Minimise the tentacles on the OctopOSS. Keep it simple
Automation has become a big buzz-word in OSS architecture. It’s all about the automation. At face value that’s great, it’s triggering an implication of bringing tangible business value to our OSS…. Except sometimes it’s not. Our industry consists of so many incredibly clever engineers who love solving problems, which is great. The problem with automations […]
Our previous post talked about using the following frame of reference to think bigger about our OSS/BSS projects and their possibilities. It’s the multitudes of experts at Level 1 that get projects done and products released. All hail the doers!! As Rory Sutherland indicated in his book, Alchemy – The surprising power of ideas that […]
We had a planned power outage at our place yesterday, so I thought I’d use that as an opportunity to get out of the details of projects and do a day of longer-term strategy and planning. In the days prior, I decided to investigate frameworks that might help to get me into a bigger-picture and/or […]
Do you know what it is that people like / love about your OSS/BSS?Why they buy it? Why they use it? What problem it solves? How it makes their life easier? If you do, how do you know?Do you speak with its users? Do you survey them? Do you spend time with them observing how […]
Last week we created an article that described how to use your OSS/BSS log data to generate reliable / quantifiable process flow diagrams. We’ve expanded upon this research to identify a reliable calculation of jeopardy metrics. Jeopardy Management is the method for notifying operators when an in-flight workflow (eg customer order, etc) is likely to […]
Have you been tasked with: Capturing as-is process flows (eg swim-lane charts or BPMN [Business Process Model and Notation] diagrams) Starting a new project where understanding the current state is important Finding ways to optimise day-to-day activities performed by your team Creating a baseline process to identify automation opportunities Comparing your current processes with recommendations […]
The first OSS/BSS I used, back in 2000, was built around an Oracle relational database and the GUI was built using Oracle Forms (as well as some C++ apps). The developers had implemented a concept they referred to as a boilerplate. It basically allowed the customers to modify any label they wished on the forms. […]
We just launched a new video series describing the Fundamentals of OSS/BSS yesterday. One of the videos in the series describes Network Operations Centres (or NOCs) for telcos or network operators. It also provides examples of the OSS/BSS tools and data sets that help to power them. Whilst creating this video, it dawned on me […]
The video below, starring Martin Pittard, the Principal IT Architect at Vocus Group, provides a number of important OSS/BSS Transformation call-outs that we’ll dive into in this article. Vocus has embarked on a journey to significantly overhaul its OSS/BSS stack and has heavily leveraged TM Forum’s Open API suite to do so. One of the primary […]
Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great,” has achieved iconic status in the world of corporate strategy. One of the ideas he shares in this book is The Hedgehog Concept. I’d encourage you to take a look at the link above. It provides excerpts from the book, outlining why the “great” companies in his study acted […]
You’ve no doubt heard about NOC (Network Operations Centres) and SOC (Security Operations Centres) [or perhaps alternatively, Service Operations Centres], which are the people / processes / infrastructure / tools that allow a network operator to manage the network health and security posture of their networks. The NOC and SOC are vitally important to keeping […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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: The Passionate About OSS Podcast The aim of the show is to shine a light on the many brilliant people who work […]
The challenging thing about establishing root-cause is that the rules tend to be fairly unique to each network. Each vendors, topologies, interface specs, etc tend to be quite different, so they need to be customised to each network. But there are a few rules that can be applied to any network. Yesterday we described a […]
In our post on Monday, we discussed how some commodity providers have a structural advantage through lower cost of production (eg Rio Tinto in iron ore). Telcos have the potential to achieve a similar advantage on their commodity services too. It also mentioned that the first principle behind that advantage is simplicity (of systems, overheads, […]
We talked yesterday about the commoditisation of telco services and the part that OSS/BSS have to play in differentiation. We also talked about telcos retaining a few competitive advantages despite the share-of-wallet inroads made by OTT, software and cloud service providers recently. Managed services is one area where some of those advantages converge. Quite a […]
Since widespread deregulation of telecommunications globally, the passing of data has become a commodity. Perhaps it always was, but increased competition has steadily driven down dollar per bit. It’s likely to continue on that path too. Meanwhile the expected throughputs and consumption of data services is ramping ever-upwards, which requires investment in networks by their […]
Our Blue Book OSS/BSS Vendors Directory provides a list of over 400 vendors. That clearly states that it’s a highly fragmented market. This amount of fragmentation hurts the industry in many ways, including: Duplication – Let’s say 100 of the 400 vendors offer alarm / fault management capabilities. That means there are 100 teams duplicating […]
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 […]
