Capstone - Benjamin Wright

Running Head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER 1

Migration of copper DS1 Circuits to a Fiber Network

Benjamin Wright

A Capstone Presented to the Information Technology College Faculty

of Western Governors University

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Science in Degree Area Information Technology: Network Management

12/15/2014

TITLE OF YOUR PAPER 2

Abstract

Migration of copper DS1 Circuits to a Fiber Network

This capstone project is intended to address the rising maintenance costs and shrinking reliability

of DS1 circuits on an aging copper network. There is a business need to reduce these costs for

telecommunication companies to remain competitive in the market place.

In order to facilitate the business need, a migration of legacy copper TLS/DS1 circuits on an

individual Service Provider network to a Gigabit Passive Optical fiber network (GPON) will be used to

alleviate increasing maintenance costs and deliver a more robust monitoring functionality. Addressing

two separate groups' needs within the project will affect a more successful final outcome. External

stakeholders are customers who receive service below their Service Level Agreements in terms of

outages. Internally, impacted stakeholders are operation centers and capacity management teams who

will need training to work with the new technology.

A phased approach first utilizing a manual migration of embedded base customers who

are experiencing chronic issues will be implemented. The second phase will be to migrate

existing customers who are not experiencing chronic issues as they look to change or move their

service to a new location which is supported by the GPON network. The expectation is that by

moving customers to the GPON architecture the company will save costs in maintenance and

allow for a better monitoring of issues and capacity that would impact the customer experience.

MIGRATION OF COPPER DS1 CIRCUITS TO A FIBER NETWORK 3

Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5

Project scope ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Defense of the Solution ............................................................................................................................. 6 Methodology Justification ........................................................................................................................ 6

Analysis of the Problem ................................................................................................................................ 7

Problem Statement .................................................................................................................................... 7 Problem Causes ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Stakeholder Impacts .................................................................................................................................. 8 Problem Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 8

Solution ....................................................................................................................................................... 11

Approach Justification ............................................................................................................................ 11 Risk Assessment ...................................................................................................................................... 12

Project Requirements and Design ............................................................................................................... 15

Execution Requirements ......................................................................................................................... 15 Existing Gaps .......................................................................................................................................... 15

Project Development and Implementation .................................................................................................. 16

Project Plan ............................................................................................................................................. 16 Scope. .................................................................................................................................................. 16 Assumptions. ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Project phases. ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Time-lines. .......................................................................................................................................... 17 Dependencies. ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Resource Requirements. ..................................................................................................................... 19 Risk Factors. ....................................................................................................................................... 20 Important Milestones. ......................................................................................................................... 20 Deliverables. ....................................................................................................................................... 21

Project Development ............................................................................................................................... 22 Implementation Plan ............................................................................................................................... 22

Strategy for the implementation. ......................................................................................................... 22 Phases of the roll out. .......................................................................................................................... 23 Details of the project launch. .............................................................................................................. 23


Dependencies. ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Deliverables. ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Training plan for users. ....................................................................................................................... 25

Quality Assurance ....................................................................................................................................... 26

Quality Assurance Approach ................................................................................................................... 26 Solution Testing ...................................................................................................................................... 27 Revisions ................................................................................................................................................. 28 Summative Evaluation Plan .................................................................................................................... 28 Disseminating Results ............................................................................................................................. 28

Post Implementation Support and Issues .................................................................................................... 30

Post Implementation Support .................................................................................................................. 30 Post Implementation Support Resources ................................................................................................ 30 Maintenance Plan .................................................................................................................................... 31

Conclusion, Outcomes, and Reflection ....................................................................................................... 32

Project Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 32 Deliverables ............................................................................................................................................ 32 Outcomes ................................................................................................................................................ 32 Reflection ................................................................................................................................................ 33

References ................................................................................................................................................... 34

Appendix A: ................................................................................................................................................ 35


Introduction

As legacy copper networks age, the cost of maintaining and expanding coverage,

functionality, and availability increase greatly. These costs necessitate the need to move from

copper legacy networks to fiber network infrastructure. The National Broadband Network

(NBN) of Australia estimates the savings in maintenance costs alone will be upwards of AU$700

million once copper networks have been migrated to fiber (Lui, 2012). With the expansive

networks and customer base in the United States, the gains in costs savings will be even greater.

