Asset What's New in v8.0.1

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What’s New in the

ENTERPRISE Suite?Quick Reference Guide

Software Version 8.0.1

Reference Guide Edition 1


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© Copyright 2012 AIRCOM InternationalAll rights reserved

ADVANTAGE, ARRAYWIZARD, ASSET, CONNECT, DATASAFE, ENTERPRISE,AIRCOM I-VIEW, I-VIEW Dimension, I-VIEW Live Plan, I-VIEW Traffic, MYRIAD,AIRCOM OPTIMA, RANOPT, WEBWIZARD and Capesso™ are recognised

trademarks of AIRCOM International. Other product names are trademarks of theirrespective companies.

Microsoft Excel, .NET™, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Visual Basic Windows®,

Windows XP™, Windows Vista and Word are trademarks of the MicrosoftCorporation.

This documentation is protected by copyright and contains proprietary andconfidential information. No part of the contents of this documentation may bedisclosed, used or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without the priorwritten consent of AIRCOM International.

Although AIRCOM International has collated this documentation to reflect thefeatures and capabilities supported in the software products, the company makes nowarranty or representation, either expressed or implied, about this documentation, itsquality or fitness for particular customer purpose. Users are solely responsible for theproper use of ENTERPRISE software and the application of the results obtained.

An electronic version of this document exists.

This User Reference Guide published on 24 October 2012.

Refer to the Online Help for more information.

This User Reference Guide prepared by:

AIRCOM International LtdCassini CourtRandalls Research ParkRandalls WayLeatherheadSurreyKT22 7TW

Telephone: +44 (0) 1932 442000Support Hotline: +44 (0) 1932 442345Fax: +44 (0) 1932 442005Web: www.aircominternational.com


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Change History

This table shows the change history of this guide:

Edition Date Reason

1 24 October 2012 First edition.

Explanation of Symbols

Throughout this guide, where appropriate, some symbols are used to highlightparticular pieces of text. Three different symbols are in use, and are explained asfollows:

Symbol Brief Description Full Description

Note Signifies text that should be noted or carefully considered.

Tip Signifies text that may help you do something in an easier or quicker way.

Warning or Important Signifies text that is intended as a warning or something important.


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 7Contents

Contents

Chapter 1 About this Guide 9

Chapter 2 What's New in ENTERPRISE Administrator 8.0.1? 11

View Access Control 11

Chapter 3 What's New in ASSET 8.0.1? 13

Antenna Inventory 13

Overview of Physical and Logical Antennas 14 About the Physical Antennas Tab 15 About the Logical Antennas Tab 17

Antenna Port information for Cellular Antenna Devices 18

GIS Export and Vector Import Support New File Formats 19

Chapter 4 What's New in ENTERPRISE Data Services 8.0.1? 23

New Data Types Added to this Release 23

Native Co-ordinate System Support 24

About Physical and Logical Antennas 25

Sparse Data Improvements 25

Chapter 5 Help Us Help You 27


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Page 8 What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1?Contents


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 9

About this Guide

About this Guide

For existing users of ENTERPRISE, the What’s New Quick Reference Guide gives abrief overview of what has changed in the latest version.

However, if you are new to ENTERPRISE, you may find it more useful to refer to:

The ENTERPRISE User Reference Guide, which provides information aboutcommon functionality across the tool suite

The specific User Reference Guide for each of the products (such as ASSET) thatyou will be using

C H A P T E R 1


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Page 10 What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1?

About this Guide


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 11What's New in ENTERPRISE Administrator 8.0.1?

What's New inENTERPRISE Administrator8.0.1?

In ENTERPRISE Administrator 8.0.1, the following additional feature is nowavailable.

View Access Control

While write permissions enable you to control who can edit the project data objects(such as Properties, Sites, Nodes and Links) created by each user, ENTERPRISEAdministrator now provides read permission options so that you can control who can

view these objects.A new step has been added to the wizard for creating a new user, allowing you tospecify view access permissions.

This picture shows an example:

Additional step in the Create A New User wizard

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What's New in ENTERPRISE Administrator 8.0.1?

In addition, a new tab named Read Defaults is now present for existing user accounts.


Additional tab in the User Properties dialog box


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 13What's New in ASSET 8.0.1?

What's New in ASSET8.0.1?

