Technology Review | In Focus: Next Generation Service Management

www.comarch.eu n0 1/2009 (09)
Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
Comarch Technology Review is a publication created
by Comarch experts and specialists. It aims at assist-
ing our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth
information about market trends and developments,
and the technological possibilities of addressing the
most important issues.

in focus

next generation
service management

>> NGSM – Integrated Service Management

>> Next Generation Service Delivery Platform

>> Application SLA – The missing part of complete Service SLA Management?

Just sit back
and relax...

... with Comarch Next Generation Service Assurance you can simply
be sure that all the services in your network are working.
The growing number of services and their importance for operators’ businesses means that Learn more at
OSS systems have never been as important as they are nowadays. Today, operators can not ngsa.comarch.com
even think about providing services without help from the supporting systems. It is crucial
to take advantage of a comprehensive Operational Support System based on the underlying
fault management system that can monitor services, automatically gather events from all
possible sources and has a powerful engine to present the most relevant information.

Our proposal is the Comarch Next Generation Service Assurance solution, based on three
modules of the Comarch OSS Suite: Service Management, Fault Management and OSS Process
Management. Thanks to a highly efficient event correlation engine, the solution provides
the ability to monitor complex services, track problems’ root causes in an automated way,
and most importantly, resolve incidents through structured processes. Moreover, seamless
integration of all Comarch solution components with 3rd party software is realized through
OSS/J interfaces. As a result, we get an OSS system offering us all the advantages of service
assurance in a single convergent application.

Table of Contents < 3

IN fOCUS TreNDS & STrATeGIeS 31. The Increasing Importance of
4. Next Generation Service 18. What to look for in a perfect the Wholesale Billing Domain
A Win-Win Situation for Wholesale
Management inventory solution? Operators and their Partners
Tough competition forces CSPs to tackle interac- Accurate, consistent, streamlined
The transformation of legacy networks towards
tive and content-based services to avoid being Process-Driven Inventory IP-based networks will be an important chal-
pushed into the role of mere bit carrier. The win-
At present, it is understood that an accurate lenge in the near future, as it will have an impact
ner is the one who can introduce (at the quickest
Inventory database should be at the core of on the telecom operators’ business models, due
speed) new exciting customer services in collabo-
the entire OSS. Only an accurate Network Inven- to the growing influence of third party opera-
ration with partners at the lowest costs. Next Gen-
tory can be the foundation of Service Inventory tors. Operators want to offer a comprehensive
eration Service Management is a solution which
and further – automated Service Provisioning service portfolio to end users, including world-
can help CSPs to intercept new sources of reve-
and Service Level Management. The only way wide services for voice interconnect, data inter-
nue and to reduce operation costs. NGSM com-
to ensure such accuracy and automation, and connect and roaming. For routing international
bines various TMF standards including SID, eTOM,
to introduce accurate Inventories into existing traffic, wholesale operators play a big role in the
SDF and OSS/J into the complete solution which
scattered environments, is through Process- service offerings for their partners.
enables the boosting of service innovation.
Driven Inventory Management.

8. Next Generation Service 23. Aiming towards better 35. How to Solve WiMAX
Delivery Platform Business Challenges
customer experience with Lowering the Barrier of Entry to
Integrated Service Fulfillment
ITIL and eTOM the WiMAX Service Market
The telecommunication industry has undergone
a great shift from voice centric services towards eTOM is a well-known concept in the telecom- With a wider range of available consumer ser-
much more dynamic, convergent services based munications industry. This article discusses the vices on the Internet, the need for reliable data
on IP protocol. The driving force in this revolution possibility of combining eTOM with ITIL, the de services has become greater than ever before.
has been the introduction of mobile services and facto standard for IT Service Management. It Home and business users are looking for fast, reli-
a prevalence of the Internet, thus resulting in a shows the impact to the OSS and BSS environ- able, customizable and self-manageable services.
change in customer needs. Nowadays, customers ment of telecom operators, considering also the This opens brand new opportunities for both
expect great flexibility and a complete solution business benefits that the ITIL best practices will existing and startup service providers; however
which can deliver end-user services over differ- bring, when implemented in parallel with eTOM it also brings about the challenge of deploying
ent technologies. This means that in order to be business processes. the right network and IT infrastructure to provide

27. The Concept of B2B Gateway
profitable, telecommunication operators need to the best possible customer experience.
transform from simple network access providers
to services aggregators, where network access is a More efficient communication CASe STUDIeS
40. Towards semantic modeling
vehicle for delivering content centric services. between business partners

14. Application SLA The traditional business-to-consumer market
in the telecommunications sector has been the of physical devices in NGOSS
The missing part of complete Service main focus for most telecom operators. Due to MOST Project
SLA Management? the increasing amount of players on the tele-
One of the challenges faced by NGOSS systems
communication market, new business oppor-
“I am a Customer, my service is not working”. Sim- is the increasing need for consistent manage-
tunities have risen between companies. Typi-
ple complaint, probably a simple solution, but ment of physical network equipment. In large
cal ways of cooperation on the telecom market
how do I find the problem when I know that my companies the time consumed by maintaining
can be e.g. MVNE-MVNO cooperation or coop-
network is working correctly. The problem is that thousands of devices and finding solutions to
eration between a Mobile Network Operator
the service models do not include information possible problems is constantly on the rise. State-
(MNO) and a content provider. These kind of
about used applications, and the applications are of-the-art technologies enable vendor indepen-
business-to-business (B2B) partnerships bring
increasingly becoming the heart of the service, dent equipment type identification and access to
additional challenges, because the technical
while the network is simply reused. How can oper- the attributes of the component types. Further-
advances and highly competitive markets have
ators ensure that the proper quality of so many more, current solutions often provide the user
increased the importance for B2B platforms as a
complex services is delivered? Has the software with convenient graphical modeling of the physi-
middle-ground solution that enables the infor-
for network and service monitoring enough func- cal elements structures, but are usually unable
mation exchange and interaction between oper-
tionality to provide the right information? to answer questions that involve sophisticated
ator and business partner applications.
configuration related constraints.

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4> In focus

Next Generation
Service Management
Tough competition forces CSPs to tackle interactive and content-based services to avoid being pushed
into the role of mere bit carrier. The winner is the one who can introduce (at the quickest speed) new
exciting customer services in collaboration with partners at the lowest costs. Next Generation Service
Management is a solution which can help CSPs to intercept new sources of revenue and to reduce opera-
tion costs. NGSM combines various TMF standards including SID, eTOM, SDF and OSS/J into the complete
solution which enables the boosting of service innovation.

technology review [www.comarch.eu]

In focus < 5

THE INTERNET
and mobile revolution has changed the commu-
Business Benchmarking, industry update report
[2], even mobile operators, because of the logic
of mobile internet, might be cast into the role of
services, and not only content based but also ser-
vices provided by other CSPs. The winner is the CSP
who can fastest adapt its offer to customer needs
nication service market. From the consumer de- mere bit carriers by Internet players like Google or by embracing the most exciting content and appli-
mand perspective, it is a great change. For many handset vendors such as Apple. This is even further cations provided by third parties.
end-users, no mobile phone or online presence true for fixed operators if they stop their transition The problem with the idea of providing new
means that you don’t exist. In other words, com- from voice service providers at the place where exciting services which are a combination of net-
munication based services are perceived as ne- they serve only dumb pipes for Internet. work access based services leveraging technology
cessities to live similar to food and air. This seems For all these reasons, the recommendation pro- convergence with content based services, is that
like an ideal situation for Communication Service vided in the report [1] “Revenue Growth Strate- these new “exciting” services may introduce com-
Providers (CSP). The problem is that end-users are gies: Getting the Balance Right” is that CSPs must plexity which can “eat up” profit. This challenge is
not only “hungry” but also very demanding. End- intercept revenue growth around interactive and indicated in the already mentioned report [2] “Win-
users can no longer be satisfied by simple services content based services. This is perceived as a long ning in a Shrinking World: Points to Consider”.
based on network access. Along with high compe- term strategy which is expected to allow CSP to The answer to this problem is employing next
tition in mature markets where the revenue can no attain a considerable share in the business around generation service management OSS systems. Half
longer be increased by simple new subscriber ac- Internet. of the solution could be leveraging hyped service
quisition, it means that revenue growth must be To implement this strategy, CSP must learn to delivery platform systems. However, this kind of
pursued around new types of services: interactive play a new role – that of a service aggregator. This system mainly addresses the service delivery pro-
and content based services. means that CSP must forget about the “has to be cess, and to complete the picture one must attach
Another reason for CSP to move towards more built here’ motto. Instead, CSP must learn how to the missing part – service assurance. In a highly
complex services leveraging technology conver- cooperate with partners and deliver services in the competitive environment with increased portabil-
gence combined with content based services is value chain model. The key to success is the ability of end users between service providers, service
the pressure of Internet payers. According to TMF ity to augment native CSP services with partner delivery that does not assure comprehensive con-

figure 1. Complete service lifetime support
Service delivery Service assurance
CRM CRM

Customer Facing Services
Customer Capture customer
needs
Calculate Customer
service impact
Focus

Resource Facing Services
Identify what Identify impacted
technical services technical services
are required

Resources
Allocate Identify faulty
Network resources resources
Focus

nr 1/2009 (09)

6> In focus

figure 2. Next Generation Service Management The central aspect of the solution is service
inventory with the service catalog constructed
according to the SID model augmented with man-
Fulfillment Assurance agement meta-data used by service fulfillment and
service assurance processes. Service fulfillment is
realized by the Next Generation Service Delivery
Platform and service assurance by Next Generation
Service Assurance. From the Service Inventory per-
rm spective, the delivery process is a producer of ser-
fo

vice data which includes details about customer

NG
lat

service decomposition down to allocated resources.

Ser
Deliverry P

The service assurance process is a consumer which
exploits service detailed data to boost service assur-

vice Assur
ance process automation. The presented solution
perfectly demonstrates how SID and eTOM frame-
Service Inventory works support each other and enable the provision
of an end-to-end solution without scarifying the
desired modular approach.
ice

Deeper insight into the NG Service Delivery Plat-

an
form and NG Service Assurance concepts can be
v
er

ce gained from the white papers listed in the ‘Further
S

reading’ chapter.
NG
No need for the big bang
In the history of IT there have been a lot of over-
hyped revolutionary ideas which promised to solve
virtually all the problems of the world. Even when
some of these ideas contained promising solu-
tions, many of them failed because there was no
practical way of bringing these ides to life. Many
sumer experience may quickly turn into failure. This mental impact on the positive effects of fast ser- of them simply assumed the big bang scenario,
is the reason for employing next generation service vice adoption. To avoid this situation, brining new which means replacing all existing systems with
management systems which address both service services to life must mean providing complete life- the new system with one shot. Such an approach
fulfillment and service assurance. Fast introduction time support comprising the fulfillment and assur- is impractical and presents a barrier to the intro-
of new services must mean not only the ability to ance areas of service management identified by the duction of innovation.
deliver the exciting services but also the ability to eTOM framework. The idea of complete service life- The Next Generation Service Management solu-
assure the quality which guarantees customer sat- time support is depicted above (Figure 1). tion does not require replacing all existing systems
isfaction. All of these need to be achievable with The concept is based on the synergy between to reap the benefits of the solution. On the contrary,
low costs. These benefits should characterize the fulfillment and assurance processes which use the the solution assumes the scenario in which exist-
next generation service management solution. same service inventory. Figure 1 demonstrates that ing legacy systems can be incorporated into the
the service delivery process during execution fills the service layer as service factories. In other words,
Complete service lifetime support service inventory with the data which should then this scenario can be perceived as a test case for
The current and future communication service be available to the service assurance process. The the integration capabilities of the solution. This
market is characterized by high competition. The example here demonstrates the automatic service means that CSP can quickly introduce the new
battlefield is around fast service innovation. The impact calculation for the network related faults. solution. Instead of replacing all old systems, CSP
winner of the game is the one who can quickly envi- This process requires data completed by the service can concentrate all efforts on adding new service
sion new exciting services and then promptly bring delivery process. It demonstrates how practically the components and combining them with the existing
these new services to life. The service introduction eTOM process decomposition into fulfillment and service portfolio to bring really new exciting cus-
requires not only the ability to deliver new services assurance processes can be implemented so that the tomer services to market. This is a great advantage
to customers but also to assure comprehensive cus- decomposed processes collaborate during the ser- over the scenario where much time is consumed on
tomer experience. The latter capability is equally vice lifetime. The presented concept of service fulfill- transforming an IT environment with no influence
important. In times of strong competition and ment and assurance synergy is a reason for the Next on business until the whole transition is complete.
increasing ease with which customers can migrate Generation Service Management solution to be com- This is another dimension of the reduced time-to-
between CSPs, neglecting service assurance may posed of three main components: Service & Network market benefit which NGSM brings.
seriously damage CSP business and have a detri- Inventory, Next Generation Service Delivery Platform
and Next Generation Service Assurance.