The risk of not exploring every avenue in regards to migration possibilities will expose

telecommunication companies to a loss of competitiveness in the industry if they do not adopt

the next generation fiber architectures.

Migration of DS1 business circuits from copper legacy facilities to established Gigabit

Passive Optical Networks (GPON) will enable these maintenance cost savings for corporate

business partners. Equipment and processes in the telecommunication industry today have

developed to the point where this technology is becoming standardized as companies continue to

employ strategies to realize the potential gains. Not only will migration of embedded customer

base from copper to GPON reduce maintenance costs but will also facilitate a more reliable

network as it can be more easily monitored for potential issues in real time:

Project scope

The scope of this capstone will encompass the migration of DS1 circuits on copper

networks that have experienced multiple trouble reports by consumers within the last year. They

will be termed 'chronics' as the customer is seeing chronic issues with the circuit. This will be

considered phase I of the overarching migration plan for DS1 circuits. What will not be covered

by this capstone is the migration of customers' DS1 circuits that are not having issues prior to

migration nor will the placing of new DS1 customers on the GPON infrastructure.


Defense of the Solution

Over time a telecommunications provider's networks degrade and become unreliable

incurring significant maintenance and replacement costs to combat these issues. Competitors are

moving towards fiber networks which are more reliable and cheaper to maintain. This

necessitates that to stay competitive costs must be cut. The best way to cut costs is through the

reduction of maintenance expenditures through migrating premium revenue generating DS1

circuits to GPON infrastructure.

The migration to GPON infrastructure of DS1 circuits will help to keep these

maintenance costs low while providing more reliability to customers. This migration will also

give the provider new functionality to monitor the network allowing it to anticipate issues

shifting maintenance costs left from reacting to a crisis to early detection and resolution before it

impacts the customer. These reduction in maintenance costs and anticipation of issues will be a

major business driver to keep a competitive edge.

Methodology Justification

The methodology used in this project utilizes standard life cycle development processes

for telecommunication providers. Through this process, the intent here is to lower the cost of

implementing a migration by leveraging the existing GPON network, enhancing existing GUIs,

and only adding a TA5000 in new equipment. This methodology to migrate customers from a

copper network to GPON infrastructure is one that is used today to gain buy-in from

stakeholders in global network providers and will likely gain acceptance from executive

leadership.


Analysis of the Problem

Problem Statement

As introduced earlier, the aging copper networks that currently support DS1 circuits for

business customers are continuing to incur greater maintenance costs year over year while

realizing less availability and reliability over time. This means that in order to stay competitive

telecommunications providers must find a way to deliver business DS1 circuits over a new

physical medium. The GPON medium for data distribution has developed new functionalities to

allow the ability to monitor service for disruption or potential disruption. This and its wide

spread provider footprint due to residential use, makes GPON a prime candidate for use in the

migration of business DS1 circuits from copper to GPON fiber optic infrastructure (Business

Class Services over a GPON Network, 2014).

In the long-term providers must convert as much of their embedded customer base to

fiber optics as the copper facilities become obsolete and decayed. Migrating to a GPON

infrastructure does make the sense when considering the footprint but security needs to be

addressed due to residential GPON networks typically being setup in an unprotected mode

(Business Class Services over a GPON Network, 2014). This will need to be cared for prior to

migrating the first customers from the copper to GPON infrastructure.