In ASSET 8.0.1, the following additional features are now available.

Antenna Inventory

ASSET 8.0.1 provides more flexibility in how you configure and manage antennas inthe Site Database. The following points summarise the improvements:

In the Site Database, antenna configurations now (additionally) exist at theProperty level, split into physical and logical entities

Antenna configurations still exist (and can be modified) at network element level

Changes at either level are synchronised, offering flexibility to suit the preferences

of users

Antenna sharing is now easy to manage

Port information can be stored

The changes primarily involve the Cellular Antennas dialog box, Site Database andGlobal Editor. The following topics provide more information.

Full information about the Physical Antenna and Logical Antenna tabs at the Propertylevel is included in the 'Configuring Networks in ASSET' chapter in the ASSET UserReference Guide.

Full information about the Cellular Antennas dialog box is included in the 'Antennasand Equipment' chapter in the ENTERPRISE User Reference Guide.

This added flexibility means there is an important new rule affecting the XMLImport process. The rule determines how the creation of physical antennas is handledby ASSET when you are importing nodes or GSM cells that contain logical antennas.See the 'XML Project File Formats' topic in the 'XML File Formats' chapter of theENTERPRISE Technical Reference Guide.

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What's New in ASSET 8.0.1?

Overview of Physical and Logical Antennas

The antennas in the Site Database are modelled as follows:

Physical Antennas - Represent the 'real-world' physical antenna configurationsavailable on the Property.

Key information: the antenna device and its location, as well as the azimuth,height, mechanical tilt, and spatial diversity.

Logical Antennas - Represent logical instances of the physical antennas deployed onparticular network elements.

Key information: the antenna pattern used for the specific network elements.

The main purpose of the Logical Antennas tab at the Property level is to beable to view all the logical antenna deployments of the physical antenna(including which network elements are using them) in one place.

In previous versions, there was no separation between physical and logical antennas:

a (logical + physical) antenna was defined at a technology-specific element level.Physical antennas can be associated with any number of logical antennas, which willcontinue to reside on their existing, technology-specific, network elements (such asUMTS NodeBs or GSM Cells).

The manufacturer information for the antenna equipment - such as antenna gain,frequency band, radiation patterns - is still stored in the Cellular Antennas dialog box.Optionally, port information for each antenna device can be defined there too, so thatit is displayed in the Site Database on the Physical Antennas tab.


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About the Physical Antennas Tab

On the Physical Antennas tab for a Property in the Site Database (or Templates dialogbox), you can set up any number of physical antenna configurations that you want tobe available to the network elements that exist on the Property.

There are two panes: the upper pane shows the physical antennas; the lower paneshows any corresponding port information.


Example of Physical Antennas tab on a Property

The grids on this tab that are editable support copy and paste from one box toanother. They also support bulk copy and paste from and to a clipboard such as Excel.

Physical Antennas Tab - Antenna Configurations

The upper pane of the Physical Antennas tab stores the information for the physicalantennas, such as location, device, azimuth, height and mechanical tilt.

This picture shows an example of the upper pane:

Example of upper pane of Physical Antennas tab on a Property


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You can add, edit or remove physical antennas. You can select the antenna device.Each device on the same Property has a unique Index number.

If the physical antenna is already assigned to a network element as a logical antenna,any changes to the physical antenna attributes (device, location, azimuth, height,mechanical tilt) on the Property automatically update the corresponding attributes on

the network element (and vice versa). Therefore any changes are automaticallysynchronised in both places.

For ADVANTAGE or ASSET ACP users: This tab also contains the constraints thatrelate to physical attributes (such as antenna location, device, height, mechanical tilt,azimuth) of each antenna. These previously resided on the Antenna Constraints tab ofthe cells (GSM) or nodes (all other technologies).

Most of the above parameters can be edited for multiple cells by using the GlobalEditor. They can also be pre-set in the Templates dialog box.

Physical Antennas Tab - Port Information

The lower pane of the Physical Antennas tab shows the physical antenna's portinformation (if this has been added in the Cellular Antennas dialog box).

When you add a physical antenna on a Property's Physical Antennas tab, the portinformation (if configured) appears automatically in the lower pane.