In focus < 7

Comarch Next Generation Service Next Generation Service Delivery
Management Platform further reading
Comarch Next Generation Service Management is The Comarch Next Generation Service Delivery [1] “Next Generation Service Delivery
a pre-integrated solution constructed according platform implements service fulfillment according Platform. The integrated fulfillment”,
to the idea depicted in Figure 2. NGSM includes: to the component based service creation concept. Comarch white paper, Technology Re-
Comarch Service Inventory, Comarch Next Genera- The service catalog which stores service specifi- view 1/2009.
tion Service Delivery Platform and Comarch Next cations augmented with management meta-data [2] “How to move Service Assurance to
Generation Service Assurance. The solution is a serves as a recipe for the service delivery process. the Next Level”, Comarch white paper,
perfect example of how TMF standards and best The management meta-data includes information Technology Review 2/2008.
practices can be combined and implemented to regarding which service factory is responsible for [3] “Application SLA – the missing part of
provide the complete solution yet maintaining managing service components. Simplifying, the complete Service SLA Management?”,
modularity. The main TFM standards and best prac- service delivery process adheres to the following Comarch white paper, Technology Re-
tices exploited by Comarch NGSA are: SID, eTOM, scenario. A customer order for a new service is view 1/2009.
Service Delivery Framework (SDF) and OSS/J. captured as a new Customer Facing Service with [4] www.ngsm.comarch.com
attributes set to values which express customer
Service Inventory preferences. Next, the service delivery process references
Comarch Service Inventory plays the role of a hub decomposes the customer order into the orders [1] “Revenue Growth Strategies: Getting
for service fulfillment and service assurance imple- for Resource Facing Services according to the CFS- the Balance Right”, TMF Business
mentations provided respectively by NGSDP and RFS mapping. The meta-data augmenting RFS speci- Benchmarking.
NGSA. The primary role of service inventory is to fication enables the service delivery to orchestrate [2] “Winning in a Shrinking World: Points
provide the service catalog understood as a central the service factories to fulfill the orders. In reality, to Consider”, TMF Business Bench-
location for defining existing and new customer the service delivery is slightly more complicated, marking, industry update report.
services. Service Inventory exploits the SID concept as the service delivery process should take into
for service modeling according to the mapping account services which a customer may already
between Customer Facing Services (CFS), Resource have delivered. The details regarding NGSDP can
Facing Services (RFS) and Resources (R). Along the be found in the white paper listed in the ‘Further
CFS-RFS-R model, service specifications are aug- reading’ chapter.
mented with service management data which serve
both service fulfillment and assurance process Next Generation Service
implementation. Assurance
For service fulfillment implemented in NGSDP, Comarch Next Generation Service Assurance is
the service catalog CFS to RFS mapping is a foun- responsible for service assurance implementation.
dation for service order decomposition during The service catalog model CFS-RFS-R is used to
the service delivery process. For service assurance automate the network fault service impact calcu-
implemented in NGSA, the R-RFS-CFS mapping is lation and other service assurance process imple-
used as a foundation for automatic fault service mentations.
impact calculation. The CFS-RFS-R enables NGSA to refocus from
Apart from maintaining the service specification, resource centric fault management to real cus-
Service Inventory is responsible for storing service tomer services assurance. The basic SID CFS-RFS-
instances to support the service fulfillment and ser- R model is augmented with management meta-
vice assurance process as depicted in Figure 1. data which include the service impact propagating
Service Inventory also plays the role of an inte- rules starting from Resources through Resource
gration hub which enables incorporating third Facing Services to the impacted Customer Fac-
party service offers into the CSP service catalog. ing Services.
Third party service offers are managed as Resource Comarch NGSA also contains a ready to use
Facing Services which can be used to build new ITIL based library of service incident and problem
Customer Facing Services. The basic RFS specifica- management processes which leverage the CFS- Łukasz Mendyk
tion is augmented with management information RFS-Model for increasing the automation rate. The
which include details enabling orchestrating the details can be found in the white paper listed in
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Product Manager
integrated service factory. the ‘Further reading’ chapter. >>> Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
Info: Currently responsible for Next
Generation Service Management
solution, specializes in the service
fulfillment area

nr 1/2009 (09)

8> In focus

Next Generation
Service Delivery
Platform
Integrated Service fulfillment


In focus < 9

figure 1. Silos vs. horizontal architecture
Vertical – Silos based Arch Horizontal – Layered Arch

OSS OSS OSS NGOSS

Voice Data IP IP Access Voice Data TV Content

Network Network Network Network

The telecommunication industry has un-
dergone a great shift from voice cen-
tric services towards much more dynamic, conver-
being developed as isolated silos without assuming
any of the horizontal integration required by conver-
gent services delivered in the value chain model. First
services. This assumption forces a shift from vertical
silos to the horizontal architecture, with the service
layer acting as the basis for the service delivery pro-
gent services based on IP protocol. The driving force attempts to build service delivery systems for conver- cess. The service layer is composed of fine-grained
in this revolution has been the introduction of mo- gent services were realized by very costly integration service components which act as reusable build-
bile services and a prevalence of the Internet, thus of existing silos oriented OSS systems. Following this, ing blocks. Any customer service is defined as com-
resulting in a change in customer needs. Customer efforts were focused on mitigating the integration posing of service components. Different customer
needs can no longer be satisfied by simple services problem by leveraging integration platforms based services may reuse service components in different
bound to one specific technology. On the contrary, on the ESB concept. But still, the results measured constellations, providing great flexibility in creating
customers expect great flexibility and a complete regarding cost and time to market for delivering new new and differentiated client services. The essential
solution which can deliver end-user services over services are not satisfactory. This is due to that fact element of NGSDP is the notion of the service deliv-
different technologies. This means that in order to that developing adapters to ESB is still a costly task, ery process as an assembly process. This means that
be profitable, telecommunication operators need to and wrapping vertical silos can only provide a hori- once a new type of customer service is defined, it is
transform from simple network access providers to zontal service layer imitation. ready to be delivered via a generic service assembly
services aggregators, where network access is a ve- The answer to the integration problems associ- process, which uses fine-grained reusable service
hicle for delivering content centric services. ated with delivering convergent services is lever- components available on the service layer as build-
This trend resulted in the emergence of new types aging Next Generation Service Delivery Platform ing blocks. This idea is depicted below (Figure 2). The
of services, such as IPTV, Video on Demand and VoIP, (NGSDP) – a new generation of OSS systems in the architecture ensures reduced time to market and a
which can be implemented ether via Mobile or fixed field of Service Fulfillment. The main goal for this significant reduction in integration costs.
(including FFTx) internet broadband access. More- type of system is cost effectiveness and reduced
over, clients demand highly customizable service time to market for delivering highly customizable reduced Time to Market
packages with appropriate QoS. On the one hand, a bundles of convergent services. System architec- The introduction of IP based convergent services
high customer demand for new types of services can ture is tuned for delivering services which are caused a revolution in customer needs. They are
be a great source of revenue, but on the other hand, aggregations of convergent services rather than no longer satisfied with monolithic services bound
it presents a big challenge for telecommunication monolithic services. The support for multiple play to a single technology. On the contrary, customers
operators in the area of service fulfillment. scenarios and delivering services in a value chain is demand highly customized service bundles which
As the services to be delivered to end users are no a native functionality of this type of system. are content rather than technology centric. More-
longer simple services bound to a single technology, The picture below illustrates how horizontal inte- over, customers expect that service offerings rap-
old methods for service fulfillment cease to work. gration is a native characteristic of the NGOSS, while idly adapt to the changing demands. It is now com-
Traditional OSS systems were organized in silos built for silo-based architecture it is a high cost task which monplace that a customer updates their demand
vertically over technology-centric services. This archi- must break through old architectural boundaries. as quickly as a new concept appears on the mar-
tecture is considerably challenged by the demand for ket. Because of strong competition, a customer can
convergent services. Old systems were designed to Service Delivery as a Service instantaneously switch to a Service Provider who
maximize efficiency through leveraging tight cou- Assembly Process more cheaply and quickly delivers new services,
pling between technology and services delivered The main premise of the NGSDP is that a service is without bothering with underlying network tech-
by this technology. This resulted in these systems not a monolithic service but a bundle of convergent nology. This means that having an OSS system that

nr 1/2009 (09)

10 > In focus

figure 2. Creating customer services using fine-grained service building blocks

Assembly process

User

mand TV Channel
On De
Video

Service Layer Voice IP TV

Video On
IP Access Voice TV TV Channel
Demand

figure 3. Third party components as plug-ins to the service layer
fine grained components into the service layer, which
significantly reduces cost of integration.
NGOSS

reduced Integration Costs
Historically, integration has always been a tough
task in the OSS field. The need for a time and money-
effective integration solution has become even
Third Party
Component Service Layer more critical for telecommunication operators fol-
lowing the emergence of convergent services. Cus-
tomers demand new services which are not mono-
Content IP Access Voice Data TV Content
lithic solutions, but bundles of services, and their
implementation requires integration of different
technologies, delivered in a value chain. This means
the participation of many partners, including con-
tent providers. This makes having a platform which
facilities integration a necessity to survive within
this very competitive environment.
For many years, integration has meant writing
can significantly reduce new service’ ‘time to mar- code writing, which not only drastically reduces a proprietary code which was neither fast nor cost
ket’ is essential for competitive advantage. time to market, but also costs. effective. A step forward was employing systems
NGSDP is all about reducing time to market and The benefit of reduced time to market is not lim- based on the ESB concept, reducing costs but still
costs of introducing new services. The NGSDP archi- ited to introduction of new service bundle variations. not sufficiently effective. This is mostly due to the
tecture is tuned for a scenario in which a Product The key premise of NGSDP is extendibility of the ser- fact that the ESB concept required writing adapt-
Manager can quickly prepare new service offerings vice layer. This means that emerging new technolo- ers for monolithic systems. This method resembles
by assembling the existing fine-grained service gies, delivering novel convergent services, can be fighting with symptoms rather than eliminating the
components. This is achieved using architecture plugged into the service layer without the need to cause of a disease. The effective method requires a
based on a service layer and a notion of service rebuild the OSS system. Once new service compo- new approach, where old OSS systems constructed
delivery as an assembly process. The introduction nents have been added to the service layer, they according to the vertical silos concept are replaced
of a new service is as simple as combining existing instantly become available to the Product Manager with NGSDP.
building blocks and preparing a bundle. Once a new for building a new service offering. New customer ser- The NGSDP is designed according to the hori-
service is prepared, it is ready to be delivered by the vices are ready for delivery by the service assembly zontal architecture, with an essential role for the
generic service assembly process. This means that process. In other words, integration of new service service layer, which is composed of fine-grained
a new service offering can be prepared with zero components is reduced to the problem of plugging-in reusable components. This is the main differentia-


In focus < 11

tion from older systems, which could expose only figure 4. Value chain implemented on NGSDP
coarse-grained services, thus, were difficult to reuse.
Moreover, old systems tightly coupled service man- Third Party NGSDP
Component
agement with services which were tied to a network
technology. In contrast, NGSDP exploits fine-grained
Content
components which expose standard API, allowing
the placement of the service management func-
tionality above the service components layer. The Third Party Third Party
Component Service Layer Component
materialization of this concept is the generic ser-
vice assembly process, which is an essential part of
Content Content Broadband
NGSDP for service delivery implementation. Content Set-top box Set-top box
Aggr Aggr Service
This reduces the integration problem to plugging-
in fine-grain components into the service layer. This
idea is depicted in the Figure 3. Once the integrated
service components are available on the service
layer, they are ready to be used by Product Managers
for constructing new client service offerings. Content Content Broadband Set-top box
The task of ‘plugging in’ service components is Creator Aggregator Provider /TV/PC
much easier to that of integrating old systems based
on the vertical silos architecture. This is mostly due
to the NGSDP architecture, which assumes fine-
granularity of components with industry based ager prepares a customer service by picking the dard. Service components available on the service
standard API. Even in the case that the components most suitable service components available on the layer are managed according to the SID Model, which
to be integrated are not compliant with industry service layer, and decides which partner’s service organizes service components into Customer Facing
standard API the task of writing adapters is much offerings are bundled into the customer service. Services (CFS) and Resource Facing Services (RFS).
smaller to that of writing adapters for coarse-grain Once a service bundle is defined by the Product The definition of a new customer service created by
monolithic systems. When the components to be Manager it is ready to be delivered to the customer. a Product Manager is modeled as a new CFS and RFS
integrated are already based on industry standard The service delivery is implemented by the NGSDP specification, as defined in SID. The new CFS-RFS speci-
API (promoted by TM Forum and NGOSS initiative) assembly process, which orchestrates creation of fication augmented by metadata and policy specifica-
the integration problem is even further reduced. individual service components that constitute a tions becomes a novel recipe for the service assembly
customer service. This means that NGSDP provides process, and, thus, the new customer service is ready
Value Chain Service Delivery central control over individual partner’s offerings for service delivery. In other words, the Comarch ser-
The emergence of convergent services and a throughout the service delivery process. This is an vice layer provides a service catalog which contains
shift from monolithic services to content centric essential feature for smooth implementation of the recipes for all customer offerings.
services bundles means that telecommunication value chain-based customer offerings, as service Founding the service layer on the industry stan-
operators need to alter the orientation of their aggregators need to control the delivery of third dard, the SID model makes integration of new part-
business more towards service aggregation rather party components. This idea is depicted below: ner’s services much easier and the idea of integration
than merely profitable network access provision- All the characteristics depicted highlight how via ‘plug-able’ service components a reality. When a
ing. Having a platform which has native support NGSDP has native inbuilt support for multiple ser- partner’s offerings are described as appropriate RFS
for delivering services in multiple scenarios can vice offers, significantly reducing time-to market or CFS specifications augmented by metadata and
act as a great competitive advantage. and integration costs. policy specifications, they can be smoothly incorpo-
NGSDP, with its new generation architecture rated into the service layer. This is achieved because
conceived to change service delivery into a service Comarch Next Generation Service RFS and CFS specifications play a role of an industry
assembly process, is a perfect fit for an OSS system Delivery Platform based model for describing a partner’s ‘plugged-in’
which needs to effectively support multiple play Comarch NGSDP is an aspect of the Comarch OSS service offering. The basic CFS, RFS specifications
business scenarios. Each partners offering is man- Suite, which is built according to the TM Forum NGOSS are augmented by additional meta-model and policy
aged as a service component within the service concept. The main elements of Comarch NGSDP are specifications which describe the management inter-
layer which is available for service offering bun- the service layer and the service assembly process. face of a service component and provide additional
dling. As the service layer of NGSDP is designed to information required by the assembly process. Once
be extendable, each new partners offering can be Comarch Service Layer RFS and/or CFS specifications with the metadata and
quickly plugged into the service layer. This means In Comarch NGSDP, the service layer is built upon policy specifications are added to the service layer,
that integration with new partners systems is a the Comarch Service Inventory. The Comarch Ser- the partner’s offerings become building blocks for
standard process built into the concept of the service Inventory exploits the service modeling concept customer offerings. This mechanism provides an
vice layer. Once a new service partner’s offering is based on the SID model promoted by the TM Forum. integration hub which is compliant with the stan-
incorporated into the service layer it is instantly This means that the service layer, which is a founda- dard model (SID). In other words, the Comarch service
available for service offer bundling. A Product Man- tion of NGSDP platform, is based on an industry stan- layer can play the role of a federated service inven-

nr 1/2009 (09)

12 > In focus

figure 5. Service layer as SID integration hub
NGSDP

User
Service Layer

TV Channel
CFS

IP TV
CFS CFS CFS
IP TV TV Channel

RFS
RFS Content
RFS TV
IP
CFS-RFS specifications augmented by additional
metadata and policy specifications which together
form a recipe for the service delivery process.
Other business unit Third Party
Component > Once the new service is defined it is ready to be
Service Layer
delivered to the customer.
CFS > When a customer requests the new service, it is
CFS Content
IP delivered via the assembly process.
> Once the service is delivered, it is defined within
the Comarch Service Inventory, enabling it to be
RFS easily managed. This includes service assurance
IP
RFS management of the newly created service, which
FFTH can be implemented using the Comarch Next
Generation Service Assurance product.

