice over IPs (VoIP).

64
Market Drivers for Support SystemsCommunication
Convergence

• Advanced technology, coupled with deregulation,
  is driving communications convergence.
• Customers prefer to get all types of services,
  such as long-distance and local voice,
  data/Internet cable/video, and wireless access
  from the same service provider.
• Deregulation meant to encourage competition
  through the proliferation of new entrants.

65
Market Drivers for Support SystemsCustomer
Orientation

• Competition is driving telecommunications service
  providers to emphasize customer management.
• Driven by global competition. carriers are likely
  to focus on improving the total value of their
  services-quality, support, and price-as a means
  to retain customers.

66
Market Drivers for Support SystemsCustomer
Orientation

• Many of these improvements will come from
  advanced support systems
• Besides improving the customer interface (e.g..
  offering Web access). granular data available
  with new support systems can be utilized to
  retain key customers and reduce the amount of
  customer churn.
• Further differentiation is expected High-margin
  customers may receive special treatment.

67
Market Drivers for Support SystemsASP Model

• There is an industry trend that shows a number of
  of companies teaming up in an attempt to meet the
  market demand for streamline OSS applications.
• OSS APSs pull together applications rather than
  create their own, and more companies are entering
  this space.
• Their success depends on their value to the
  network service providers and on how their
  solutions integrate across each OSS application.

68
Market Drivers for Support SystemsASP Model

• BusinessNow from NetworkOSS is a good example of
  an ASP model.
• An unbiased collection of OSS applications from a
  number of suppliers enables NetworkOSS to form
  partnerships with its customers.
• The buy or build dilemma for service providers.

69
The Service Delivery Cycle

• The telecommunications industry today is
  experiencing a number of changes and challenges.
  Deregulation, new services, new technologies.
  reengineering business processes and acquisitions
  are just a few that demand attention.
• Also, multiple concepts such as service
  differentiation, quality of service,
  time-to-market, customer care. return on
  investment, and total cost of ownership request
  attention.

70
The Service Delivery Cycle

• Quality of processes, automation of processes,
  and integration of support and management tools
  may mean the difference between business success
  and failure.
• Business processes may be organized in several
  ways,such as
• Customer care, service development, order
  processing, provisioning, network and systems
  management,and billing
• Fulfillment, service assurance, and billing.

71
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe customer
interface management process

• These are the processes of directly interacting
  with customers and translating customer requests
  and inquiries into appropriate events.
• Process logs customer contacts, and tracks the
  status to completion.

72
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe sales
process

• This process encompasses learning about the needs
  of each customer.
• It includes working to create a match between the
  customer's expectations and the service
  provider's ability to deliver.
• Depending on the service provider process, it can
  be purely selling or can include various levels
  of support.

73
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe sales
process

• The sales process may include preorder work and
  interfaces.
• The aim is to sell the correct service to suit
  the customer's need and to set appropriate
  expectations with the customer.
• Service level agreement (SLA) negotiation,
  request for proposal
• (RFP) management, and negotiation are led from
  this process.

74
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe problem
handling process

• Responsible to receive service complaints from
  customers, resolve them to the customer's
  satisfaction, and provide meaningful status on
  repair or restoration activity.
• Responsible to be aware of any service-affecting
  problems, including notifying customers in the
  event of a disruption.
• The aim is to have problems proactively
  identified and communicated to the customer, and
  to resolve.

75
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe customef
QoS management process

• This process encompasses monitoring,
  managing,reporting quality of service (QoS) as
  defined in service descriptions, SLAs, and other
  service-related document.
• It includes network performance, but also
  performance across all service parameters (e.g.,
  orders completion on time).
• Outputs of this process are standard (predefined)
  and exception reports.

76
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe call rating
and discounting process

• The process encompasses the following functional
  areas
• Applying the correct rating rules to usage data a
  customer-by-customer basis
• Applying any discount agreed
• Applying promotional discount and charges
• Applying outage credits
• Applying rebates ( SLAs were not met)
• Resolving unidentified usage(predefined) and
  exception reports.

77
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe invoicing
and collection process

• This process encompasses sending invoices to
  customers and performing collections.
• The aim is to provide a correct bill and, if
  there is a billing problem, resolve it quickly.

78
Customer Care and Billing ProcessThe consulting
and supporting process

• The collaboration between providers and customers
  includes establishing a special team of
  consultants for the customer, arranging periodic
  status and planning meetings, and defining the
  interfaces between provider and customer.

79
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
inventory management process

• This process encompasses physical equipment and
  the administration of this equipment
• installation and acceptance of equipment, with
  the physical configuration of the network, and
  handling of spare parts and the repair process.
• Software upgrades, implementing IP-based
  services, the number of managed objects is going
  to grow.
• Physical assets also include servers, access
  servers, gateways, gatekeepers, routers, and new
  connections.

80
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
service creation, planning and development process

• This process encompasses the following functional
  areas
• Designing technical capability to meet specified
  market need at desired cost
• Ensuring that the service (product) can be
  properly installed, monitored, controlled, and
  billed
• Initiating appropriate process and methods
  modifications, as well as initiating changes to
  levels of operations personnel and training
  required

81
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
service creation, planning and development process

• Initiating any modifications to the underlying
  network or information systems to support the
  requirements
• Performing preservice testing
• Ensuring that sufficient capacity is available to
  meet forecasted sales
• Developing IP-based services.

82
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
network planning and development process

• This process encompasses development and
  acceptance of strategy, description of standard
  network configurations for operational use, and
  definition of rules for network planning,
  installation, and maintenance.
• It is about the planning of boundary nodes,
  routes, and capacity.

