Telecoms, networking & broadcasting

Technical

Next generation OSS - the impact

on legacy systems
by Mark Acton, Mobinomics

The next generation network (NGN) service provider’s challenge will be operational systems.

Much of the attention surrounding NGN has
been focused on the technical and marketing
dimensions. For example, there has been
extensive coverage and discussion over WiMax,
3G and WiFi as competing components in
providing access to NGN core networks and
services.
On the marketing and service development
front, there has been much speculation
regarding what the killer NGN application will
be. Will it be media services such as interactive
television delivered via internet protocol (IPTV) or
ubiquitous voice over intenet protocol (VoiP) – or
hopefully both ?
Ultimately, all service providers and operators
(hereafter referred to as telcos) will have access
to the technologies and network platforms that
will enable them to deliver similar competing
services.
The basis for competitive differentiation will be
getting innovative service offerings to market as
speedily as possible. And at a price that will be
difficult for “followers” to beat. Over and above
this, to reduce customer churn, a strong brand
association will have to be nurtured in the mind
of the user.
What can be done that will give telcos the ability
to drive prices downwards (through reduction
of operational costs); enable the transforming
of great ideas into available services faster
than the competitors; and increase levels of
customer service that will reinforce the users
brand association?

New generation operational systems and

Brief overview of TM forum’s NGOSS artifacts software (NGOSS)

The TeleManagement Forum provides leadership, strategic guidance and practical solutions to The TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum)
improve the management and operation of information and communications services. advocates the NGOSS program as a solution
to the challenges confronted by telcos in their
Enhanced telecom operations map (eTOM) transformation to becoming a “lean operator”.
The eTOM serves as a reference framework for categorising all the business activities of a service The forum argues that the majority of operational
provider and analyses them into different levels of detail according to their significance and problems experienced by telcos stem from the
priority for the business. The eTOM structure establishes the business language and foundation underlying business processes, systems and
for the development and integration of business and operations support systems (BSS and OSS data - “ High operating costs, poor order-to-cash
respectively). cycles, high levels of customer dissatisfaction
driving high churn rates and long lead times
Shared information/data model (SID) for new products are not the hallmarks of a
successful operator in a brutally competitive
The Sid model provides the telecommunication industry with a common vocabulary and set
market” .
of information/data definitions and relationships used in the definition of NGOSS architectures.
Used in combination with the eTOM business process and activity descriptions it becomes NGOSS provides a “framework of frameworks”
possible to create a bridge between the business and information technology groups, thereby for the development of both flexible and
providing definitions that are understandable by the business, but are also rigorous enough to stable operational system designs for the new
be used for software development. In short, The SID provides the NGOSS information model that generation network telco.
is a representation of business concepts, their characteristics and relationships, described in an
Providing detail of these frameworks is beyond the
implementation independent manner.
scope of this article, and interested readers can
Telecom application map (TAM) refer to the side box for more detail concerning
the frameworks.
TAM is a formalised way of grouping together function and data into recognised components,
which would then be regarded as potentially procurable as either applications or services. It Benefits for telcos aligning with NGOSS
describes and names a set of applications, together with the data they act upon/use and the
The following high level benefits can be attributed
function/process they perform and an element of decomposition/grouping.
to implementing NGOSS:
Technology neutral architecture (TNA)
• A carefully formulated set of ideas that have
The TNA sets out the principles and approaches for defining a component based, distributed system been developed in a collaborative fashion by
architecture and an associated critical set of system services that this architecture requires. the telecommunication industry community.
The global membership of TM Forum includes
Source: http://www.tmforum.org
leading international telcos and OSS vendors;

44 March 2007 - EngineerIT

• A coherent set of principles to organise around, which do
not unnecessarily limit the freedom of the telco nor the
vendor community. It can be applied based on their own
unique contexts and understanding of customer needs;
• A frame of reference - it does not dictate how processes
should flow nor what fixed set of information is needed.
• It aligns telco and vendor thinking, and thereby improves
communication.

Measuring NGOSS alignment

TM Forum have also implemented a NGOSS compliance

initiative. The purpose of the initiative is “to provide the
telecommunications industry with a comprehensive set
of testable criteria that constitute an OSS solution or OSS
product that is compliant with the NGOSS.”

In doing this, they have adopted an “assessment continuum”

approach, with “compliance” on one end of the spectrum
and “conformance” at the opposite end. Compliance refers
to hard rigorous testing whereas conformance refers to
softer, more subjective tests.

