The pandemic has been beneficial for the telco world in one way. For many who weren't already aware, it's now clear how incredibly important telecommunications providers are to our modern way of life. Not just for our ability to communicate with others, but our economy, the services we use, the products we buy and even more fundamentally, our safety. Working in the telco industry, as I'm…
Read More »With well over 500 product suppliers in the OSS/BSS market it can be really difficult to stand out from the other products. Part of the reason we compiled The Blue Book OSS/BSS Vendor Directory was to allow us to quickly recall one product from another. With so much overlapping functionality and similarities in their names, some vendors can "blend" into each other when we try to…
Read More »I was doing some research on Ubiquiti's NMS/OSS tools yesterday and stumbled upon the brilliant Augmented Reality (AR) capability that it has (I think). I've converted to a video shown below (apologies for the low-res - you can try clicking here for Ubiquiti's full-res view) I especially love how it uses the OLED at the left side of the chassis almost like a QR code to…
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You've possibly been inside a NOC (Network Operations Centre) and seen the video wall covered with network maps, activity / alarm / event lists and network health graphs. These OSS tools are the ultimate insurance policy for any organisation that runs a network. They help coordinate the activities to repair a network when the inevitable network outages and degradations happen. Our guest in this episode, David…
Read More »In the old-school world of network assurance, we just polled our network devices and aggregated all the events into an event list. But then our networks got bigger and too many events were landing in the list for our assurance teams to process. The next fix was to apply filters. For example, that meant dropping the Info and Warning messages because they weren't all that important…
Read More »Much of the focus within OSS/BSS centres around the big-budget projects being done by the Tier-1 telcos. They get attention because there are lots of people involved, lots of OSS horsepower, with big, ambitious goals. But there's another part of the industry that doesn't tend to get so much public recognition - the mid-market telcos and utilities. These OSS/BSS tend to cover just as much scope.…
Read More »Yesterday's article asked whether OSS tend to be anonymous and poorly designed and then compared how Jony Ive (who led the design of iPads, iPods, iPhones for Apple) might look at OSS design. Jony has described "going deep" - being big on focus, care and detail when designing products. The article looked at 8 care factors, some of which OSS vendors do very well and others,…
Read More »"We're surrounded by anonymous, poorly made objects. It's tempting to think its because the people who use them don't care - just like the people who make them. But what [Apple has] shown is that people do care. It's not just about aesthetics. They care about things that are thoughtfully conceived and well made."Jony Ive (referenced here). As you undoubtedly know, Jony Ive is the industrial…
Read More »While it might sometimes feel like OSS mega projects just happen, there's usually a lot that must first play out up-stream, long before us technologists get the chance to design and build. First someone must spawn the idea, then be able to persuade a bunch of other people, exciting them with the possibilities of the idea. In many cases, this happens on the customer-side with OSS…
Read More »I was listening to a podcast this morning and the host mentioned a concept that he calls "treating products as your own." In other words, there are certain products that he's an evangelist for - he actively spruiks them as if he had shares in the company or developed the products himself. They're products he loves so much that he's willing to tell everyone about even…
Read More »"Data governance constructs a strategy and a framework through which an organization (company as well as a state…) can recognize the value of its data assets (towards its own or global goals), implement a data management system that can best leverage it whilst putting in place controls, policies and standards that simultaneously protect data (regulation & laws), ensure its quality and consistency, and make it readily…
Read More »Jay Fenton is the Founder and CEO of Savvi, makers of innovative and highly performant OSS/BSS components that redefine the state of the art. Savvi's portfolio notably includes SNMP, Streaming Telemetry, Netflow and IoT collectors each of which operate in the 10s of millions of events per second on a single server, solving collection problems for massive networks. We also mention Luna - a unique visualisation…
Read More »Francis Haysom is a Principal Analyst for Appledore Research Group, a global research and consulting firm specialising in the telecommunication and software markets with a particular focus on OSS/BSS. In this episode, Francis takes us on a ride through his career leading OSS/BSS innovation across the last three decades with iconic companies such as Convergys, Cramer, Amdocs, Telcordia and Ericsson. He then takes us into his…
Read More »Vance Shipley is the CEO and Founder of SigScale. SigScale is a provider of standardised, open-source, cloud-native OSS/BSS tools, including flagship product, OCS (Online Charging System). In this episode, Vance takes us on a fascinating journey through a career that started three decades ago with his first role as a high-tech lumberjack through to his current owner / developer role with SigScale. His journey follows an…
Read More »We're excited to announce the Launch of The Passionate About OSS Podcast. The first batch of five episodes can be found here, with new episodes to be released here on a weekly basis: https://passionateaboutoss.com/paoss-podcast/ The aim of the show is to shine a light on the many brilliant people who work in the OSS industry. We'll interview experts in the field of OSS/BSS and telecommunications software.…
Read More »James Crawshaw is a Principal Analyst with Omdia, one of the world's top-three technology analysis agencies. James specialises in analysis of OSS, telecommunications and IT industries, which means he spends more time researching OSS technologies and firms than almost anyone on the planet. In this episode, James provides insights into what's currently trending in OSS, but he also describes the techniques he uses to peer over…
Read More »Michael Jones is a Practice Principal at Analytica Resources, a recruitment role that sees him connecting employers and employees. Analytica is a niche agency that specialises in BSS and OSS placements. This provides Michael with an insider's perspective on the successful techniques that applicants use to find their first, or next, job in the OSS / BSS industry. Michael describes the processes that he uses to…
Read More »Peter Dart describes his journey working with some of the world's earliest geospatial software to his current role as Chief Architect with Synchronoss. In this role, he helps to guide the roadmap of Synchronoss' Spatial Suite, a set of tools that assist leading network operators to manage and maintain their Physical Network Inventory (PNI). In a world where network virtualisation technologies are grabbing the attention of…
Read More »Tony Kalcina recounts the story of taking Clarity International from its founding team and customer to IPO (Initial Public Offering) and beyond. He also describes an extensive career starting with Telstra OTC through to his current role as the APAC CTO for Tech Mahindra and Ambassador for TM Forum. Tony provides insights into the formation and leadership of OSS teams and the opportunities that still exist…
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Welcome to the Passionate About OSS podcast, the show for people who are just that – Passionate About OSS – Where the OSS stands for Operational Support Systems. In other words, the software solutions that help manage and operate the complex telecommunications networks of today. Thanks for joining me on the episode that isn’t quite an episode – it’s more of an introduction message that describes…
Read More »Do you remember back in the old days of OSS/BSS releases into production? They were a little bit stressful.... especially for the Release Managers. I remember one Release Manager who used to set up the packages, type out the commands, then his hands would be poised above the keyboard, literally shaking. He would then position his finger above the Enter key and look away from the…
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