83
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
network planning and development process

• Considering IP-based services, multiple
• alternatives for the implementation are
  available.
• Popular solutions are
• IP over ATM
• IP over frame relay
• IP over SONET/SDH

84
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
network planning and development process

• Special modelling tools are very useful to
  predict future performance under various load
  conditions.
• These tools utilize what-if scenarios to emulate
  performance under various load conditions.
• These tools depend today on the protocols used.
  Many providers work with multiple tools there
  are practically different tools for each service.

85
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
network planning and development process

• This process also deals with designing the
  network capability to meet a specified service
  need at the desired cost and for ensuring that
  the network can be properly installed, monitored,
  controlled, and billed.
• The process is also responsible for ensuring that
  enough network capacity will be available to meet
  the forecasted demand.

86
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
network provisioning process

• This process encompasses the configuration of the
  network to ensure that network capacity is ready
  for provisioning of services.
• Provisioning IP-based services involves a large
  number of nodes and servers that are completely
  unknown in a voice environment.
• Provisioning requires experienced subject matter
  experts.

87
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
service ordering process

• Includes all the functions accepting a customer's
  order for service, tracking the progress of the
  order, and notifyig the customer when the order
  is complete.
• Orders can include new,change, and disconnect
  orders for all or part of a customer's service.
• The aim is to order the service the customer
  requested, and keep the customer informed.

88
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
service configuration process

• This process encompasses the installation and/or
  configuration of services for specific customers,
  including the installation/ configuration of
  customer premises equipment.
• Offering IP-based services, additional functions
  must be considered. In particular, firewalls,
  application services such as e-mail, Web hosting,
  and their configurations are important.

89
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
service configuration process

• Also the setting of parameters to support QoS and
  SLA requirements is important.
• The more that can be automated, the better
  service providers do in the competitive market.

90
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
security management process

• Due to factors such as opening networks,
  connecting partners, and using a public domain
  such as the Internet security risks increase
  considerably.
• Virtual private networks (VPNs) are one of the
  possible answers to combining existing
  infrastructure with acceptable protection.
• Security management procedures are identical or
  at least very similar.

91
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
security manamagement process

• Security management is in charge of protecting
  all systems solutions.
• Process includes a planning and controlling
  function - In particular, three basic threats are
  considered
• (1) loss of availability of services,
• (2) loss of integrity, and
• (3) loss of privacy.

92
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
service problem resolution process

• Process encompasses isolating the root cause of
  service-affecting and non-service-affecting
  failures and acting to resolve them. Typically,
  failures affect multiple customers. Actions may
  include immediate reconfiguration or other
  corrective actions.
• Aim is to understand the causes impacting service
  performance and to implement immediate fixes or
  initiate quality improvement efforts.

93
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
service quality management process

• This process supports monitoring service or
  product quality on a service class basis in order
  to determine whether
• Service levels are being met consistently
• There are any general problems with the service
  or product
• The sale and use of the service is tracking to
  forecasts

94
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
service quality management process

• This process also encompasses taking appropriate
  action to keep service levels within agreed
  targets for each service class and to either keep
  ahead of demand or alert the sales process to
  slow sales.
• The aim is effective service-specific monitoring
  and to manage service levels to meet SLA
  commitments and standard commitments for the
  specific service.

95
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
service quality management process

• There have been quality metrics for voice
  services for a long time.
• For IP-based services, the term quality is
  relatively new.
• Philosophy behind IP-based services is to offer
  best-effort quality depending on the capacity
  constraints of networking infrastructures-but
  there are no guarantees even for that.

96
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
service quality management process

• There are two alternatives with IP-based
  services
• - Integrated Services (IntServ) this alternative
  supports RSVP and, as a result, bandwidth is
  guaranteed for application network ingress and
  egress points.
• - Differentiated Services (DiffServ) This
  alternative analyzes the type of service (ToS)
  header of IPv4 and assigns priorities.

97
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
network maintenance and restoration process

• This process encompasses maintaining the
  operational quality of the network in accordance
  with required network performance goals.
• Network maintenance activities can be
• preventative-such as scheduled routine
  maintenance or
• or corrective. Corrective maintenance can be in
  response to faults or to indications that
  problems may be developing (proactive).

98
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
network maintenance and restoration process

• Supervisory functions should be extended for
  IP-based services- In most cases, distributed
  monitoring capabilities must be implemented.
• Voice networks use Transaction Language 1 (TL 1),
  Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP),
  and TMN as the basis of supervising status and
  resource utilization.

99
Network Operational Management ProcessesThe
network maintenance and restoration process

• The IP world brings Simple Network Management
  Protocol (SNMP) and Remote Monitoring (RMON) into
  the supervisory scenario.
• Powerful filters and correlation engines are
  required for the reduction of the total amount of
  data generated by the supervisory function.

100
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessThe
inventory management process

• This process encompasses physical equipment and
  the administration of this equipment
• installation and acceptance of equipment, with
  the physical configuration of the network, and
  handling of spare parts and the repair process.
• Software upgrades, implementing IP-based
  services, the number of managed objects is going
  to grow.
• Physical assets also include servers, access
  servers, gateways, gatekeepers, routers, and new
  connections.

101
Order Processing and provisioning ProcessClosing
(finally!)

• Below these business processes, there are many
  support, documentation, and management systems
  most of them are legacy applications.
• Some of them are best-of-breed. and just a few of
  them are integrated with each other.