The basic service delivery process outlined above is
tory, providing a common layer for partners’ service the Comarch OSS Process Management, which is a perfect for illustrating the main concept of the ser-
offerings. Together with the assembly process, this part of the Comarch OSS Suite. The main concept of vice delivery as the service assembly process. How-
means a platform for collaboration within value the Comarch Service Assembly Process is that the ever in scenarios more true to real life, the service
chain offerings. This idea is depicted below: service delivery process is not hard coded per ser- delivery process need not only take into account
Implementing the service layer over the Comarch vice offering, but is a generic process which assem- newly ordered services but also the existing cus-
Service Inventory has additional benefits. When bles services according to a recipe stored within tomer services. This is because the most common
delivering a customer service, the service deliv- the CFS-RFS specifications defined in the service scenario is when a user updates his existing sub-
ery process is accompanied by creating instances layer. This means that customer services’ are not scription. In such a scenario, the series delivery
of appropriate CFS and RFS. This means that cus- managed as monolithic services with a proprietary process analyzes existing customer services and
tomer service is not only delivered to a customer, service delivery mechanism, but are built from reus- confronts them with the newly ordered services.
but is also described within the Comarch Service able service components. This approach means This analysis results in the optimal delivery sce-
Inventory. Having an inventory of delivered services leveraging the main concept of SOA, which assumes nario which attempts to reuse the existing cus-
makes these services manageable and provides constructing services from reusable fine-grained tomer service building blocks to support the new
a foundation for full service lifecycle support. As service components, rather than implementing ones yet also must decide which service compo-
Comarch Service Inventory is also a foundation of monolithic services using proprietary mechanisms. nents are compatible and which one needs to be
Comarch Next Generation Service Assurance, this The reusable components are defined in the service upgraded or deallocated. All this analysis is done
grants the ability to close the loop of Service Ful- layer. As described in the Comarch Service Layer, the based on CFS-RFS specifications and augmenting
fillment and Service Assurance. scenario which captures this idea is as follows: metadata with accompanying policy specifica-
> A Product Manager using marketing requirements tions. Examples of such specifications for which
Comarch Service Assembly Process conceives a new type of customer service. the delivery process chooses the optimal delivery
Within Comarch NGSDP, the service assembly pro- > The new service is built as a bundle of reusable ser- path are: declaration of service dependency, service
cess that implements service delivery is built upon vice components. The new service is described by compatibility and declaration of which RFS Speci-


In focus < 13

figure 6. Closing the loop: service delivery & service assurance

Service delivery Service assurance
CRM CRM

Customer Facing Services
Customer Capture customer
needs
Calculate Customer
service impact
Focus

Resource Facing Services
Identify what Identify impacted
technical services technical services
are required

Resources
Network Allocate Identify faulty
Focus resources resources

fications describe technical alternative implemen- concept of the service layer is accompanied by the All these NGSDP features provide such benefits
tations of CFS Specifications. service assembly process notion, which is a generic as reduced time to market and costs, which are
The described intelligence of the service assem- service delivery process. According to this concept, extremely important within the very competitive
bly process guarantees efficient service delivery by service delivery is implemented by assembling reus- environment that telecommunication operators
reusing existing service building blocks and avoid- able service building blocks available on the service must now operate. >>>
ing deallocating and then reallocating service com- layer. This approach guarantees reduced time to
ponents. Moreover, this strategy assures minimal market for new services, offering both using a new
impact on the existing customer services which a variation of service bundles and a new type of build-
user wishes to retain. ing block. The latter is possible because the service
layer is conceived as an extendable layer. The inte-
Conclusions gration problem is reduced to the issue of adding
NGSDP is a new class of OSS system that has the new, fine-grained service components, saving cost
primary role of reducing time to market and inte- and effort. Once a new service component is avail-
gration costs associated with the introduction of able on the service layer, it is ready to be used as a
new service offerings. This is achieved through com- building block for constructing new service offer-
pletely different system architecture. Unlike old ings. This concept is augmented by exploiting indus-
OSS systems, which exploited architecture using try standards. Comarch NGSDP leverages the TM
the vertical silos concept, the new format employs Forum SID model with the core model of Customer
horizontal architecture with an essential role for Facing Services and Resource Facing Services for Łukasz Mendyk
the service layer. The premise is that a customer managing service building blocks available on the
service is a bundle of reusable fine-grained service platform. Employing standard API based on OSS/J
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Product Manager
components. This assumption is a perfect fit for the makes third party delivered service components Department: Telecommunications
new generation, which is no longer monolithic ser- really pluginable modules, which can smoothly Business Unit
vices bound to a single technology, but on the con- extend the service layer, and, thus, a customer ser- Info: Currently responsible for Next
trary, are bundles of content-centric convergent service offering. This makes the NGSDP the perfect plat- Generation Service Management
solution, specializes in the service
vices, including IPTV, Video on Demand and VoIP. The form for delivering multiple play services.
fulfillment area

nr 1/2009 (09)

14 > In focus

Application SLA
The missing part of complete Service SLA Management?

Next Generation Service Management Tools can handle
not only network but also applications impact on the services

“I am a Customer, my service is not working”. Simple complaint, probably a simple solution, but how
do I find the problem when I know that my network is working correctly. The problem is that the ser-
vice models do not include information about used applications, and the applications are increasingly
becoming the heart of the service, while the network is simply reused.

In focus < 15

How can operators ensure that the
proper quality of so many com-
plex services is delivered? Has the software for net-
picture”. Additionally, where possible, the propa-
gation rules are set to describe how the events
affect its direct services (Resource Facing Services).
tion includes strong integration between Service
Inventory, Network Inventory and the monitoring
solution. The best solutions include the processes
work and service monitoring enough functionality The integration of applications is not an easy task. built using ITIL Change Management, which track
to provide the right information? Fortunately, OSS With this, one may receive two events for the same all changes made in resources used by the service.
systems have evolved, and they currently contain problem: one originating from the device and one Those processes should automatically update the
functionalities allowing the operator to build com- from the application. There are two solutions pos- service model and also trigger the refresh of the
prehensive service management platforms. Today, sible: information in the Service Assurance tool.
operators cannot even think about delivering mod- > Proper service model, allowing for correlation of
ern services of a high quality without providing a these two events and propagating the alarm only Application integration
SLA. This means that service assurance with SLAs if it affects both components of the service The applications could be monitored in almost the
becomes the most critical aspect of modern OSS > Correlation rules, which can narrow down the same way as any network element, either through
solutions. Additionally, since most modern services number of events and can enrich and qualify the integration layer with dedicated interfaces or
are built based on a number of applications, deliver- just one event. through IT Application Management. Both of these
ing the services over network, the applications are approaches can deliver not only the state of a given
becoming the core of the service models. Both solutions allow the service provider to enrich application but also a number of different statistics
But let’s start from the beginning. the monitoring of the services, which has a direct such as performance, disk usage, etc. Those details
impact on the quality of its SLA management. can then be included in various KPI parameters,
Service Assurance solutions and crossing of the assigned thresholds will trig-
Modern Service Assurance solutions allow for moni- Service Model – dynamic image ger alarms, which can affect the service.
toring the service by providing the following key When the Service Models include the application
functionalities: information it is important to ensure, that this SQM and SLA management
> Service state propagation based on network layer model is up-to-date. Often, the service providers When service models are documented there are
monitoring and service models with detailed put a lot of effort in creation of those models, either two final things missing: Service Quality Manage-
information about service-resource relations. through migration to newer service catalogue solu- ment and SLA Management. The first is used to col-
> Service Quality Management with statistics gath- tions or through inquiries made in the current net- lect network & application metrics and calculate
ered from a number of different sources, includ- work to locate all required applications. This is the KPI and KQI. These can then be propagated
ing the network, probing systems, applications, not enough. The network environment and the through the service models to the top level Cus-
and supporting systems. It also generates the applications used to deliver services evolve, so it tomer Services. Such an approach creates the com-
service affecting events based on thresholds is very important to at a minimum keep the infor- plete picture of a service:
trespassing. mation that some changes occurred. The ideal solu-
These solutions are capable of joining the data
in order to provide comprehensive information
about the state of the service. This is a must-have
figure 1. Service Models based on SID
solution when the service provider wants to imple-
ment the SLA and start including the applications
within it.
Customer
Service
How is the service provided?
CFS

Where are the applications?
Internal Internal
When comprehensive Service Assurance is in place, Internal
the key issue is to identify the applications which
are required to provide such a service. The service
model should then be revised and all of the appli- Internal Internal Internal Internal
cations should be added to such a model. Even if
RFS

the given application cannot be fully monitored, it
is still valuable to have it as a part of the service. Equipment Connection
Groups Configuration Application Application
There are different ways for modeling the services. Groups
In Comarch’s opinion, the best option is to build
the model using SID, extending it to handle all nec-
Resources

essary information.
The ideal Service Model provides informa-
tion about used network resources and applica-
tions running together with them or on separate
machines/clusters. Such a model is used to docu-
ment an end-to-end service and present the “big

nr 1/2009 (09)

16 > In focus

figure 2. Application event priorities based on Service SLA

Melody Service Priority
Service
Pri
ori
ty SLA Contract
=1
00

Melody
Radio Access Core Network
Platform
Pri
ori
ty
=1
00

Content HW
Application
Provider Platform
SMSC DNS GSN

Priority = 100
UTRAN GERAN

Content Content Melody Server Alarm
Menager Provider Priority = 100

CFS RFS 3rd party
provided
service

> Service model as documentation of used com- tant benefit of this approach. But there is an even tent servers, LDAP servers or even the OS installed
ponents, resources, configurations, and most more important potential benefit from the integra- on their equipment. These applications often gen-
importantly in current complex services – used tion. Every Service Provider tracks the signed SLA, erate more errors than the hardware used in the
applications maintains information about the priority of each network. The customers do not see the difference,
> Service impact events providing almost real-time service and finally, is often aware of the potential from their perspective the service is either working
status of the service financial loss of service failure. All of this data can or not, and they are willing to change the service
> Service KPI and KQI providing the measurements be used to prioritize services and the existing event provider if somebody will be able to guarantee the
for service quality. propagation rules can then be used to push the pri- quality and availability of the service. Increasing
ority from the service level down to the network amounts of service providers use this as the dif-
By including the applications in the model, the and application events. This means that the oper- ferentiator of their offer, especially with regard
overall service information is dependent on the ation staff can use this information to solve those to large business customers.
state and performance of the used applications. events which are most critical from the business
If all this data is exported to the SLA Management perspective. If the applications are part of the model, Our offer and vision
solution, it can be used by a number of different their impact can also be prioritized, so that events The Comarch vision for realization of such solutions
SLA attributes such as availability, bandwidth or caused by them are resolved in a reasonable order. is based upon the Comarch OSS Suite. It provides the
quality, to name just a few. With this approach Application prioritizing can also be used by other ability through the flexible service modeling tool, effi-
one might even model services, which are purely users in other activities like enhancement planning, cient Fault Management with event correlation sys-
based on applications, and manage the applica- upgrades and other maintenance activities. tem, the Service Impact Monitoring tool, Service Qual-
tion quality and the application SLAs. ity Management and finally SLA Management. All of
Why it is important these modules have been included in Comarch Next
Loop back – Customer information Service providers might question the necessity of Generation Service Assurance, which also includes
prioritizes the network and including the applications, measuring them and modules of Comarch IT Management – the source of
application events monitoring them more closely with SLAs. But at knowledge and best practices for application man-
The possibility of propagating the application the end-of-the-day, an increasing number of the agement. The modularity of the platform and the
events affecting the service model is a very impor- services depend heavily on applications like con- seamless integration of all the components with third


In focus < 17

figure 3. Schematic architecture of the Comarch solution

External KnowHow Trouble Ticketing
Database system

Enhanced Communication Bus

Reusable components
SLA Management of Comarch OSS
Authentication System Data Model
Service Repository & Configuration
Configuration

Service Monitoring
Service Quality Reporting Notification & Command Line
Service Escalation Service Interface
Management
Fault Management

Comarch OSS Comarch OSS Comarch PDA
Console WEB Console Console

Mediation Mediation Mediation Mediation
Device Device Device Layer

Network
environment

NEM’s IP Devices Applications

party software, through OSS/J interfaces, delivers an
OSS system which we believe takes service and appli-
cation management to the next level. Since every new
day brings new service requirements and demands,
Jakub Załuski-Kapusta
only tools allowing for flexible service modeling and
including applications in management can deal with Comarch SA
the complexity of the service offer. >>> Position: OSS Product Manager
Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
Info: Currently responsible for sales
support of Comarch OSS systems.

nr 1/2009 (09)

18 > Trends & Strategies

What to look for in a
perfect inventory solution?
Accurate, consistent, streamlined Process-Driven Inventory