The International Telecommunication Union and the TM

Forum are also liaising with the view of NGOSS being adopted
as an international standard.

The impact of NGN and NGOSS alignment on legacy

networks and systems

Legacy networks and their role in the evolution towards NGN

are clearly acknowledge in the ITU’s definition of an NGN
where “Inter-working with legacy networks via open interfaces”
is included as a fundamental aspect characterising an NGN.
For most established telcos, the network will evolve towards
realising the NGN concept (as opposed to a “big bang”
approach which new market entrants can adopt).

For example, broadband DSL internet services coexist with

circuit switched voice and dial up internet services; voice
traffic is mostly being transferred via circuit switch technology;
and many internet access networks used to reach the IP core
networks are using legacy constant bit rate technologies.

Given the above, the next question logically follows: Can

legacy OSS can be accommodated within a real world
“NGOSS aligned OSS eco-system”?

And can the business cases behind this transformation

compete with commercial off the shelf” (COTS) solutions
whose purposeful design intent is to be a NGOSS-aligned
solution?

Exploring the distance legacy OSS and NGOSS alignment

The reality for established telcos is that many legacy OSS

applications have evolved over time and been refined to
meet the needs of the business stakeholders.

These legacy systems are often deeply entrenched within

business operations and have been customised to the
operators unique context and requirements. These systems
also represent significant capital investments and might
already support a substantial number of broadband services
delivered over an NGN.

EngineerIT - March 2007 45


Fig. 1: TeleManagement Forum SANRR methodology
Fig. 2: Alignment to NGOSS
It can therefore be argued that legacy may not
always mean redundant. It may be worthwhile,
in these cases, for operators to explore retaining
certain legacy OSS investments within the NGOSS
ecosystem.
What follows is a brief illustration of how NGOSS
could be used as a tool to perform this
exploration, and determine whether aligning
legacy with NGOSS is a reasonable path to
follow.
A practical approach: using the SANRR
methodology
Fig. 1 describes the TM Forums’ SANRR
methodology. The methodology defines an
46
“approach for the analysis, specification,
design and implementation expressed in
terms of NGOSS artifacts such as eTOM and
SID …” Applying the SANRR methodology (in
an iterative manner) to explore the distance
of the divide between legacy OSS and a
NGOSS aligned implementation could take the
following form:
Step 1 – Scope: Set the boundary for the
exploration using eTOMas a reference.
Identify the business process that the legacy
system ought to realise (For example, service
configuration and activation processes); and
define the mission (In this example to explore
the business case for leveraging existing legacy
to be aligned with NGOSS so that an informed
comparison can be made between legacy
and COTS).
Step 2 – Analyse: Document the legacy system
using a technology-neutral description. This can
be achieved by reverse modelling the legacy
OSS into a blueprint design using UML and a
lightweight but robust modelling framework
which embodies the NGOSS principles.
The modeling would also include all interface
points to external systems to highlight the
degree of interconnectivity.
Step 3 – Normalise: Map the documented
legacy system to eTOM and SID;
Step 4 – Rationalise: Identify gaps between
the normalised model of the legacy OSS and
the NGOSS frameworks (e.g. Are there any
processes defined by eTOM which the legacy
system is not realising; or information gaps
when mapping legacy data to SID?)
Step 5 – Rectify: Determine if there is a business
case and what the effort to resolve the identified
gaps would require in terms of skills, time and
money.
Comparing legacy with COTS offerings
If at some point in iterating through SANRR, it is
found that it is not feasible to align the legacy to
NGOSS, then the modelling exercise could be
used as a means of analysing the differences
between what business has today versus the
NGOSS Aligned COTS offering, and whether the
full cost of implementing a COTS application is
understood.
Differences can quickly and proactively be
identified and discussed between business and
vendors.
References
[1] NGOSS Distilled, The essential guide to next gen-
eration telecom management, pg. 4.
[2] http://www.tmforum.org/browse.aspx?catid=1686
[3] The International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) has a NGN-Global Standards Initiative that
focuses on developing the detailed (techni-
cal) standards necessary for NGN deployment
to give service providers the means to offer
the wide range of services expected in NGN
(http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com13/
ngn2004/index.html)
[4] NGOSS Distilled, The essential guide to next gen-
eration telecom management, pg. 24
Contact Mark Acton,
Mobinomics,
Tel 021 422-5881,
mark@mobinomics.com ☐
March 2007 - EngineerIT