Problem Causes

The single biggest factor when it comes to the degradation of the legacy copper network

facilities is that of water seeping into network elements and wires causing corrosion to take place

(Liu, 2014). This leads to slower data speeds or outages. The copper wires also do not carry

enough bandwidth to incorporate monitoring services and functionality to help anticipate


disruptions. These issues are what causes the legacy copper network to be less competitive in the

business telecommunications services market.

Stakeholder Impacts

Several stakeholders are impacted by the implementation of this project or the

lack of implementation of this project. This first and most important stakeholder to the

livelihood of the provider is that of the customer. Implementing the project will cause a short

outage during the migration but will resolve all issues involving the decaying copper

infrastructure. Not implementing the project will leave the customer with an unreliable network.

The second stakeholder impacted is the technician group that will be doing the

migrations in the field at the customer premises as well as responding to chronic trouble issues.

Implementing the project will reduce the resources needed in the long run, due to the fact that

only one additional visit to the customer premises will be necessary to migrate and resolve the

customer's chronic issues. This will reduce maintenance costs over time. Not implementing the

project will keep customer issues unresolved leading to recurring maintenance resource costs in

the technician group.

An additional stakeholder group is that of the telecommunication provider

business group that will be laying out the funds from its budget to put this project in progress.

As it is providing funding from its budget, it will be impacted by the success or failure of the

project. Upon success it will realize the gains that are enabled by the savings in maintenance

costs.

Problem Analysis

Cost Analysis

The cost of implementing a migration of copper DS1 circuits to existing GPON

infrastructure must take into account several factors. The first of which being equipment. As


this project necessitates leveraging existing GPON fiber networks the only tangible equipment

cost will be in the form of purchasing an Adtran Total Access 5000 (TA5000) for every 320 DS1

circuits to be migrated as that is the capacity for one TA500 (DS1 Line Module Total Access

5000, 2006). In the first phase of the migration, only one TA5000 will be necessary in each

Central Office at the cost of $40,000.

The second factor that must be incorporated into project costs are in the form of

resources. As this project will also leverage existing internal provisioning applications, there

will be minimal need for software development and testing work. Roughly 300 man hours to

develop and test a new screen for engineering users to kick off the migration process. Another

100 person hours will be applied towards training of the users and engineers to facilitate and

support the migration process once in production. The biggest overhead in resource costs is

adding the new network element to the GPON infrastructure and supporting it throughout the

migration process. The per hour costs are calculated by rough cost to company based on salary,

benefits, and infrastructure needs.

(Adtran, 2014)

Risk Analysis

There are two major risks that accompany migrating DS1 copper circuits that have

chronic issues to fiber GPON infrastructure. The first of which is the lack of experience with

existing workers in the field who will be physically at the customer location installing the new

ONT at the customer premises. The risk here is customer facing can impact the providers

Expense QTY Cost per Unit TotalAdtran TA500 32 DS1 Port Card 10 $4,000.00 $40,000.00Software Development and Testing 500 $100.00 $50,000.00Training 100 $100.00 $10,000.00Network Setup and Support 300 $100.00 $30,000.00

Total $130,000.00


reputation with the customer. This risk can be mitigated by extensive training prior to migration

as well as field technicians having support by development and testing teams who gained

experience during the software development life cycle.

The second risk being the adding of the Adtran TA5000 to the GPON

infrastructure in each Central Office. This risk, while not as major since it is not customer facing

and the provider can limit migrations until the addition is complete, can cause the slipping out of

migration time-lines if not completed correctly. This risk can be mitigated by leveraging Adtran

vendor support to correctly and quickly add the new network element to the infrastructure.


Solution

When making the decision to implement a migration of DS1 circuits from copper to

GPON infrastructure, the question of where and how much is a telecommunication provider

willing to pay to keep their customers in service at an acceptable level comes into play. The

options are only to not migrate circuits to GPON or to migrate to GPON. In this section the

justification for a migration to take place is explored as well as the impacts if no migration were

to take place.