Trends & Strategies < 19

At present, it is understood that an accu-
rate Inventory database should be at the
core of the entire OSS. Only an accurate Network
figure 1. resources, Services and Processes layers
in the Process-Driven Inventory solution
Inventory can be the foundation of Service Inven-
tory and further – automated Service Provision- Yes

ing and Service Level Management. The only way Yes
to ensure such accuracy and automation, and to Equipment Order Verify Change
available on aquipment No spares to be
introduce accurate Inventories into existing scat- date
executed

tered environments, is through Process-Driven In- No Change approval Equipment
available
Verify
ventory Management. Afected Verify SLA No
Services
Yes
Schedule
Is an accurate Inventory still change

important? No Is approved Yes
Change
Approved
Equipment
available

Operators in the highly-competitive telecommu-
Change
nications environment are constantly looking for Request

every possible way to maximise their revenue and
Processes
margins. There are different tools and methods
that can help achieve this goal, and the truth is
that there is no single solution. Innovative ser-
vice offers, SLA Management, Self Care, CRM, Loy-
alty Management, Fraud Management (and many
others) are all necessary to succeed in today’s tele-
communications industry. However, there are also Services
much “older” areas awaiting improvement. One of
these is Inventory Management.
The initial situation prior to the implementa-
tion of Process-Driven Inventory Management usu-
ally looks similar regardless of the scale of the
operator:
Resources
> Inventory information is scattered among the
different proprietary management systems that
were delivered by vendors of the equipment; financial issues etc. Moreover, usually the inventory How do I ensure my Inventory is
> Additionally, there are several commercial or in- and workflow systems are further integrated with accurate?
house built umbrella systems, covering different one another and with external tools e.g. Fault Man- The introduction of an accurate inventory data-
technology and areas; agement or SLA Management. This means there are base is a challenge, due to the numerous migra-
> In order to maintain the connectivity across the plenty of interfaces to maintain. tion, integration and discovery tasks that must
technologies, Excel files or in-house built data- Another challenge in this scattered environ- be performed. A larger challenge still is the main-
bases are usually used; ment is the lack of a consistent and accurate view tenance of inventory database accuracy. The rea-
> Very often, Visio diagrams represent crucial of the entire network, which is indispensable for son Inventory databases lose their consistency
areas of the network (there may be hundreds of resource usage optimization. Operators cannot and accuracy is the lack of repeatable processes
them); allow resources to sit unused in their warehouses that can keep up with reality – a rapidly changing
> The processes are “manual” and information and on their networks. Yet, without an accurate reality. There is no time to update an inventory
exchange among different actors is conducted inventory database it is impossible to remain “later”. The goal is to enable the inventory data-
using e-mails, telephones and paper docu- informed of these resources. With a separate inven- base to mirror the network and not vice versa, as
ments. tory “tool” for each technology or department (or is the case in the traditional approach to inventory
worse, yet still happening, per employee!) it is not management. This traditional approach results in
Even if these systems are partially (or in the best difficult to imagine the complexity of resource errors and inconsistencies.
case, completely) integrated, an end-to-end view- usage optimization. Through the introduction of automated pro-
point is absent, some information is stored redun- In addition, the majority of operators and provid- cesses, the inventory ceases to be “just a data-
dantly, various configuration items have different ers either charge or are charged for their resources base”, and instead becomes a dynamically-adjust-
names in different tools, and the process of data (or both). Operators cannot be certain that they can ing system that presents the current, past and
retrieval and modification is complicated. Even if rely on the inventory database accuracy of their future states of a network and services. As a result,
some type of workflow management system is in suppliers when it is time to pay their invoices. On the inventory becomes the real heart of an OSS.
place, it usually covers only certain parts of the real the other hand, they also cannot be sure that they Process-Driven Inventory provides the layers of
process, within areas related to trouble ticketing, fully charge for all the resources they provide. Resources, Services and Processes (please refer to

nr 1/2009 (09)

20 > SolutionsStrategies
Trends & & Products

Process-Driven Inventory Management enables
figure 2. Mechanism of grants for work and approvals
the determining of not only WHO, WHAT and WHEN,
Customer notification Customer notification because for this Inventory Management with a
Service O&M
Customer notification full history tracking and auditing functionality
Create (if accepted) is sufficient. It enables to determine the WHY, i.e.
Create Service
Grant For Planned Planned Service Incident in the context of which customer order, change
Work Incident Incident Active Closed
or maintenance process a given modification in
answer
the system was introduced. Process-Driven Inven-
Resource O&M request tory Management also allows for definition and
Grant For
activate monitoring of quality and performance metrics for
Work
Inventory Management and related processes. It
request answer Grant Accepted enables implementation of process-based access
Grant
Waiting For Work is Work is control for locations and equipment (please refer
Activation Active Closed
Work Ask for
(Project) Grant to Figure 2), because field teams can access Process-
Driven Inventory e.g. on their PDAs or via SMS. Field
Update teams are no longer deprived of system access and
Work
do not have to update the data after returning to
the company.
Grant Declined

It is clear that services can only be provided if
resources are available. However, new and inno-
vative services can be provided with the speed
required to meet the needs of today’s market, only
if accurate knowledge of resources and effective
Figure 1). All user tasks related to inventory data Service Management layers and supports (together means of automatic reservation and assignment
are carried out within the context of a process with other dedicated applications) processes start- are in place. The latter must include the manage-
instance. It is also impossible to change the state of ing from Infrastructure and Product Lifecycle Man- ment of multiple reservations of the same resource
a network (e.g. by provisioning a new service) with- agement, via Operations Support and Readiness to at different moments in time. The service inventory
out an update of the information in the inventory. Fulfilment and Assurance. It also influences Bill- can be part of the inventory management database
These two factors are usually sufficient to ensure ing Processes, especially within non-traffic-based (in this case, the inventory equals the Network
the real-time accuracy of an inventory database. business models. Inventory plus the Service Inventory), or it can also
It is also important to underline that central be a separate application, integrated via common
Inventory Management integrated with the net- What benefits do I receive? processes with the Resource Inventory.
work via reconciliation mechanisms (that also guar- When looking at Process-Driven Inventory Man- Streamlining resource, service and customer-
antee accuracy) does not provide the same benefits agement, it is evident that when it starts to work, related processes opens new possibilities for the
as Process-Driven Inventory, and so should not be it does so in a cycle: automated processes ensure introduction of more innovative services that are
treated as its alternative. Reconciliation mecha- an accurate inventory database, and on the other no longer limited by the resource-related issues
nisms do not cover all areas of the network, and hand, the reliable accuracy of an inventory data- that existed in previous, scattered environments.
the level of detail that may be achieved in recon- base enables the automation of processes. This Operators and providers are no longer limited by
ciliation varies upon technology and the business most notably concerns Network Provisioning pro- regions, domains, technologies or departments in
model. For example, in the case of outsourced net- cesses, where accuracy is crucial for automation. the provision of new services and service bundles.
work operations, it may be difficult to attain the Well-designed processes may curb the need to It is even possible to introduce these, using existing
reconciliation data, but it is always possible to create a central inventory database that contains infrastructure, as the location of unused network
define common processes that will ensure infor- all data (this often requires too much effort), and capacity is now known. This is the source of ROI!
mation exchange between the service provider it may be sufficient to integrate different systems
and the operator of the network that will guaran- under the umbrella of a Process-Driven Inventory Implementation Project
tee consistency of Inventory. Thus, Process-Driven Management solution. Such a solution also reduces The process of implementing Process-Driven Inven-
Inventory and Network Reconciliation should be the costs of introducing a new approach. tory Management in the heterogeneous environ-
treated as complementary ways to ensure Inven- Another reason to have process-orchestrated, ment requires in-depth analysis and proper design.
tory data accuracy. internally consistent and accurate Inventory is The following steps will usually be required:
An accurate inventory database driven by auto- the regulatory organisations that put obligations 1 Identification of different sources of Inventory
mated processes is only the first step towards other upon operators to provide reports on e.g. radio information.
service and customer-related applications (Trouble frequency utilization. Accurate Inventory is a key 2 Analysis of data scope and processes: this step
Ticketing, Problem Management, Order Manage- factor for external auditors in their rating proce- should include the analysis of overlapping among
ment and others). In eTOM, Process-Driven Inven- dures, and consistent financial reports are vital different tools which exist permanently. Usually,
tory Management is situated on the Resource and to shareholders.



figure 3. Comarch Process-Driven Inventory

Trouble Ticketing SLA Management Service Management Fault Management

Other Systems

Enhanced Communication Bus Comarch OSS Framework
System
Authentication Repository
Service & Configuration
Comarch OSS Comarch Comarch
Process Network Service
Management Inventory Inventory
Management Management

Notiffication
Reporting
& Escalation
Service
Service

Comarch OSS Comarch OSS
Console WEB Console

MEDIATION MEDIATION MEDIATION Comarch OSS
DEVICE DEVICE DEVICE Mediation Platform

Network Environment

3rd party NMS/EMS Physical
system devices

some inconsistencies will also be identified at Inventory Management can be the master of data How to choose a Process-Driven
this stage (e.g. naming inconsistencies) for some areas (e.g. overriding the role of the sys- Inventory solution
3 Decision regarding whether a given source is tems that are being replaced) but not for others. There are several important features of the Pro-
going to be integrated into the final solution or 6 Design of the common data model for the Pro- cess-Driven Inventory solution that ensure that
migrated (replaced): usually, all sources that are cess-Driven Inventory. the above mentioned benefits can be easily and
not mature enough to provide on-line interfaces 7 Modifications of the processes resulting from quickly achieved:
(Excel files, Visio diagrams) will be replaced. Addi- the above mentioned points and process design > Process-Driven Inventory provides the layers of
tionally, databases created in-house should also using PDL (Process Definition Language). Resources, Services and Processes (please refer to
be replaced. On the other hand, NEMS and radio 8 Design of interfaces. Figure 1). These layers should be independent but
planning tools will be integrated. inter-related. Independency of the layers guaran-
4 Decision regarding the interfaces: here it is impor- In order to attain quick benefits, the project will tees that there is enough flexibility in definition
tant to reduce the number of interfaces by imple- usually be realized in phases. The above mentioned of the services and processes, in order to cover
menting standard solutions (such as OSS/J API) steps will be executed repetitively for different all the complicated cases and business models of
or bus solutions. However, it is not always pos- technology or when replacing different systems. today’s telecommunication world. Relationships
sible. Other scenarios of implementation are also pos- between layers ensure that the resource and ser-
5 Decision regarding the master system for each sible, for example, as already mentioned before, vice context can be easily retrieved (e.g. services
area of data: this will influence the rules for data integration of different systems under the umbrella affected by a change process on a resource).
modification in the Inventory and also rules for of Process-Driven Inventory instead of creation of > There are numerous BPM systems on the mar-
the reconciliation interfaces logic. Process-Driven central Inventory Management. ket. Not all of them are well suited to the imple-

nr 1/2009 (09)


mentation of Process-Driven Inventory. Process seamlessly integrated into the environment pro- Comarch Network & Service Inventory enables end-
engine should be tightly integrated with Inven- vided by Comarch OSS Framework, which provides to-end modelling and visibility of multi-vendor and
tory Management in order to create one consis- common mechanisms like user authentication and multi-technology networks. Network Inventory
tent graphical environment for the end user and authorisation, reporting and graphical user inter- information is presented upon layers that repre-
also enable easy context data retrieval. Service face. Please refer to Figure 3 for the logical archi- sent given technology. Service Inventory further
and Resource Inventory data should be easily tecture of the solution. extends the Network Inventory functionality and
accessible at every step of a process. Comarch OSS Process Management is provided enables the advanced modelling of services. Ser-
> The system should allow for integration with with a combined eTOM and ITIL process environ- vices are stored in the system together with their
the existing environment, both at the level of ment, based on GB921V and TR143 by TMForum. mutual dependencies (client/server services) and
Inventory (network and services data retrieval) It is aimed at helping operators execute manage- their dependencies upon resources in the Network
and Processes (integration with other BPM sys- ment processes from the readiness, fulfilment and Inventory (devices, connections, and others). Ser-
tems, e.g. trouble ticketing, financial systems). assurance areas on the services and resources lay- vice templates are created and modified from the
This integration should be enabled by standard- ers described in eTOM standard. Comarch OSS Pro- system GUI, enabling new services to be introduced
based interfaces, e.g. OSS/J Trouble Ticketing API, cess Management is a BPM class system. However, to the system “on-the-fly”, in a very flexible way.
which speeds up implementation time and low- as opposed to generic BPM systems, Comarch’s Service Inventory enables service impact analysis
ers the maintenance costs. solution has been especially designed to manage and automated interaction between Service and
> The solution should be flexible in terms of pro- the processes of telecommunications operators. Resource Layers.
cess modelling, enabling implementation of spe- Libraries of pre-defined processes are supplied Thanks to the integration of Inventory Man-
cific requirements. On the other hand, however, with the system, reducing implementation time. agement with OSS Process Management in the
ready-to-use processes enable the attainment Predefined processes include: Process-Driven Inventory solution, the following
of “low hanging fruits” quickly and may be suf- > Change Management features are available:
ficient for the majority of cases. Even better, is if > Configuration Management > Root resource information
the pre-configured processes are based on indus- > Fulfilment > Affected resources information
try best practices, like ITIL. > Approval > Affected services information
> Task-based access control > Execution of plans
Comarch offer > Reconciliation
Comarch’s offer within the area of Process-Driven In more demanding telecom environments, ready- > Updates of inventory objects – e.g. network ele-
Inventory is based upon our OSS Suite products: to-use processes can be customised and enhanced ment parameters
Comarch Network & Service Inventory and Comarch in order to fulfil specific requirements. Process
OSS Process Management. These products are definitions can be created and modified in jPDL Comarch Process-Driven Inventory can integrate
(by JBoss). The solution is equipped with scripting with Service Management, SLA Management, Trou-
language, which can be used to define the logic of a ble Ticketing, Fault Management and other systems,
process’s automatic tasks. It enables manipulation provided either by Comarch or a 3rd party. >>>
of process flow and Inventory data, as well as the
use of any OSS Framework functionalities.

Małgorzata
Kwatera-Knapek
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Solution Manager
Business Unit
Info: Currently responsible for building
up solutions for Comarch customers,
also takes part in major implementations
of Comarch OSS systems. Main area of
specialization: Inventory Management.