This picture shows an example of the lower pane:

Example of lower pane of Physical Antennas tab on a Property

The first four columns (Physical Index/Port Index/Position/Port Type) are read-only.The other columns (such as MHA, RRU, Diplexer) are editable if required. If yousubsequently edit any of these in the Cellular Antennas dialog box, you may want toupdate the information on this tab. To do this, you can highlight one or more of the

physical antennas in the upper pane and click the 'Synchronise with Antenna Device'button. The synchronising option can be carried out for multiple Properties by usingthe Global Editor.


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About the Logical Antennas Tab

On the Logical Antennas tab for a Property in the Site Database, you can view thelogical antenna configurations that are currently allocated to the network elementsparented to the Property.

There are two panes: the upper pane shows a repeat of the physical antennas; thelower pane shows the logical antennas. The purpose of the (read-only) physicalantenna information in the upper pane is to help you match up the index numbersbetween the physical antennas and logical antennas, without having to repetitivelyswitch between two tabs.


Example of Logical Antennas tab on a Property

You can add, edit or remove logical antennas. You can select the antenna pattern. Anychanges to the logical antenna on the Property are automatically updated on thecorresponding network element (and vice versa). Therefore any changes areautomatically synchronised in both places.

You can also use the Port ID(s) column to specify the physical connections betweenthe ports and the logical antennas.

The grids on this tab that are editable support copy and paste from one box toanother. They also support bulk copy and paste from and to a clipboard such as Excel.


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Antenna Port information for Cellular Antenna Devices

In the Cellular Antennas dialog box (which stores antennas in the database), there arenow two additional tabs:

Hierarchy

Ports

Example of Cellular Antennas dialog box

This table shows descriptions of the two new tabs:

On This Tab You Can

Hierarchy View a list of the antenna patterns that belong to the currently selected antenna device. Here is an example:

Ports View, edit, add or remove the ports associated with the antenna device. Here is an example:

In the Site Database, these ports will appear on the Physical Antennas tab of a Property when the antennadevice is added to the Property. If you make any subsequent changes to the port information in the Cellular

Antennas dialog box (after adding the device to the Property) you can use the 'Synchronise with AntennaDevice' button in the Site Database to synchronise the changes.

This antenna port information also enables you to add port details such as RRU and diplexer information tothe logical antennas in the Site Database, and specify the physical connections between the ports and theassociated logical antennas.

(The port information is optional and is for reference only. It has no impact elsewhere in ASSET.)


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GIS Export and Vector Import Support New FileFormats

ASSET 8.0.1 now supports additional formats relating to the import of vector files andthe export of map layers:

Vector Manager import:

Import options can now support KML/KMZ and ESRI (SHP)

Where an imported vector is in a different projection system to the currentproject, it will be automatically converted during import

GIS Export tab for Raster Image options now includes ESRI HDR

GIS Export facility in Map View window now supports:

ESRI (SHP) export

Vector export

Vector Manager can now import KML/KMZ and ESRI (SHP)

In 8.0.1, the Import Vector File facility has now been extended to include ESRI Shape(*.shp) files and KML (*.kml) files:

Vector Manager showing new Import Vector File options

An additional enhancement is that if the imported vector is in a different projectionsystem to the current project, it will be automatically converted during import.


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GIS Export tab for Raster Image options now includes ESRI HDR

Map View Display Layers: the Raster Image exports will offer extra output file types(ESRI HDR) in the list box:

Example of GIS Export tab on a Map Layer item's display properties

GIS Export facility now supports export of ESRI (SHP) files

ASSET now includes ESRI Shape (*.shp) as one of the standard GIS export formats.This means it is now possible to export map information from ASSET so that it can bedisplayed in ESRI ArcGIS or a similar program:

GIS Export dialog box showing new layout of exporting options


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GIS Export facility now supports export of Vectors

ASSET's GIS Export facility to export map layers from the Map View can now includethe export of System and User Vectors.

(The Polygons/Rectangles option automatically produces any displayed Vectorscurrently displayed in the Map View window.)


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 23What's New in ENTERPRISE Data Services 8.0.1?

What's New inENTERPRISE Data Services8.0.1?

In ENTERPRISE Data Services 8.0.1, the following additional features are nowavailable.

