I'm assuming that if you're reading this blog, chances are you're already an OSS/BSS expert, or spend a lot of your working life thinking about them. Perhaps you do more than think about them and actually help to implement them in some way. Perhaps you don't implement them yet, but have been tasked with understanding them in more detail. During those activities do you spend much…
Read More »Introduction to eTOM Have you been tasked with designing process flows for a telecommunication network operator or setting up a business process management regime? Do these include end-to-end (E2E) processes that leverage one (or likely more) of your OSS/BSS tools along the journey? Perhaps you’ve even been tasked with setting a roadmap for OSS/BSS development and/or integration with other OSS/BSS (Operational Support Systems / Business Support…
Read More »No doubt all of you have seen network performance graphs. The one below is an example (from Flowmon 8.03). This example shows throughput, jitter and round-trip time amongst other metrics. No doubt you use many additional metrics to track the health of your network. Most performance management tools show the range of metrics as line or bar graphs, as above, which is helpful of course. They…
Read More »Have you noticed the recent up-tick in headlines around telco offerings by hyperscalers AWS, Google and Microsoft? Or the multi-cloud telco models, the middleware, supplied by VMware and Red Hat? Whilst previous generations of wireless connectivity have focussed on voice and data capabilities, 5G is architected to better enable consumer business models. Edge compute (both on-prem / device-edge and provider edge) and related services to support…
Read More »Today's is the third part in a series about OSS/BSS testing (part 1, part 2). Many people think about OSS/BSS testing in terms of application functionality and non-functional requirements. They also think about entry criteria / pre-requisites such as the environments, application builds / releases, test case development and maybe even the integrations required. However, an often overlooked aspect of OSS/BSS functionality testing is the data…
Read More »One of the most vital, but underestimated aspect of OSS/BSS project implementation is ensuring momentum is maintained. These large and complex projects are prone to stagnating at different stages, which can introduce pressure onto the implementation team. As mentioned in yesterday's post, the first in this week's series, the test strategy and scheduling is regularly overlooked as a means of maintaining OSS project momentum. More specifically,…
Read More »On major software projects like the OSS you’re building, testing is an important phase of course. You’ll have undoubtedly incorporated testing into your planning. After all, testing is a key component of any Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). There are various SDLC models / methodologies such as Waterfall, V-Model, Agile and others that you can consider. Unfortunately, most OSS project teams tend to underestimate the testing…
Read More »Are you a bit slow like me and sometimes have to stop and think to differentiate your key assurance metrics like your MTTRs from your MTBFs? If so, I thought this useful diagram from researchgate.net might help The metrics are: MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) - the average elapsed time between failures of a system, service or device. It's the basic measure of availability / reliability…
Read More »Last month we posted an article that described using a common data model (CDM) for our OSS / BSS data. It mostly looked at the situation within the context of typical operational data sources (the blue boxes on the left side of the diagram below): Today's article pushes the vision a little further. If your CDM is built as part of an enterprise-wide data warehouse, then…
Read More »Please note that this article has now been superseded by this page "How to Architect Your OSS/BSS/NMS Security Framework" =========== Our OSS / BSS manage some of the world's most vital comms infrastructure don't they? That makes them pretty important assets to protect from cyber-intrusion. Therefore security is a key, but often underestimated, component of any OSS / BSS project. Let me start by saying…
Read More »Breaking news: "Netcracker and Google Cloud announce strategic partnership" has been published on our Industry News stream. Industry News includes: contract wins, new product releases, job openings, EOIs/RFPs, etc. To publish news about your organisation, first claim or register your organisation’s listing on The Blue Book OSS/BSS Supplier Directory then create a news post.
Read More »A regular reader of the PAOSS blog recently wrote, "I follow with passion your blog,latest post about Inventory are great [Ed. the reader is talking about this post about LNI and PNI and this one about Inventory vs Asset vs CMDB Management]. I ask you if possible have a post on Inside Plant vs Outside Plant vs Virtual network creation... we usually use CAD based tool…
Read More »Some time back, we discussed A modern twist on OSS architecture that is underpinned by a common data model. Time to discuss this a little more visually. As the blue boxes on the left side of the diagram below show, you may have many different data sources (some master, some slaved). You may have a single OSS tool (monolithic solution) or you may have…
Read More »As you have undoubtedly noticed, 5G is generating quite a bit of buzz in telco and OSS circles. For many it's just an n+1 generation of mobile standards, where n is currently 4 (well, the number of recent introductions into the market mean n is probably now getting closer to 5 :) ). But 5G introduces some fairly big changes from an OSS perspective. As usual…
Read More »Last week we discussed the nuances between Inventory, Asset and Config Management within an OSS stack. Each one of these tools are designed to supports functionality for different users / persona-groups. However, they also tend to have significant functional overlap. Chances are your organisation doesn't have separate dedicated tools for each. So today I'm going to share a trick I've used in the past when I've…
Read More »We recently discussed the differences between PNI (Physical Network Inventory) and LNI (Logical Network Inventory) solutions that appear as part of many OSS (Operational Support System) stacks. As promised, today we'll talk about the subtle differences between: Network Inventory Management Systems Asset Management Systems and Configuration Management Databases (CMDB) We even discuss: Virtual Infrastructure (VIM) and Resource Managers Config Managers (different from CMDB) TM Forum's four…
Read More »"People in a tough spot often focus on their own problems, when the answer usually lies in fixing someone else’s."Steve Schwarzman. The telco industry is in a tough spot in many areas around the globe. Sadly, there were more stories of wholesale retrenchments here in Australia this week, including good friends. Revenues falling. Sentiment bleak. Yet it's not like most declining industries. Telecom services and remote…
Read More »Hello, Trouble. It's been a while since we last met. But I know you're still out there. And I have a feeling you're looking for me. You wish I'd forget ya.. Don't ya trouble? Perhaps it is you, that has forgotten me. Perhaps I need to come find you. Remind you, who I am. Sounds like an apt mindset for working in the OSS industry doesn't…
Read More »Following yesterday's post about OSS Inventory, I received another great follow-up question from another avid reader of the PAOSS blog: "Interesting thoughts Ryan! In addition to 'faults up', perhaps there is a case also (obvious?) for 'discovery up' to capture ongoing non-planned changes? Wondering have you come across any sort of reconciliation / adaptive inventory patterns like this? Workflow based? Autonomous? (Going to far into chaos…
Read More »After reading other recent posts such as "Orders Down, Faults Up" and "How is OSS/BSS service and resource availability supposed to work?" an avid reader of the PAOSS blog posed the following brilliant question: "Do you have any thoughts on geospatial vs non geospatial network inventory systems? How often do you see physical plant mapping in a separate system from network inventory, with linkages or integrations…
Read More »As OSS Architects, we have an array of elegant frameworks to call upon when designing our transformational journeys - from current state to a target state architecture. For example, when providing data mapping, we have tools to prepare current and/or target-state data diagrams such as the following: Source here. These diagrams are really elegant and powerful for communicating with other data experts and delivery teams. It's…
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