Aiming towards better
customer experience
with ITIL and eTOM

eTOM is a well-known concept in the telecommunications industry. This article discusses the possibility
of combining eTOM with ITIL, the de facto standard for IT Service Management. It shows the impact to
the OSS and BSS environment of telecom operators, considering also the business benefits that the ITIL
best practices will bring, when implemented in parallel with eTOM business processes.

nr 1/2009 (09)


The operators in the telecommunica-
tions market are following various
standards and best practices such as enhanced
figure 1. ITIL Service Lifecycle

Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) and Information al P r o c e s s I mp r o v
inu em
Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Despite the
nt en
Co
el Service C
fact that ITIL is a more generic model and is popu-
S
e Lev
ervic ment Mana
atal
og t
age geme
lar among all kinds of enterprises that are using Man nt
ier t M Ava
IT management business processes, ITIL can also pl en an
up gem

ila eme
ag
bring benefits for the telecom operators and their

bi nt
Ma S
na

lit
y
S e r v i c e De s
customers, thus it can be the differentiator that as-
sists operators in the competitive market. ig

n
net
n

Service Con guratio

System
ITIL relation to eTOM

e
Mana

Manag
In cid e n t
The eTOM and ITIL frameworks have been devel-

S ervic e O
ge m ent
oped in different organizations and for different
ITIL

on
groups of enterprises. As eTOM (developed by TM

n

Testing &
itio

Validati
Se
Forum) is dedicated to telecommunications ser-

gy
vi
ce S trate

r
vice providers, ITIL is a set of best practices and

ns
p

ra
er
guidelines for IT service management. Thus, the ITIL
T

gem nt
Ma
ti

Ma eplo lease

ent
ce

a

na yme
methodology can be applied to a larger amount of on
vi
Ev gem
na

S er

D Re
en en
companies while eTOM is used in the telecommuni-
t

cations sector only. Recently, an increasing amount
g

e
ed
t

of interest has materialized with regard to mapping

nt
M Pr owl eme
the models of eTOM and ITIL with each other. an ob Kn nag
a g le m Ma
The main purpose of ITIL is to provide best em e
Se ent Chang ent
practices for efficient operation, service quality rvi Managem nt
ce
Rep re me
improvement and long-term cost reduction of IT o rtin
g a n d S ervice M easu
services. It focuses on the service lifecycle which
covers the strategy, design, transition and opera-
tion of IT services as well as their continuous qual-
ity improvement. As a common process model it is organization of a telecom operator is divided into enough benefits for the operator (that is already
suitable for various types of industries. This advan- the four layers: customer, service, resource and sup- conducting eTOM business processes), to be worth
tage can become an issue, because it does not fully plier. All these layers have strong dependencies and performing. Thus, the questions are time and costs
cover the typical requirements of certain indus- depend on each other. eTOM is a part of Next Gen- – can the enterprise afford for business process
tries like telecommunications. Another difference eration Operations and Software (NGOSS) which transformation? This brings the need for appro-
between ITIL and eTOM is the end user scope – ITIL provides architectural guidelines for the develop- priate tools for measuring the effectiveness of
mainly serves the internal customers of an enter- ment of software systems for telecommunications. the new business processes. It should be possible
prise (the employees of a company) while eTOM The Shared Information & Data Model (SID), also a to measure with concrete numbers (e.g. %, EUR,
describes business processes that are also related part of NGOSS, is known as the data model for the ROI).
to serving external end customers. In other words, organization of all data objects. This is an impor- The administrative effort for new business pro-
the end customers (such as the end subscriber of tant constraint for the exchange of data across cesses can be time-consuming. Thus, the tools for
telecoms operators) are not always interested if a company borders. When it comes to IT-related busi- defining and managing the new business processes
specific company follows the ITIL model, especially ness processes, the use of ITIL seems to be promis- should include the business process management
since ITIL is not always visible for external custom- ing – and for telecommunications also. system that can handle business processes across
ers. However, ITIL best practices may also support multiple platforms, thus reducing the need for
external customers and end users. Challenges many individual, parallel systems for managing
The eTOM model focuses on communication and Bringing ITIL best practices into the existing busi- the business processes. Solving this challenge will
content service providers instead of general enter- ness process environment (that uses eTOM) creates resultantly be visible in the bottom-line results, in
prises with IT like ITIL does. Its aim is to describe several challenges that the operator must solve. the form of reduced OPEX.
transparent and company-wide business processes In addition to possible conflicts between ITIL and From the software vendor’s perspective, the
dedicated to the telecoms industry. eTOM defines eTOM mappings, the operator’s personnel must challenge is how to convince the operator to
communication and content services wrapped as also be convinced about the new methods and enhance their current operations by also intro-
products and thus offered to external customers. A their advantages compared to the previous busi- ducing ITIL best practices to the environment that
major difference to ITIL is the telco-specific organi- ness process environment. already follows the eTOM recommended business
zational and architectural separation in horizontal The transition of business processes and intro- processes. In the case that the operator’s business
layers according to the TM Forum. Thus, the whole duction of selected ITIL best practices must bring processes have been successful already, it is dan-



figure 2. Process Map of eTOM
Strategy, Infrastructure & Product Operations

Strategy & Infrastructure Product Operations fulfillment Assurance Billing
Commit Lifecycle Lifecycle Support &
Management Managent readiness

Marketing & Offer Management Customer Relationship Management

Service Development & Management Service Management & Operations

Resource Development & Management Resource Management & Operations
(Application, Computing and Network) (Application, Computing and Network)

Supply Chain Development & Management Supplier/Partner Relationship Management

enterprise Management
Strategic & Enterprise Enterprise Risk Enterprise Knowledge & Research
Effectiveness
Planning Management Management Management

Financial & Asset Stakeholder & External Human Resources
Management Relations Management Management

gerous to “rest on your laurels” and tell yourself zontal layers. For example, depending on whether nications industry and participation in standard-
that business processes and best practices have a reported malfunction is associated to customer, ization activities, the implementation of best prac-
already been optimized and there is nothing more service, resource or supplier layer, an appropri- tices for specific business processes will improve
to improve. The introduction of ITIL best practices ate ITIL activity can be launched and the failure the operator’s business in the form of reduced
into the existing processes might be considered too resolved. Thus, in the case that the root cause is OPEX, increased customer satisfaction, shorter
expensive and not actually profitable enough to on a different layer in relation to where the inci- service outage time and faster time-to-market for
perform the operations transition towards ITIL. dent originated, the combination of eTOM and ITIL new services.
To support the operators on the ITIL transforma- provides an efficient method for solving failures Let’s assume that the operator (who already has
tion, various types of ITIL tools already exist on the between multiple layers. In accordance to ITIL a the business processes related to eTOM recommen-
market. Purchasing a fully equipped set of ITIL tools reported malfunction is called an ‘Incident’. Simi- dations) wants to transform their incident manage-
can lead to the situation where some aspects of the lar Incidents can be grouped as ‘Problems’ whose ment scenario so that it is ITIL-based. The biggest
tools are not used at all. This can be especially true root cause can be resolved to avoid more Incidents challenge for the operator is how to keep the exist-
in the cases where the operator has already imple- of that kind. ing business processes in shape while attaining
mented eTOM-based business processes and wants On the other hand, if an enterprise that also the advantages from the new implemented best
to introduce specific best practices from ITIL into offers telecommunications services is using ITIL practices. The advantage of eTOM is realized as the
the existing business environment. Another impor- but has not adopted eTOM yet, eTOM can tailor enterprise can separate its business into different
tant issue that is not always considered enough is the ITIL best practices into the business of a telco process groupings (related to customer, service,
that the appropriate tool is not enough for the suc- operator using the customer/service/resource/ resource and supplier) and thus reduce the com-
cessful transition of processes – the result of the supplier layers defined by eTOM. plexity of individual business processes.
transition will be as good as the experience of the Comarch’s solution offerings for OSS and BSS For the telecoms operator, a combination of
person(s) who are performing the actual transition. include a built-in, integrated business process man- the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
The tools enable the new processes, but are not a agement engine that supports telecommunications and the Shared Information/Data Model (SID) can
substitute for good processes. operators in their everyday business processes. The be an important issue when mapping eTOM busi-
engine can be dynamically configured to suit the ness processes and ITIL best practices together.
Comarch Approach changing principles of information circulation, and The usage of CMDB enables the operator to take
The introduction of ITIL best practices brings addi- reduces system operators’ workload. advantage of the ITIL best practices, if the informa-
tional value for the operators that are already using Comarch’s eTOM-based products and solution on the operator’s repository is SID compliant.
eTOM-based business processes by enabling the tions can also support telecoms operators with Despite SID not being fully applicable for ITIL-based
full usage of different layers described in eTOM. implementing ITIL-related best practices. Based service management, many of the SID concepts are
Failure events can be propagated between all hori- on Comarch’s vast experience in the telecommu- adoptable for reuse within the CMDB model. The

nr 1/2009 (09)


sion of multiple phases is beneficial also for the
figure 3. Incident and Problem Management with ITIL and eTOM
operator employees, who can get used to the new
Customer
IT practices (instead of everything being changed
Known at once) and also be more “cooperative” with the
Customer Incident Customer Customer restoration Customer resolution
error
transformation when there are already concrete

Customer
results available showing the benefits of the trans-
Customer Problem Customer
request for formation. An additionally important reason as to
Change
why several phases should be included in the proj-
ect is the fact that the business environment may
report report change over time – and this can have the effect
Service
Known that the solution may actually become suboptimal.
Service Incident Service Service restoration Service resolution
error This means that iterative, continuous evaluation
Unknown
error

Service
of the business processes and practices is needed
Service Problem Service
request for to keep the processes up-to-date and optimal. Also,
Change
measuring the effects of new business processes
can be conducted more easily when the project is
implemented in several phases.
report report
resource
Known
resource Incident resource
error
resource restoration resource resolution Conclusions
Despite the fact ITIL is becoming more and more

resource
popular among companies, its implementation
request for
resource Problem resource
Change does not cover all the gaps in the company. Simi-
larly, ITIL may also cause overlapping with other
standards that are in use within the company. Com-
panies should consider ITIL as a set of best prac-
advantage of this approach is that the operator reap the benefits of ITIL processes without expen- tices that have to be tailored according to individ-
can actually apply the selected ITIL best practices sive investment in the new system platform. ual company needs.
without the need to modify the internal data struc- When introducing ITIL best practices, it is impor- The frameworks of eTOM and ITIL provide the
tures, thus the transformation towards ITIL can be tant that the scope of the transition project is basis for telecoms operators to analyse and modify
done faster and cheaper. Because Comarch Central divided into several phases – this makes the actual their business structure, enabling the operators to
Product Catalog and Comarch 3arts (a compact benefits of the ITIL more quickly visible and is easier provide the best possible services and support for
BSS/OSS/CRM solution) follow SID guidelines, the to manage. Operator transition towards ITIL should their end customers. The best practices from ITIL
operator who is using the Comarch solution can still be considered as a long-term project, but inclu- and business process flows from eTOM contrib-
ute towards a subset of ITIL-based eTOM business
process flows. Thus, when used in tandem, eTOM
and ITIL complement each other, and contribute
towards increased customer satisfaction, better
quality of offered services and reduced operating
costs. Operators should not only consider ITIL from
the cost savings perspective – ITIL brings better
service quality for end customers (for both inter-
nal and external), thus also increasing revenue in
the long term.
Comarch, as an OSS/BSS software vendor, sup-
ports operators with the transformation towards
ITIL best practices, based on the vast experience
that Comarch has gained from the telecommunica-
tions and IT industry. Comarch provides the tools
and essential knowledge that is needed during ITIL
Pekka Valitalo Tim Wartmann transformation based on the individual needs of
Comarch SA Comarch Software AG each operator. >>>
Position: BSS Consultant Position: BSS/OSS Consultant
Department: Telecommunications Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit Business Unit
Info: Currently responsible for building Info: Responsible for bulding up BSS and
BSS solutions for customers and analy- OSS solutions for Comarch customers.
sing trends on the telco market.



The Concept
of B2B Gateway
More efficient communication between business partners

THETRADITIONAL
business-to-consumer market in the telecommu-
com market can be e.g. MVNE-MVNO cooperation
or cooperation between a Mobile Network Opera-
tor (MNO) and a content provider. These kind of
and interaction between operator and business
partner applications.
An example of new forms of business opportu-
nications sector has been the main focus for most business-to-business (B2B) partnerships bring addi- nities can be seen from the amount of MVNEs that
telecom operators. Due to the increasing amount tional challenges, because the technical advances have recently increased. The MVNEs have emerged
of players on the telecommunication market, new and highly competitive markets have increased the from MVNOs need to reduce upfront and ongo-
business opportunities have risen between com- importance for B2B platforms as a middle-ground ing investments to operate their businesses. Sim-
panies. Typical ways of cooperation on the tele- solution that enables the information exchange ilarly, the market deregulations that have forced

nr 1/2009 (09)