New Data Types Added to this Release

This table summarises the new data types that have been added to the version 8.0.1release:

ENTERPRISE Type CRUD Support Technology Category Product

AntennaPatternv801Type R GSM/UMTS/LTE Equipment ASSET

CellSitev801Type CRUD GSM N/E ASSET

GSMCellv801Type CRUD GSM N/E ASSET

LocationObjectHierarchyv801Type R GSM/UMTS/LTE N/E ASSET

LocationObjectv801Type CRUD GSM/UMTS/LTE N/E ASSET

LTECellv801Type CRUD LTE N/E ASSET

LTENodev801Type CRUD LTE N/E ASSET

NodeBv801Type CRUD UMTS N/E ASSET

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What's New in ENTERPRISE Data Services 8.0.1?

Native Co-ordinate System Support

EDS natively supports the same coordinate system as ENTERPRISE through the useof the open-source GDAL library. All element types which previously showed anabsolute Lon/Lat cooordinate now include a secondary "stored" coordinate whichcontains the actual database value.

You need to choose which coordinate to supply to EDS when updating locations,and in the case of the "stored" coordinate, you need to supply an appropriate EPSGcode denoting which Geodetic or Project system the coordinate uses.

This fragment from a GSM cell shows how the coordinates appear:

-97.74209949 30.27021592

... 1.051E-05 8.92E-06 0

The "Location" element will contain the actual value that is stored within thedatabase, and the "AbsLocation" element will use this stored coordinate, and,depending on whether it is absolute or relative, perform the appropriate conversion tocreate an antenna location, including the location of the property.

When updating or creating antennas with EDS V80 types, you must decide whetherto specify the AbsLocation or the Location. EDS will accept both, but the Locationelement will take precedence.

A valid EPSG code must be supplied to EDS. The list of available EDS codes canbe found at: http://spatialreference.org/ref/epsg


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 25What's New in ENTERPRISE Data Services 8.0.1?

About Physical and Logical Antennas

Before the release of ENTERPRISE 8.0.1, the database has always modelled cellularantennas beneath the technology element (for example, NodeB, eNodeB and so on)with which it is directly associated and the "logical" attributes pertaining to the RFsimulation ability of the planning tool (ASSET) are usually stored here. Any physicalattribute belonging to an antenna such as height or azimuth was also stored alongwith this data, however in reality, a "physical" antenna on a given site may actuallyhave multiple technology elements attached to it.

From ENTERPRISE (and therefore EDS) 8.0.1, the concept has been improved to moreaccurately separate this antenna information into physical and the logical antennadata:

Physical Antennas - Represent the 'real-world' antenna configurations available onthe Property (LocationObject). A physical antenna instance contains anymechanical or physical attributes relating to an antenna instance, for example,height, tilt, or azimuth. In addition, the antenna may also have antenna portinformation stored at this level.

Logical Antennas - Represent instances of the physical antennas deployed for aparticular technology. These are found at the Node level and maintain backwardscompatibility with the physical attributes from the Property. The logical antennaincludes a required reference to its physical antenna index that is used to indicatewhich antenna it is attached to.

If a given pair (or more) of logical antennas share the same physical antenna, thesame physical attributes will be seen at the logical level; however, manipulation ofthose physical attributes will affect all associated shared antennas.

Sparse Data Improvements

Two new features have been added to EDS to improve performance and reduce theamount of data that is exchanged with the web service:

Query Result Exclusion – allows the client to specify a list of exclusions within anEDS query that instructs the service to omit the specified branches from the xmlhierarchy that EDS produces in response to the query.

Sparse List Merge – by default EDS will replace any list (such as antennas) withthe new list supplied by the client during an update operation. The feature

instructs EDS not to remove existing list data if it wasn’t included in the newdataset, this new behaviour is similar to the ENTERPRISE XML import "merge"option.


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What's New in the ENTERPRISE Suite 8.0.1? Page 27Help Us Help You

Help Us Help You

Can You Improve Our User Assistance?

We are always trying to improve the online Help and User Reference Guides.

If you cannot find the Help you were looking for, need more information, or have anysuggestions for improvements, we would be grateful for your feedback.

Also, if you are generally satisfied with these resources, we would appreciate anypositive feedback.

You can also help us by completing our brief online questionnaire (which you canaccess from the Documentation section of the AIRCOM website).

Alternatively, you can contact us directly at [email protected].

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