Mitigating the possible negative consequences of doing nothing will entail migrating

customers experiencing chronic issues with their DS1 copper service to the providers existing

GPON infrastructure, thus implementing Phase 1 of migrating the embedded customer base as

well as placing new DS1 circuits on to the GPON infrastructure. Phase 1 of the solution will

require the pre-work of addressing the TA5000 addition to the existing GPON infrastructure. It

will also entail developing a new GUI so that engineering technicians who are responding to

chronic issues can start the migration process to care for embedded base migration through the

use of existing provisioning and activation processes.

Approach Justification

Retaining a competitive edge is an imperative as a telecommunications provider.

Emerging technologies must be harnessed to drive down costs and improve functionality.

Without constant improvement to networks and processes, a telecommunication provider will

fall behind in terms of market share and lose their reputation as a quality service provider.

Successful implementation of the entire migration program will enable increased market share as

it will open the potential for both retail and wholesale sales of premium DS1 circuits in the long-

term.


Keeping costs down is also important to the corporate shareholders of telecommunication

providers. Even though initial project costs seem high at $50,000 per Central Office, the over all

savings enable at upwards of US$600,000,000 in the long-term make the investment well worth

the risk (Liu,2014). Accomplishing this is possible not only through cost savings due more

efficient and low maintenance fiber, but through being proactive via more robust monitoring

functionalities enabled in the GPON infrastructure. Monitoring allows the provider to be

proactive instead of reactive when troubles begin in the network. Moving the troubleshooting

and resolution prior to the actual occurrence of an issue costs significantly less than reacting in

crisis mode.

Risk Assessment

There are several risks that accompany migrating DS1 copper circuits that have chronic

issues to fiber GPON infrastructure. The one such risk is the damage of provider reputation due

to lack of experience with existing workers in the field who will be physically at the customer

location installing the new ONT at the customer premises. Steps can be taken to lessen this risk.

Through extensive training prior to migration as well as field technicians having support by

development and testing teams who gained experience during the software development life

cycle the provider will be able to mitigate the affects of this risk.

The another risk being the adding of the new network element, Adtran TA5000, to the

GPON infrastructure in each Central Office. This is less major in the regards of reputation since

it is not customer facing and the provider can limit migrations until the addition is complete. It

can however cause the slipping out of migration time-lines if not completed correctly. This risk

can be mitigated by leveraging Adtran vendor support to correctly and quickly add the new

network element to the infrastructure.


The biggest risks associated with a successful implementation will be the lack of

familiarity with the new Adtran TA5000 in the User, Application Development, and Testing

communities. It is assumed that unforeseen issues not realized during the requirements gathering

session will appear especially in dealing with TA5000 port assignment and activation. In order

to mitigate the impact of these issues to the project time-lines, additional personnel hours have

been built into the Software Development and Testing organizations. This will allow additional

resources to be brought on board to care for any issues that arise.

Cost Analysis

Implementing the migration plan of moving copper DS1 circuits to GPON infrastructure,

must take into account several costs. Equipment being one of the first costs that needs to be

addressed. This project leverages existing GPON fiber networks and only one new network

element will need to be purchased for each Central Office to be migrated. This network element

is an Adtran Total Access 5000 (TA5000). One will be needed for every 320 DS1 circuits to be

migrated. This number is derived as it is the capacity for one TA500 (DS1 Line Module Total

Access 5000, 2006). In the scope of this project only one will be needed. It is expected to cost

$40,000 (Adtran, 2014).

Human resources must also be taken into account in terms of cost for this project.

Existing internal provisioning applications will be reused here, so there will be minimal need for

software development and testing work. The expectation is that 300 person hours will be needed

to develop and test a new screen for engineering users to kick off the migration process. Another

100 person hours will be applied towards training of the users and engineers to facilitate and

support the migration process once in production. The second biggest cost in terms of human

resources is the work of physically adding the new network element to the GPON infrastructure

and supporting it throughout the migration process. The per hour costs are calculated by rough


cost to company based on salary, benefits, and infrastructure needs. Here that per unit costs is

tracked at US$100 per hour.