the MNOs to open their network for MVNOs, have
figure 1. Deployment models for MVNe/MVNO interaction
brought more MVNOs to the market, increasing
the already high competition.
This article discusses the information exchange MVNO 3 MVNO 3
MVNO
and integration-related business challenges, and
how to solve these challenges. MVNE-MVNO coop- MVNO 1 MVNO 1
MVNe platform
eration is used as an example business case. operated and hosted by
platform vendor solely MVNO 2 MVNO 2
Background for the MVNO
(e.g. Auchan)
During difficult economic times, operators are
focusing on enhancing their business operations
Third party
and reducing costs at the same time. When the aggregator
revenue growth from traditional voice services
has started to decline, the main way to increase MVNe platform
operated and hosted
operating profits is by cost reduction. One way of
by platform vendor MVNe platform
reducing operating costs is realized by increasing for the aggregator operated and hosted
the efficiency of business processes. (e.g. vistream) by platform vendor
or by the mobile
To stay competitive on the market, operators
operator itself
must be able to adapt themselves quickly to the
changing situation on the market. These changes
Mobile operator Mobile operator Mobile operator
on the market include the changing economic situ-
ation, deregulation, introduction of new services,
increasing competition and changing trends (e.g. Single MVNO MVNO aggregator Multiple MVNO
reducing voice revenues). The operators should model model model
have the appropriate tools to perform the needed
changes – if the underlying software platform can-
not be adjusted rapidly to the needed changes, the MVNE enables a new class of solutions which sim- for automated operations from the business part-
operators will have problems staying competitive plify the initial MVNO business processes. ner’s side, the existing workflows may be able to be
on the market. Common problems when adapt- As seen from the figure, the MVNE has the role of reused and thus reduce the implementation time.
ing to market changes can be a lack of standard- a middleman between the MNO and MVNOs. Thus In addition, the reuse of the existing workflows can
ized interfaces, a large amount of heterogeneous the MVNE is responsible for negotiating the agree- also reduce the amount of possible errors during
applications, the lack of modularized software and ment with the MNO and reselling the traffic to all the implementation period.
the limitation of the underlying platform when it MVNOs it is hosting on its platform. In this scenario,
comes to bringing new services into the market. the MVNOs are responsible only for the front-office In today’s business environment, enterprises use
operations of their mobile businesses. The advan- a wide variety of heterogeneous systems that are
example Business Case: MVNe- tage for the MVNOs is further reduction of up-front needed to run business processes. It is necessary to
MVNO Cooperation investments necessary to start up operations. have these systems integrated properly to reduce
A typical MVNO does not necessarily originate from business process complexity. Nevertheless, the het-
the telecom industry. Non-telecommunication Business Challenges erogeneity of the systems can cause problems dur-
based MVNOs are able to target profitable market As the available services on the telecommunica- ing integration. When these systems need to com-
niches and attract more customers by taking advan- tions market evolve constantly, the same applies municate with each other the amount of different
tage of their recognizable brands and well tailored also to the services on the operator’s OSS/BSS plat- interface types results in additional complexity for
mobile offerings. Along with the evolution of MVNOs form. This brings about the need for open, flexible the integration. The ideal situation would be if all
and their growing needs, a market of MVNEs has OSS/BSS solutions that support the addition of new the systems used a similar interface and thus the
emerged. These MVNEs provide MVNOs with all nec- services to the existing platform, with minimal integration efforts would be minimal. Unfortu-
essary back-office operations and IT platforms allow- impact on the services that are already operating. nately, this kind of situation is rare, as enterprises
ing them to concentrate on the core of their mobile When the telecommunications operator has a large buy business software from various vendors. Fig-
business – developing new tariffs and services and amount of different types of services running on ure 2 presents an example case, based on MVNE-
taking care of customer acquisition and retention. the platform at the same time, the drawback from MVNO cooperation, where numerous systems that
This aspect becomes even more relevant in the light the platform restart can be too severe and may communicate with each other (and have different
of how many new MVNO market entrants originate affect revenues and customer experience due to types of interfaces) can cause time-consuming inte-
from sectors other than telecommunications (e.g. the interruptions in the available services. gration related work, higher maintenance costs
retail) and lack the sufficient expertise to cooperate Another contributing factor to the minimiza- and poor scalability.
closely with mobile operators and develop or main- tion of the impact on existing services is the rapid
tain necessary IT platforms. The appearance of the implementation time for new services. In a case In the telecommunications environment, the typi-
where the operator’s platform is extended to allow cal external systems that are integrated with the



underlying BSS platform can be e.g. a number por-
figure 2. Integration complexity between various systems
tability database and external SMS gateways. These
entities may have different types of interfaces, Clearing
thus increasing the complexity of the integration. House
The complexity of the integration efforts further
increases, when there can be various amounts of
independent entities that need to communicate
with each other. Effective communication of soft-
ware entities should be reached by providing com- Billing Data MVNO
mon interfaces, abstracting the called functions
and services and decoupling them from the trans-
port medium.
The interface that offers functionalities for the
business partners should be service-oriented. Thus Number
Billing System
Portability DB
the functionalities offered by the operator’s BSS
platform should be wrapped into a service that
could be used by business partners. By using the
service-oriented architecture, the operator’s BSS
platform enables a higher level of interoperability resource SMS
and loose coupling, allowing for easier integration Management Gateway
with the platform.

example Business Case: Access
Provisioning for MVNOs to the
MVNe Platform Workflow
To provide services for the end subscribers, the
MVNO needs to have access to the underlying plat-
form of the MVNE. The MVNE that manages the lim-
ited back-end operations on behalf of the MVNO
figure 3. Overview of the B2B Gateway concept, used in the
can offer various functionalities via interfaces, such MVNe environment
as service provisioning, billing data delivery and
resource management. The functionalities that the
MVNO needs to use from the underlying MVNE plat-
form should be able to be automated, meaning that
Services Services
the MVNO should be able to use its own applica-
tions to perform the selected operations. This brings MVNO MVNO
about the requirement that the MVNE platform Billing CrM Billing CrM
should have the appropriate interfaces that offer Self Care Self Care
those services for the hosted MVNOs.
Web Service Web Service
When the MVNE hosts multiple MVNOs and pro- Access Access
vides access to the BSS platform for the MVNOs,
security is a crucial issue, because the hosted B2B Gateway
MVNOs should not be able to have access to any
other MVNO’s data. For this reason, it is important to Integrations MVNe Billing
provide security on both the network level and the environment
external Systems
logical level. The incoming service requests from the
Resource
Workflow
MVNOs should be validated to prevent, for example, Management
situations where the MVNO applies changes to a sub-
scriber who belongs to some other MVNO. Integration Layer
Customization is one additional thing to consider
– the MVNE platform may host multiple MVNOs that Integrations

have different services available. Therefore, they
have a requirement for different types of data (e.g. MNO Network
billing data). The different needs of MVNOs typi-
cally occur for things such as file formats for bill-
ing data and the frequency of billing data updates.

nr 1/2009 (09)


Below are some of the advantages that the B2B
figure 4. Usage of eSB as a central layer and a single point
Gateway solution provides in the MVNE-MVNO busi-
of contact ness case:
> Automation: The B2B Gateway provides fast and
MVNO Clearing SMS Number Portability reliable web service access to the specific func-
Systems House Gateway DataBase
tionalities of the underlying BSS platform that
is running on the MVNE environment. Whatever
can be done manually using the BSS platform, can
also be done automatically via the B2B Gateway
to increase the efficiency of business processes.
> expandability: The solution supports the addition
eSB of new services. When MVNE’s business growth
brings the demand for new services, the ESB-based
B2B Gateway solution makes it possible to inte-
grate new services to the solution on demand,
one-by-one, without impacting the existing ser-
vices that are already running on the platform.
resource > Scalability: The on-the-fly service update also
Databases Billing System Workflow
Management applies to the solution scalability. Because the
B2B Gateway keeps the service complexity hid-
den from the hosted MVNOs, it is possible to
Thus it is not enough that the MVNE can provide the amount of interconnection points between the upgrade the B2B Gateway according to the busi-
access for the MVNOs to the underlying BSS plat- MVNO and MVNE is reduced to a minimum. ness requirements, transparently as the amount
form – the platform must be customizable for indi- The MVNOs can perform e.g. service provision- of MVNOs and their subscribers grow.
vidual MVNOs needs. ing activities via web services that are provided by > flexibility: The solution is highly customizable.
the B2B Gateway. Communication with the MVNE It is possible to decide what MVNO has access to
B2B Gateway Concept environment can be realized by modifying and using what services and what kind of data is to be deliv-
The figure below presents the B2B Gateway con- the existing workflows, for example, if the MVNE is ered to the MVNO – e.g. usage data, billing data or
cept. The B2B Gateway is a central integration layer already serving MVNOs. The B2B Gateway can also both. The file formats, frequency of data updates
between MVNE’s BSS platform, MVNOs and external be used for delivering usage and billing data to the and other system parameters allow for optimized
systems. The complexity of individual interfaces, MVNO via SFTP. adoption to the MVNE’s business requirements.
that the MVNE environment and external systems Basing on the concept presented above, Comarch > reuse of existing business logic: The solution
may have, is hidden inside the B2B Gateway. This way, has developed B2B Gateway solution. It uses Enter- makes it possible to reuse existing workflow pro-
prise Service Bus (ESB), meaning that the integra- cesses from the MVNE’s already existing applica-
tion of internal and external systems is realized tions. Incoming service requests from MVNOs will
via the implementation of system-specific adapt- be processed using exactly the same workflow
ers and interfaces, while the communication inside processes that are running successfully in the
ESB is unified. MVNE’s BSS environment. This enables integrity
The solution provides secure communications and consistency in the business processes.
between MVNO and MVNE environments. To secure
the traffic between entities, VPN and/or HTTPS can Conclusions
be used to encrypt traffic, depending on which The Comarch B2B Gateway solution presented in
method the MVNO wants to use. In addition, some this article integrates external systems and provides
of the integrated external systems may only sup- unified communication between all integrated ser-
port one of the secure communication methods vices, thus reducing complexity and increasing the
mentioned. The solution is also secure on a logical level of platform automation.
level: Each MVNO can have access only to the data The seamless integration and execution of busi-
that is related to that MVNO, thus it is not possible ness processes will be the key issue in cooperation
Pekka Valitalo for the MVNO to perform any kind of actions on between business partners. Business processes are
Comarch SA the data that belongs to another MVNO that the not just internal any more – enterprises must link
Position: BSS Consultant same MVNE is hosting. The MVNOs can also be fur- business processes to external business partners.
Department: Telecommunications ther restricted to do only specific actions, meaning Having an appropriate B2B integration solution
Business Unit that the MVNE can restrict MVNO access on two lev- enables telecom enterprises to increase bottom-
Info: Currently responsible for building
els: Which actions (commands) are permitted, and line results; by reducing errors, reducing OPEX and
BSS solutions for customers and analy-
sing trends on the telco market. which objects (customers, contracts…) the MVNO increasing business partner satisfaction.
can have access to. >>>


The Increasing Importanceooooi
of the Wholesale Billing Domain
A Win-Win Situation for Wholesale Operators and their Partners

Traditional billing
solutions that have been designed for intercon-
sale billing. The reason is that interconnect billing
systems have not been designed to group huge
amounts of data using different dimensions and
This problem may occur especially for the bill-
ing solutions that have been designed mainly for
voice traffic and simple agreements, but in addi-
nect billing purposes are not well suited for whole- to sum up the appropriate charging scenarios. tion, operators now require an appropriate billing

nr 1/2009 (09)


system which is not only a rating engine, but also figure 1. Sample telecom wholesale environment
has advanced features for discounting, reconcili-
ation, accounting and high levels of automation.
In addition, a wholesale billing solution must also Revenue Control
Partner/Supplier & Performance
support routing optimization, dial plan manage- Relationship Management
ment and trading. Management
Trading
Wholesale Business Challenges Settlement
Wholesale Reports
The usual interconnect agreements between telco Agreements Reconciliation
operators consist of the traffic that traverses Management Billing Solution
between multiple telco operators. The operators Routing
are exchanging the settlements with each other, Prices & Prefixes
Management Invoicing
based on the exchanged network traffic. As the Network Configuration
Management
operators are introducing new services into the
market for end customers, the contents of the
interconnect agreements are widening from voice

Settlements

Wholesale Usage Data

Invoices

Invoices
services into data services and this increases the
agreement complexity, as new mechanisms may
be needed for pricing the traffic.
Suppliers
When compared to interconnect billing sce-
narios, wholesale billing scenarios can be more
complex. The agreements between a wholesale
HUB
operator and partner can include agreement types
Voice and Suppliers
such as volume discounts, penalties, volume com- Customers
non-Voice
mitments, swap deals, volume or amount commit- services
ments for transit fees, origin-based pricing and HUB
cost, transit and termination fee splits etc. The
charging types that should be supported can be Suppliers
Customers
e.g. usage-based charging and non-usage-based
charging, support for voice and non-voice services Suppliers HUB
(e.g. SMS, MMS, GRX, IPX), trunk-based billing and
calculation of both revenue and costs for the same HUB
set of traffic and services.
Also, it is important that the underlying whole-
Customers Customers
sale billing system supports both bilateral and mul-
tilateral agreements between operators. Thus the
required support for both agreements also means
that the system must be able to support direct and
cascade billing. This means that in an ideal situa-
tion, the partner should have only one agreement and out-of-date information (e.g. when entering has a direct influence on the wholesale operator’s
– thus the wholesale operator should be able to information about wholesale partner’s rates) that revenue. It is also important that the optimized
provide interconnect services for worldwide desti- may then lead into further problems at a later stage routing data is uploaded automatically to the net-
nations. And the partner should be able to settle for of business. It should be possible to manage the work elements and scheduled for the appropriate
the usage of all these services with one party. agreements proactively and measure the volume- moment, e.g. to non-peak hours. This also includes
Wholesale operators spend vast amounts of based commitments automatically. To enable this, usage of temporary alternative routes during the
time and effort on defining and setting up the it is also required that all information regarding route update process and creation of the switch
agreements for interconnect calls, data and other agreements, route costs, margins and other data is configuration backup prior to the actual routing
services. Many channels of communication can maintained and available in a single repository. plan update.
cause complex interaction between partners dur- To maximize the revenue margins, operators The wholesale billing solution should support
ing the agreement setup phase and also when the need to optimize their routing processes. Opti- trading functionalities that consist of the buying
traffic is already established. The increased amount mized routing processes mean that the operator phase (where a wholesale product is prepared
of manual work during agreement negotiations, reaches the target values that are defined in the using offers from suppliers), pricing phase (where
configuration changes, and billing and settlement agreements with partners, and still gets the best a wholesale offer is prepared for partners using the
processing leads to increased operational costs. margins per agreement. Thus routing optimiza- products) and selling phase (where the products
Another case where the effort of manual work tion is one of the most important processes in the are actually sold for partners). In all these phases,
may unnecessarily increase is because of incorrect wholesale domain, as the routing configuration the wholesale solution should be able to assist the



figure 2. Overview of the Comarch Wholesale Billing Solution

Partner/Supplier Relationship Advanced Configuration Existing systems
Management Management

Wholesale Billing
Trading

Financial financial
GL
Management Documents
Partner/Suppliers
Routing Rule-based
Agreements,
Optimizer Wholesale Rating
Usage Data
Data Data
Invoicing
export Warehouse
Network
Settlement &
Mediation &
Reconciliation
Management
Management

