Customer Case Study: the benefits of using CrossTalk™ Mapping and Mediation Technology

The task facing telecoms operators

To manage different domains within their network, telecommunications operators and service providers use Sub-Network Management (SNM) systems provided by equipment vendors.

It is often the case that they have a Manager Of Managers (MOM) system. This takes a feed of events from the SNMs for fault management and processes these feeds for presentation to Operations staff in their operations centres through a "single pane of glass" or as input to cross domain correlation and service management systems.

When customers upgrade part of their network - to handle new types or new versions of network equipment - this frequently involves an upgrade of the associated SNM system. Or it means the deployment of a new system to manage the devices. In either case, the task will involve changes to the MOM system to handle new event types, interface upgrades or implementation of a new SNM interface.

Traditionally time-consuming and costly

The upgrade to the MOM can be time-consuming and costly using traditional toolkits and methods of interfacing. This is an area where customers are constantly striving to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their OSS solutions by significantly reducing implementation timescales and costs.

It is extremely important that any upgrades go smoothly. It means telecommuncations operators need a tried and tested solution so that management of the network upgrades or new types of equipment can seamlessly be handed over to the customer's Operations groups.

Reducing TCO with CrossTalk interfaces

As leading specialists in this area, Systems Mechanics provide interfaces for a number of leading Manager Of Manager systems using our CrossTalk™ Mapping and Mediation technology.

Architected to address real-life customer requirements - and proven in many large-scale operational environments - our technology delivers interfaces that provide substantial Return On Investment (ROI). It is able to reduce the TCO of MOM interfaces and significantly decrease implementation timescales. Our CrossTalk™ interfaces are designed to be deployed with little or no interruption to service. More than that, they can be rapidly configured to meet the customer's business and operational requirements.

Protect your investment

In our experience, when customers plan their strategies for future Operational Support Systems a factor of increasing importance is the protection of investment. This is whether you plan to upgrade or replace existing systems, or to outsource the management of parts of your network operations. The reason is simply that a considerable investment will already have been made in the procurement of MOM interfaces and customisation of these to implement business logic and operational needs. By using CrossTalk™ interfaces you can protect your investment and simplify your OSS strategy and planning.

Simplify migration

Migration costs are considerable. Not only that, migration and can take many years to fully implement. This is why our customers are looking at ways to simplify migration and to protect their investment on their existing MOM platforms.

Our customer has achieved these objectives by using SysMech interfaces implemented using CrossTalk™ Mapping and Mediation technology. These have the advantage of being platform-independent. Added to that, they can plug into any MOM service assurance system.

SysMech already supports interfaces to a number of the leading service assurance systems - and for those not already in our portfolio, support can easily be added. When it comes to migration this greatly simplifies the process and preserves the customer's business logic and operational functionality.

Compelling business case

Even when our customers have an existing MOM interface to an SNM, there is a compelling business case to replace this with an interface using CrossTalk™ Mapping and Mediation technology. In most cases, the cost of the CrossTalk™ interface is less than the upgrade cost for an existing MOM interface.

Case Study - Ericsson OSS-RC interface

When Systems Mechanics were approached by a UK customer to implement an interface between HP TeMIP and Ericsson's OSS-RC sub-network management system, it was to be part of a major equipment rollout and upgrade programme.

Major reduction in timescales and costs

The customer needed to achieve a major reduction in the timescales and costs for the integration of future OSS-RC upgrades to their MOM platform. Importantly, they needed to enrich the interface to provide event prioritisation, classification and automation functionality.

Systems Mechanics proposed implementing the interface using our CrossTalk™ Mapping and Mediation technology - and this met the customer's ROI, TCO and functional requirements.

Rapid delivery

It meant that the contract was placed with a rapid delivery timescale for acceptance testing. The project was successfully delivered less than two months from the outset. Project implementation met both timescale and cost objectives thanks to the flexibility of the underlying technology, coupled with Systems Mechanics' integration experience and skills.

The interface provides the following functionality:

• 3GPP CORBA interface to OSS-RC
• Customisable event mapping to OSI event format with automatic clear correlation
• Automatic event resynchronisation between OSS-RC and the MOM
• Preservation of alarm operator note annotation on the MOM during resynchronisation
• North and south bound operation alarm acknowledgement
• Support for the Ericsson OSS-RC MML downstream command agent

High performance

SysMech's customer now has a highly performant and functionally rich MOM interface to Ericsson OSS-RC. In addition to being platform-independent, it will greatly reduce future upgrade costs.

The solution also protects the customers' investment should they decide to migrate to a different MOM in the future.