(Adtran, 2014)

Expense QTY Cost per Unit TotalAdtran TA500 32 DS1 Port Card 10 $4,000.00 $40,000.00Software Development and Testing 500 $100.00 $50,000.00Training 100 $100.00 $10,000.00Network Setup and Support 300 $100.00 $30,000.00

Total $130,000.00


Project Requirements and Design

Execution Requirements

For the solution to be implemented, there will be a need for a network design and a

application design for process flows. The network design will be a high level design document

intended to incorporate the TA5000 into the existing network and noting at what point in the

network the connections will be made. The application process flows will need to take into

account additional information needed to be added to the new GUI to start the migration from

copper to GPON infrastructure.

Existing Gaps

For the migration of DS1 circuits that are the scope of this project, there are a few

existing gaps that need to be addressed. There is a need to address how changes in the legacy

provisioning applications will be made so that duplicate assignments to copper will not be made.

Another gap that will need to be addressed is that of how to make changes to customer circuits

once migrations have taken place. Today sales reps take change orders from customers but with

the first phase of the migration, which is the scope of this project, change orders will not be

possible due to migrations not reflected in billing application with the appropriate architecture

flags. In today's application process flows, architecture flags direct how applications will handle

the provisioning of circuits and services. Without and interface between existing GPON

provisioning and billing applications, changes will never be possible.


Project Development and Implementation

This section will serve to discuss how the DS1 migration project for customers with

chronic issues will be developed, tested, and implemented:

Project Plan

Scope.

The scope of this capstone will encompass the migration of DS1 circuits on copper

networks that have experienced multiple trouble reports by consumers within the last year. They

will be termed 'chronics' as the customer is seeing chronic issues with the circuit. This will be

considered phase I of the overarching migration plan for DS1 circuits. What will not be covered

by this capstone is the migration of customers' DS1 circuits that are not having issues prior to

migration nor will the placing of new DS1 customers on the GPON network.

Assumptions.

Here it must be assumed that there is an existence of a GPON residential network already

in place. It is this network that will be leveraged to migrate copper DS1 circuits. GPON

networks have become ubiquitous as telecommunication providers move from BPON to GPON

networks as fiber optic technologies advance.

Another assumption is that there is resource bandwidth in the form of personnel to

support the development, testing, and training for a new migration process. These resources will

be required to solve and streamline processes as they are implemented throughout the technology

development life cycle.


Pr oject phases

This project will follow a standard waterfall project development life cycle. This life

cycle will be broken down into the phases of Planning, Network Creation, Development, Testing,

and Delivery/Implementation

Planning

Requirements Gathering

Network Creation

Addition of TA5000 to GPON Networks

Development

Chronic Migration GUI Development/Creation

Testing

Chronic Migration GUI End to End testing

Delivery/Implementation

Chronic Migration GUI promoted to Production Environment

Chronic Migration GA

Timelines.

Requirements Gathering

Begin 01/27/2014 - End 01/31/2014

Chronic Migration GUI Development/Creation

Begin 01/31/2014 - End 02/21/2014

Chronic Migration GUI End to End testing

Begin 02/21/2014 - End 03/07/2014

Engineer/User Training (Runs concurrently with End to End Testing)

Begin 02/21/2014 - End 03/07/2014


Addition of TA5000 to GPON Infrastructure (Runs concurrently with other tasks starting with

Development)

Begin 01/31/2014 - End 03/07/2014


Production Delivery Date 03/09/2014

Chronic Migration FOA

Begin 03/10/2014 - End 03/21/2014


Begin 03/22/2014

Dependencies.