Settlements

Invoices

Invoices
Usage

Suppliers /
Suppliers Customers
Customers

Network

wholesale operator in eliminating revenue leakage A Solution for the Business connections, to enable the fulfillment of volume
– starting from the loading of the numbering plans Challenges commitments and protect the operator’s revenues.
in the buying phase, to negotiating the optimal In the Figure 1, a typical billing solution for a whole- The solution can also issue alarms connected to
rates for the different partners and market seg- sale department is presented. As can be seen from detected risks of not meeting the targets for vol-
ments in the selling phase. it, the solution covers the entire billing process, ume commitment.
When defining wholesale products and offers, starting from event collection via mediation, to The billing solution needs to support various bill-
the comparison of partners’ price lists for different rating, invoicing, reconciliation and settlement ing models. It should be possible to define billing
destinations can be a challenge for the wholesale management. In addition, the solution supports models using (but not limited to) parameters such
operator, as there can be a large amount of dif- routing optimization and management of prod- as volume (including commitment scenarios and
ferent routing, service level and cost options for ucts and offers. thresholds), amount, origin and destination, traffic
the traffic termination. The solution should sup- The wholesale operator can control the rev- class, and content. It is also possible to combine the
port loading and management of complex dial enue stream, because the solution makes it pos- parameters into more complex billing scenarios,
plans together with dial plan validation and test- sible via monitoring the network traffic, analyz- and define specific commitment scenarios.
ing. Automatic loading and verification should be ing it and estimating revenues and costs. In the In addition to the voice and non-voice agree-
supported to help with the mass update of pric- case of inconsistencies between the estimated ments and transit agreements, multiple types of
ing and prefixes. and real data, the solution issues an appropriate wholesale agreements should be supported, such
alarm. This is done to ensure proper routing of all as:

nr 1/2009 (09)


> Balanced traffic – Financially-balanced traffic It is important that the trading-related busi- the complex relationships with partners and suppli-
between two carriers over a given period of time. ness processes are supported. Trading consists of ers and provide core features like agreements man-
If the traffic is not balanced at the end of the several phases – from product and offer prepara- agement, workflow processes, regulated services
effective period, the differences in the traffic tion to the actual selling of the product. In the first support, dispute management, orders handling, SLA
amount are billed to the outstanding party using phase, the supplier agreements can be managed, auditing and managed communication channels.
a specific rate rates can be defined and numbering plans can be The Partner Relationship Management functional-
> Balanced ongoing – An agreement on rates where, loaded. The numbering plan import can be mapped ity provides support for managing the relationships
based on historical data, it is possible to calculate automatically to the offered destinations, includ- with partners and suppliers, and includes support
a balance of traffic ing the supplier’s rate plans with numbering plans for the automation of most tasks that are required
> Volume commitment – A specific amount of traf- and quality information. Automation also enables to run the wholesale business when cooperating
fic volume must be paid, whether the volume is automatic detection of changes in the rates that with partners and suppliers.
reached or not the supplier is offering. In the offer preparation
> Thresholds – An agreement where the rates are phase, the real costs of the termination are esti- Summary
applied at a series of steps in traffic volume. This mated and the margins are optimized through Within this article, a typical billing solution for a
usually rewards a carrier for sending higher vol- integration of the routing algorithms. In the third wholesale department that assists operators with
umes of traffic phase of trading, the optimal rates for different cus- solving their business challenges has been pre-
> Volume swap – An agreement to swap a certain tomers and different market segments are negoti- sented. Comarch’s solution for addressing busi-
volume of traffic to specific destinations. ated and revenue leakage is eliminated. ness challenges on the international wholesale
To assist the wholesale operator in finding the market is the Comarch Wholesale Billing Solu-
With the solution, the wholesale operator is able optimal routes for sending wholesale telecom- tion, which contains the features presented in this
to manage proactively the trading agreements munications traffic for interconnect and whole- article. With this solution, wholesale operators are
between partners, monitor the realization of vol- sale partners, the solution should have a routing able to enhance their everyday business processes
ume commitments, minimize the business impacts optimizer module. The criteria for finding the best and protect their business interests.
of incorrect and out-of-date information, and have route can be defined using multiple parameters In summary, the solution provides capabilities
access to all agreements that are stored in a single such as price, quality of service, answer seizure and features such as automation of business pro-
central repository. ratio (ASR) and post-gateway answer delay (PGAD). cesses, automatic network configuration manage-
Also, a reconciliation tool is needed to find the When compared to the traditional least cost rout- ment, integrated trading functionality, dispute
discrepancies between the wholesale operator’s ing solutions, the routing optimizer module of the management and reconciliation process support,
report and the partner’s report. This tool can dis- solution should be an intelligent analysis tool that routing optimization and integration with exter-
play all the differences between internal data (e.g. uses advanced algorithms for data analysis and nal systems.
the internal cost invoice of the wholesale operator) produces indicators for configuration of the rout- The wholesale operator receives multiple ben-
and the file that is imported from the partner. ing. It is also possible using the solution to pre- efits from the solution, such as reduced complexity
dict future traffic based on the analysis of histori- of business processes, service convergence, multi-
cal data. ple agreement types, scalability and performance,
The billing solution that the wholesale operator efficient partner management and strong support
is using should assist the operator with managing for changes in business. >>>

Krzysztof Kwiatkowski
Comarch SA
Position: BSS Product Manager
Business Unit
Info: Responsible for Comarch Conver-
gent Billing, InterPartner Billing and
3arts in area of R&D roadmaps, sales
support and marketing activities.



How to Solve WiMAX
Business Challenges
Lowering the Barrier of entry to the WiMAX Service Market

IN RECENT years and
with a wider
range of available consumer services on the Inter-
greater than ever before. Moreover, the deregula-
tion of the market, availability of bandwidth and
inexpensive network equipment has encouraged
and have made them willing to claim their share
of this attractive marketplace.
For home and business users, requirements
net, the need for reliable data services has become numerous enterprises to roll out their networks are now far beyond the traditional dial-up or

nr 1/2009 (09)


broadband data plans. Users are looking for fast, to-end solution, starting from low-level network Solution Deployment Time
reliable, customizable and self-manageable ser- element device interaction through rating and up One challenge for the operator can be the imple-
vices. This opens brand new opportunities for both to customer management tools. mentation time of the new solution. The time for
existing and startup service providers; however it Figure 1 shows a typical WiMAX usage scenario: implementing WiMAX service should be minimal,
also brings about the challenge of deploying the WiMAX is used for delivering network connectiv- making it possible to begin receiving revenues from
right network and IT infrastructure to provide the ity to the home, via air interface instead of a cable. the deployed service as soon as possible.
best possible customer experience. Undoubtedly, The end subscriber is then able to access Internet The typical end-to-end WiMAX solution deploy-
choosing the right OSS/BSS and customer relation- services by using an appropriate WiFi access point ment project consists of several phases: Installation
ship management solutions will greatly influence to connect to the WiMAX device that is located on of WiMAX network infrastructure (also including
the customer experience and provide differentia- the subscribers’ premises. Similarly, temporary the masts), installation of WiFi network infrastruc-
tion that is necessary to survive in this highly com- WiFi access can be offered, for example, by hotels ture (if needed), integrating the WiMAX network
petitive environment. for their visitors. The customer can buy a prepaid with the core network, radio planning, installation
In addition, if the operator wants to launch a voucher from hotel reception and gain access to of the appropriate IT systems (including the OSS/
service in a reasonable amount of time to enable the WiFi network in this manner. BSS solution), and configuring the system to sup-
new revenue streams, setting up the necessary port the appropriate business processes based on
network infrastructure can represent a challenge Business Challenges the operator’s needs.
for the operator. Thus, the proper approach for the High Startup Costs and System To achieve a rapid implementation of an end-
operator can be to purchase a complete end-to-end Scalability to-end solution, the vendor of the solution should
solution from a single vendor, which includes not For new WiMAX operators, startup costs for deploy- coordinate the project appropriately to finish the
only the OSS/BSS solution, but the IT solutions and ing WiMAX services should not be too high. If the project in time. If the operator, that wants to start
network infrastructure as well. cost for deploying the underlying OSS/BSS system offering WiMAX services, has multiple vendors
WiMAX technology has gained popularity on is too high, it can become a barrier for the new oper- added to the mixture and the operator is coor-
the wireless broadband service provider market. ators that want to enter the WiMAX service market. dinating the project by themselves, the delivery
WiMAX Forum® has forecasted 133 Million WiMAX However OSS/BSS solution costs are not the only time of the project may be delayed due to the lack
users by 2012 (with approximately 70 percent of thing to consider – another issue can be the costs of coordination between the multiple vendors
forecasted WiMAX users utilizing mobile and por- of the network infrastructure and installation. involved.
table WiMAX devices to access broadband Inter- The challenge not only exists for startup opera-
net services by 2012). This highlights the need for tors – there are many operators that are expanding roaming and revenue Sharing
proper tools for running WiMAX business. Many their service portfolio into WiMAX services so they The operators that offer mobile WiMAX services or
startup operators have already established WiMAX may offer services in parallel with other services public WiFi services should also offer roaming ser-
business, and many previously existing operators (e.g. fixed broadband services), to offer an alterna- vices, to extend the potential customer segment.
are considering entering into the WiMAX service tive Internet connection or to offer these Internet These roaming services will be an additional rev-
market. However, some issues exist that the pro- services in developing markets and rural areas. enue source for the operator in two ways: inbound
viders should consider before starting a WiMAX For operators that are planning to offer WiMAX roaming (when a subscriber of the roaming partner
business. It is important to consider such issues services, it is important that the end users can be is using the operator’s network resources) and out-
as how to sell WiMAX products, how to deal with charged and billed according to the services pro- bound roaming (when a subscriber uses the roam-
sales partners, what services to offer, how to han- vided. Similarly, appropriate business processes ing partner’s network resources). To implement the
dle systems and networks, how to manage cus- should be defined and modified to support the roaming functionality, the operator has to nego-
tomers, how to perform the invoicing, and how to new service offerings. tiate roaming agreements with partners, perform
monitor the quality and continuity of the provided up-to-date service billing, automate business pro-
services. Operators have a need for a complete end- cesses and perform revenue sharing.

figure 1. Typical WiMAX usage scenario

WiMAX
Internet Backbone
WiMAX

WiFi

Home WiFi WiMAX WiMAX Internet Service
Network Transmitter Transmitter Provider



In addition, if the operator offers WiMAX con- business, but also bring advanced features to the between the operator and partners is an impor-
nectivity for WiFi hotspots (the backbone connec- solution such as CRM, Service Activation, and Con- tant functionality that is required from the solu-
tion to the WiFi hotspot is provided via WiMAX), the vergent Billing. tion.
companies that host WiFi hotspot locations (e.g. Both approaches are capable of supporting the > Top-up and voucher management that integrates
cafes, hotels) can have a share in the revenues. most common business processes, with the main the delivery of various methods of recharging
difference being their scope and scaling possibil- and payments (via scratch cards, web pages, ATM,
Network Management Complexity ities. In the event the first option is selected, the IVR, etc). In addition, the generation of vouchers
The importance of managing the network elements vendor of the WiMAX service platform should pro- (e.g. based on an amount of time or an amount of
should not be underestimated. The network man- vide appropriate information and a roadmap for data) should be provided with the ability to flex-
agement system should not be too expensive for the operator related to when and how to upgrade ibly define parameters.
the startup operators. In addition, the wireless the WiMAX service platform to a bigger solution. > Analysis tool for analyzing business data directly
infrastructure elements should be managed from a This type of information is valuable for the WiMAX in edited documents. Users who are not familiar
single system, instead of using multiple individual operator, as they can be confident that the platform with database technologies are able to use the
systems to manage the network. This is especially offered will consist of up-to-date modules. The ven- analysis tool to conduct advanced data analysis
important for operators who offer not only WiMAX dor of the platform can also provide an appropriate and present the results in the form of a profes-
services, but also other services that use different solution in the future, keeping the platform under sional, presentation-ready report.
network technologies. constant development. Network Administration Department
> Network element management that should be
System Integration with Third Core functionality performed by inventory management function-
Party Applications In addition to solving the business problems alities of the solution. The operator should be
A typical operator environment has multiple third described earlier in this document, it is impor- able to observe the current state of the network
party applications and systems that must be inte- tant that the WiMAX platform can perform the infrastructure being managed by the system.
grated into the OSS/BSS platform. These types of most common business processes and thus provide > Coverage maps to display base stations and their
external system can include a credit card authori- appropriate functionalities that help the opera- approximate range, especially when the opera-
zation center, bank systems, and IVR system. Stan- tor with everyday business scenarios. The solu- tor is offering mobile WiMAX services. It should
dard-based support for multiple types of interfaces tion should cover business processes which are also be possible to browse network element sta-
is needed from the end-to-end WiMAX solution in required in the different departments of a telco tus and data.
order to support the rapid installation and deploy- operator. Below is a list of the functionalities that Web Portal for End Customers
ment of the system, thus reducing the financial the solution should provide support for in each of > On-line web access for customers for reviewing
costs of the system implementation. the specific departments: accounts and performing actions such as top-
Call Center ups, generating reports or initiating a trouble
Approach for Solving the Business > Customer relationship management that facili- ticket. Operator could also use the web portal
Challenges tates necessary activities in everyday customer for upselling and cross-selling opportunities by
General features management business processes including mar- placing advertisements and sending marketing
The solution for WiMAX services should be a com- keting, order management and trouble ticketing – messages for the subscribers who log on to the
prehensive end-to-end solution that enables opera- no matter if the actual CRM user interface is used system.
tors to start new operations quickly. It is important in the call center, front office or back office.
that the solution consists of integrated functional Point of Sale Solution Structure
blocks, to provide the flexibility for the operator to > Support for Point of Sale functionalities, begin- Regardless if the solution is targeted at a small or
choose appropriate modules which fit their indi- ning with a web-based, easy to use solution large operator, and what the size of the solution
vidual needs. where customers can be registered and man- is, it is important that the solution functionality is
Each operator has specific needs for the solution aged, through partner management and com- separated between different layers. The advantage
and thus there is no single, unique solution that mission calculation and ending with revenue of the multi-layer structure is that the complexity
can fit every operator’s needs. If the operator that sharing and billing. of the underlying network can be hidden from the
wants to set up and offer WiMAX services to end Billing Department modules that are above the network abstraction
subscribers is a small company or has only a small > Charging and billing of the services that a cus- layer, thus making it possible to run the same bill-
subscriber base, it may be best to select a WiMAX tomer would like to pay for in advance (prepaid ing solution above many different types of net-
solution that is a compact, low cost solution yet model) or after the service has been delivered (in works, thus not only on top of a WiMAX network.
still covers common business processes and helps a postpaid model), or a combination of both.
the operator effectively roll out the business. > Roaming support to enable an operator’s sub- As seen from Figure 2, the solution has many user
Another approach is to select a solution that can scribers to travel and use those networks which interfaces that support operators’ end users for
fulfill a larger scale of business requirements. This have signed roaming agreements with main performing multiple operations – from points of
kind of solution is ideal for enterprise customers operator. Roaming support also allows users sales, through front and back offices, and network
that need specialized telco-grade products that from these networks to use the main operator’s administration operations. The system core is the
not only support the core functionalities of WiMAX network resources. In addition, revenue sharing convergent prepaid/postpaid billing engine. The

nr 1/2009 (09)


figure 2. Usage of different layers for building the solution

Dealer Agent Customer

Sales forces support Customer relationship Management
Point of Sale Web Self- Care
CRM
Captive Portal