With the exception of the task “Addition of the TA5000 to GPON Infrastructure” and

“Engineer/User Training” each task is dependent on the previous task. Requirements for

migration data and user needs must be gathered prior to GUI development and creation. The

GUI must be created prior to End to End Testing. Before the promotion of the migration

functionality to production, End to End Testing must complete successfully and in the same vein

the migration FOA and GA must follow in succession. The addition of the TA5000 to the GPON

infrastructure can run concurrently with tasks post planning and prior to production deployment.

Engineer/User training can happen during End to End testing as these tasks can be leveraged to

add user resources to testing while gaining experience with the new processes.

Resour ce Requirements

No new hardware or software resources will be needed except during the 'Addition of

TA5000 to GPON Networks' task. This task will necessitate the acquisition of a TA5000 and

cabling required to connect to the GPON infrastructure. There will also be a need for several


personnel resources. Active participation and engagement from the following groups will be

required for success:

Project Management

Application Developers

System Testers

Requirements Writers

Production Testers

Production Support Group

Network Engineers

Network Administrators

Central Office Technicians

Users

Risk Factors

As discussed previously, the major risk associated with a successful implementation will

be the lack of familiarity with the new Adtran TA5000 in the User, Application Development,

and Testing communities. This unfamiliarity could lead to missed requirements or underutilized

functionalities. Unforeseen issues are expected due to the unfamiliarity and to mitigate impact to

project time-lines additional testing and development hours have been built into the project

resource costs. This will allow additional resources to be brought on board to care for any issues

that arise.

Important Milestones

There are several key milestones that must be completed in order consider the project a success

and will be used to track metrics against.

Requirements Completion


Chronic Migration GUI Development/Creation Completion

Chronic Migration GUI End to End testing Completion

Engineer/User Training






Deliverable s

Each milestone in the project time-line will have a distinct deliverable that must be met

before moving to the next task with the exception of the two non-dependent tasks noted earlier.

Requirements Completion

Deliverable: Process and network documentation approved by all stakeholders including IT

as well as test case creation.

Chronic Migration GUI Development/Creation Completion

Deliverable: Migration GUI coded and aligned to process documentation Sign-off based on

unit testing metrics.

Chronic Migration GUI End to End testing Completion

Deliverable: Sign-off of quality based on execution of agreed to test cases.

Engineer/User Training

Deliverable: Individual completion of each users and engineer that will participate in the

migration process in production.


Deliverable: The actual addition and activation of the TA5000 to the first Central Office to

participate in the project.


Deliverable: Successful promotion of code to the production environment including

regression testing of existing code base.


Deliverable: Migration of 80 circuits must be completed before exiting FOA.


Deliverable: None. Project considered completed.


Project Development

This project was developed using an adjusted Waterfall Software Development Life

Cycle method. While an agile methodology has become trendy in the telecommunications

industry as of late, the strengths of the Waterfall method allow for more detailed inputs that are

needed for the new migration GUI to align properly with the existing provisioning applications

(SDLC, 2014). Another strength that will prove successful with this project is the ability to

monitor the steps in the Waterfall process which is needed for complex project such as this.

Implementation Plan

Strategy for the implementation

One alternative to the phased process of migrating DS1 circuits from a copper network to

a GPON infrastructure starting with customers having chronic issues is to start placing new DS1

customers on to GPON infrastructure. The provider could then circle back to existing customers

at a later undefined date. While this strategy might stop new customers from being placed on

failing copper, it will leave current customers fighting chronic issues. This could lead to churn

sending customers to the competitors (Trost, 2008).

Another possible solution is to deliver all migration and new customer functionality at

once. This would allow for customers with chronic issues to have their service moved to GPON

infrastructure as well as have new customers placed on to the fiber network once the project is

delivered to production. This solution would be extensive and have complicated functionality to

deliver at once and would require much longer time-lines. It would require additional resource

outlays in terms of personnel. Another negative is that the learning curve for all of the

stakeholders involved would be much greater leading to a lower quality of functionality overall.