Credit Card
Resource
Trouble Ticketing Authorization Bank
Inventory
Center

Billing & real-time Access Control Top-ups & Payments
Revenue Share & Interconnect & Roaming Convergent prepaid/ Voucher & Top-up
Commission Management Settlements postpaid Billing Management

Network Abstraction
Network & Service Network & Service
Remote Management Service Activation Active Madiation
Inventory Assurance

WiMAX
Internet Backbone
WiMAX

WiFi

Home WiFi WiMAX WiMAX Internet Service
Network Transmitter Transmitter Provider

network abstraction layer hides the network com- vice portfolio complexity. The days of buying soft- The importance of selecting the appropriate
plexity from the above modules of the solution. In ware platforms which are scaled in such a way as vendor is highlighted in situations where the new
this way, it is possible to run the solution above to be able to handle an operator’s business many WiMAX operator needs to purchase a complete end-
various different network systems, not only on years in the future have long since passed by. As to-end solution, because selecting multiple vendors
top of a WiMAX network. Thus the operator should operators reduce their operating costs to improve instead of one can lead to delays in the delivery of
receive a complete end-to-end solution for running bottom-line results, it is important to adjust OSS/ the project. When there is only one vendor as a sin-
the business, having complete control of the ser- BSS platform investments according to the current gle point of contact during the project, the coordi-
vices under a single system. This brings benefit in requirements and those in the near-future in order nation of the project is taken care of by the WiMAX
the form of reduced CAPEX, as the operator has to to reduce the amount of CAPEX. solution vendor and the operator need not manage
only to run a single system to control the network the project between the various vendors involved.
environment. rapid Deployment Time
An operator beginning to offer WiMAX services Network Monitoring and
Importance of Low Startup Costs should be able to start realizing revenues from Provisioning Actions
For startup operators, typically the most impor- these services as soon as possible. To start offering The network infrastructure status should be able
tant issue is the low costs of the solution and its these services, the operator must have the appro- to be observed from the system, right from the
implementation. The operator must be able to start priate WiMAX network infrastructure installed technical staff’s screen, and provide real-time per-
running the business with a compact solution that (together with WiFi infrastructure if needed) as formance, coverage and fault monitoring. Another
only covers the required functionalities, and then well as the core equipment (OSS/BSS systems, rout- important feature is the observance of network
later, expand the system. Sizing the platform to the ing and switching). To achieve this, it is important status (from the perspective of service continu-
exact size of the operator’s business significantly that the operator chooses a reliable WiMAX solu- ity) through coverage maps. If the operator offers
reduces the amount of the initial investment. The tion vendor which has already implemented sim- non-WiMAX network services, these could be inte-
platform must be able to grow and expand as the ilar solutions and was able to meet the timeline grated into the solution as well, to be controlled
subscribers increase. The same applies to the ser- requirements for the delivery of the solution. and observed from a central point.



Key features of the solution: Main benefits of the solution: What can Comarch offer?
> WiMAX and WiFi network > Reduced operating costs > Green field deployments
> Prepaid and postpaid service billing > Improved time-to-market for new services > Network planning
> Coverage maps > Single platform for managing multiple types of > Installation and integration of network infra-
> Network and service monitoring services structure
> Trouble ticketing > Integration with external systems via standard- > Design of services
> Customer Relationship Management based APIs > Analysis of a customer’s business processes
> Web portal for customer self care and captive > Short implementation time > Implementation of OSS/BSS/CRM systems
portal > Project management
> Multitenancy and reseller branding > Data Center services
> Maintenance and operation services

In addition, the solution should be able to auto- Conclusions operating costs, improved time-to-market for new
matically process access provisioning actions, ser- The features of an end-to-end WiMAX solution services, a single platform for managing multiple
vice connection and disconnection, restriction of that have been presented in this document enable types of services, improved customer experience
access to a walled garden (in case of lack of pay- WiMAX service in an operator’s product portfolio thus reducing churn, and seamless integration
ment) and shaping traffic based on configurable in a reasonable amount of time. It is important for with third party systems.
rules. All these automatic features will assist the the WiMAX operator to have an appropriate solu- An appropriate WiMAX solution also brings
operator in running the business smoothly with tion which benefits not only the operator itself, advantages to end subscribers. Increased cus-
minimum manual intervention, thus reducing the but the end subscribers as well. tomer satisfaction, access to a customer self care
operating costs. Comarch’s end-to-end WiMAX solution has been web portal (for ordering new services, viewing
designed based on the characteristics mentioned. usage data, recharging an account, etc.), prepaid
replacement of an existing BSS/ The solution is suitable for start-up WiMAX opera- and postpaid service types, faster resolution of
OSS Platform tors and also for already established operators that problems (through trouble ticketing) and the pos-
Not all operators are completely replacing their want to expand their service portfolio into WiMAX sibility of using roaming services. These are the
existing platforms when bringing additional ser- services. To summarize, the solution advantages for advantages that help operators increase subscriber
vices to the market. Thus it is important that both the operators can be classified as a reduction in retention. >>>
the underlying OSS/BSS platform and the imple-
mented WiMAX solution components be integrated
together without complex, proprietary interfaces
that can become expensive to integrate properly.
The integrated systems should contain appropri-
ate APIs and support the most common standard-
ized interface types.

Cooperation with Partners
When implementing an end-to-end solution for
WiMAX, it is important that the solution also sup-
ports both inbound and outbound roaming, to
bring an additional revenue source for the oper-
ator. Appropriate settlements for roaming part-
ners should be able to be produced by the solution
and the solution also should also support auto-
matic reconciliation of settlements between part- Pekka Valitalo Krzysztof Kwiatkowski
ners. Similarly, the revenue sharing functionality Comarch SA Comarch SA
between the operator and partners is an impor- Position: BSS Consultant Position: BSS Product Manager
tant feature to be performed by the solution. The Department: Telecommunications Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit Business Unit
partner does not have to be a roaming partner –
Info: Currently responsible for building Info: Responsible for Comarch Conver-
the partner can be for example, an external service gent Billing, InterPartner Billing and
BSS solutions for customers and analy-
provider or a dealer at the point of sale. sing trends on the telco market. 3arts in area of R&D roadmaps, sales
support and marketing activities.

nr 1/2009 (09)

40 > Case Studies

Towards semantic modeling
of physical devices in NGOSS

Case Studies < 41

Motivation figure 1. example Cisco 7603 chassis installation
One of the challenges faced by NGOSS systems is
the increasing need for consistent management of
physical network equipment. In large companies
the time consumed by maintaining thousands of Slot 1 Cisco Supervisor 1
devices and finding solutions to possible problems
is constantly on the rise. State-of-the-art technolo-

Cisco 7603
gies enable vendor independent equipment type
identification and access to the attributes of the Slot 2 Cisco Supervisor 2
component types. Furthermore, current solutions
often provide the user with convenient graphical
modeling of the physical elements structures, but
are usually unable to provide consistent support Slot 3
to the user, by answering questions that involve
sophisticated configuration related constraints.
In our approach, we propose a solution where
equipment is modeled using a dedicated Domain
Specific Language enriched with the power of the figure 2. Cisco 7603 physical device configuration description
best available logic-based reasoning services. This
enables us to define a rich layer of semantics on
top of the structural description of the devices. Slot 1 Cisco Supervisor 1
This way, the configuration related constraints are or Supervisor engine 7200
expressed declaratively, in a platform independent
Cisco 7603

manner, and are managed in an integrated way If (Cisco Supervisor 2 or
with the structural model. The information kept Slot 2 Supported Catalyst 6500 series Supervisor Engine 7200) {
module, Cisco Supervisor 2 or exactly the same type as in slot 1
in the model can then be used on runtime to give Supervisor engine 7200 }
guidance to the system user.

Problem description Slot 3 Supported Catalyst 6500
One of the usage scenarios targeted in the MOST series module
project is the management of physical network
equipment. Myriads of device types and their con-
figurations can make user’s everyday work a night-
mare. For example, each time a card in some device Such tools, guiding and supporting users Domain Specific Language provides a formal but
is broken, the system operator faces questions like, through tedious tasks by answering the questions simplified description of a specific domain.
‘what are the possible replacements for that card, mentioned, would generate substantial profit, and Maintaining models using small but clearly
are some options better then others?’ reduce the number of potential errors in device defined concepts and syntax, increases produc-
On the other hand, a system analyst planning configuration. It would also improve productivity, tivity, resistance to mistakes and readability of the
new services on a particular device wants to know and mitigate the time consumed studying the tech- designed models.
what components he can use with that device, if nical details of a device’s documentation. An ontology is a specification of a conceptu-
possible, from those available in the company’s alization. That is, an ontology is a description of
warehouse. Domain Specific Languages and concepts and the relationships among them from
Similar questions may also arise while inte- Ontologies some point of view. For example, from the point of
grating manually maintained repositories of One of the first things to do in the MOST project, was view of a system analyst that is modeling physi-
physical network equipment. In such cases, auto- to identify parts of Comarch’s OSS suite that can cal devices.
matic checking of device configuration correct- profit from the research most. Modeling physical
ness or even finding the exact device type using devices was a perfect candidate, and for a reason. Ontology simply put
only information about its configuration, would Firstly, a network of physical devices can easily Everyone uses more or less formal ontologies
surely improve the integrity and correctness of be described using a limited number of concepts every day. When we see a girl on the street call-
existing data. that makes it a subject of Physical Device Domain ing an older person father, we suppose that the
As shown, there is clearly a need for tools pro- Specific Language. On the other hand, possible girl is the daughter of that person. Formally, the
viding advanced support helping users make cor- device configurations and connections build some relationship “daughter” is inverse to the rela-
rect decisions, tools based on knowledge bases and kind of knowledge base, which would be hard to tionship “father”. Knowing ontological relation-
semantics, able to learn, reason and bring mean- express using structural models, but are ideal for ships between people gives us the possibility
ingful answers for user questions. representing as an ontology. to reason from partial knowledge.

nr 1/2009 (09)

42 > Case Studies

Ontology not only enables knowledge sharing a replacement for a broken card, what kind of con- one. Additionally, the process of finding a replace-
and reuse, but together with a reasoning engine, straints a particular card has, etc.). The standard ment takes into account every constraint the physi-
provides inference capability. procedure in such cases is that the user studies the cal device has. In our example, only the cards of
In the scope of the MOST project, our work goes device documentation looking for technical details the same type as the backup supervisor card will
toward extending the expressiveness of the domain while being simultaneously bothering about how be found.
specific language for the description of the physical to get the replacement (e.g. if it is available in com-
device structure. This is achieved through integra- pany’s warehouse, or if it must be ordered). Man- Conclusion
tion of Domain Specific Languages with Ontology, aging these kinds of issues in a large scale device In order to fulfill customer demands, the Comarch
and thus opening new spaces for modeling struc- network is difficult and time consuming. OSS research and development department is con-
ture and semantics together. What’s important is To limit the effort required to solve such prob- stantly active in research for technologies intended
that integrated models remain easy to edit and pro- lems we designed DSL that describes the structure to improve user productivity and the comfort of
cess using existing tools and approaches, being a of the physical device and stores information about work. Even though ontologies in computer science
structural and semantic model at the same time. a possible connection between physical device ele- have been used for a long time, integration with
ments. The description is enriched by the ontology domain specific languages is a early innovation in
Use Case constraints that guard the correctness of the cre- the field of data modeling. The problems described
This section presents a real life example of modeling ated configuration. In our example one of the con- and appearing in everyday tasks are of an abstract
a physical device and shows the advantages of using straints that occur is that the Cisco 7603 physical nature and cannot easily be solved using existing
DSL enriched by the ontology. It presents a usual situ- device requires the same models of the main and tools and approaches. Introducing integrated mod-
ation in telecommunication companies when one of backup supervisor cards (see Fig. 2). els containing structure and semantic information
the physical device cards is broken or not supported will surely be a great advantage, and will lead to
any longer and requires replacement. Figure 1 pres- Of course the internal structure of the domain the improvement of existing systems, making them
ents an example configuration of the Cisco 7603 chas- specific language and ontology will be hidden from more user-friendly. The presented usage scenario
sis. It contains two cards. The card in slot 1 is a super- the user, who will receive user-friendly wizards and serves as a proof of a concept for ontology enriched
visor card, required by the device to work properly. In context actions. In our example a new generation modeling. Initial results have already proved its
slot 2, a backup supervisor card is inserted. OSS, enriched by guidance capability, will show usefulness in the development of user-friendly,
Let’s suppose that main supervisor card is bro- two possible actions to perform: efficient tools. We can therefore expect them to
ken and requires replacement. The person respon- > Order the same card model be implemented in Comarch OSS soon.
sible for this device receives a notification about > Find all possible replacements available in storage
the problem and begins to resolve it.
Current solutions of OSS systems require deep The first action will start the process of ordering MOST, “Marrying Ontologies and Software Tech-
knowledge about every sub-component of the the card model and the second one will locate all nology” is a project co-funded within the Seventh
physical device (what kind of cards can be used as the cards with the same functionality as the broken Framework Programme. www.most-project.eu
>>>

Paweł Sabina Marek Kasztelnik Krzysztof Miksa
Comarch SA Comarch SA Comarch SA
Position: Software Analyst Position: Software Analyst Position: Project Manager
Department: OSS Research & Development Department: OSS Research & Development Department: OSS Research & Development
Info: Work package leader in MOST Project. Info: Expertise in physical devices Info: MOST Project Coordinator
modeling.


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