The possibility of churn and lower quality functionality are the big reasons the strategy of

beginning the migration of customers' circuits with chronic issues is the best over all for the

business needs. New customers could still be placed on copper until later phases of the project

not covered by this project. However if they experience any issues the scope delivered in this

project would care for their resolution.

Phases of the roll out

After the requirements are gathered, each phase of the roll out will culminate in testing

that will be used to mark the phase milestone as successful. The Chronic Migration GUI

Development/Creation phase will be passed upon successful unit testing in a test environment.

This unit testing will include verifying the presence of appropriate entry fields in the migration

GUI. In the Chronic Migration GUI End to End Testing phase, the Systems test resources will

verify that applications are communicating and that the correct information is being passed.

Next End to End testing will be completed by sending orders from the new Migration GUI end to

end flowing from each provisioning application to the next application in the process flow until

the circuit is migrated correctly. Once all testing scenarios are completed successfully the GUI

will be migrated to the production environment. Upon delivery to the production, the FOA will

begin and run until 80 live customer migrations complete successfully with minimal issues

finally culminating in a production GA (General Acceptance).

Details of the project launch

Once the project enters into the GA mode it will be considered implemented. This will

mean migrations are happening smoothly in the production environment and no additional

changes or adjustments are needed to the current scope. Additional phases of the project will

continue through the same process through to a GA or if executive management should deem it is

not profitable to continue, phases will stop.


Dependencies

Whether implementing the solution in the test environment or deploying into the

production environment, there is one piece of functionality that must be present. That

functionality is the GUI to start the migrations. Without this GUI in the test environment, no

loopback testing could take place prior to the TA5000 being added to the live test network setup.

In production the GUI must be available to kick off any migrations from the copper to GPON

infrastructure. One dependency that is present in live production and not in the test environment

is that the TA5000 must also be present for migrations to take place in production. The TA5000

bridges legacy and next generation networks and must be in place for migrations to be successful

and for customer circuits to transmit data. As mentioned the GUI can still be verified in the test

environment without the presence of the TA5000.

It needs to be noted here that multiple milestones must be completed prior to the actual

delivery of the migration GUI to the test environment. The first dependency is that requirements

for the GUI must be completed. Similarly the development of the GUI from the gathered

requirements must take place. The dependencies must be completed in order to move forward

with the project.

Deliverables

Several deliverables must be met for the completion of a successful project. The first

tangible deliverable will be the completed requirements documents that must be handed over to

the development team. The second tangible deliverable will be that of the migration GUI

delivered by the application development team. The third tangible deliverable will be the

successful addition and activation of the TA5000 to the GPON infrastructure.

One intangible deliverable will also needed to be completed for a successful project

implementation and completion. The training of both the user groups that will be starting and


participating in the migration is that intangible. This training will make the copper to GPON

migrations smoother and aid in rebuilding the confidence of our customers who face chronic

issues with their current DS1 circuits on copper infrastructure as it will simulate what will be

seen in the field.

Training plan for users

The plan for training users will be two fold. First training by participating in the End to

End testing will allow users to understand the process in a low pressure environment and build

skills to employ during higher pressure production situations. This participation will let users

take notes and build an informal training manual that can be disseminated to peers. Next a

formal training document will be developed prior to migration functionality deployment into

production. These documents will be specific to the job function of those working on migrations

and delivered to each person accordingly.


Quality Assurance

As quality assurance is a vital aspect of the software development life cycle, it must be

defined clearly. In this section it will defined what the testing process will be, how it will be

evaluated, and the process through which it will be revised. However proper dissemination of

these results will drive how the project is perceived and how it moves forward. Dissemination of

these results will also be defined in this section.

Quality Assurance Approach

In order to facilitate a more cost effective quality assurance approach the testing team

will be working hand in hand with the User groups to test the new GUI developed as well as the

process implantation. This collaborative approach will help get the users real world experience

with the new GUI and migration process as well as bolster the resource availability to the system

test team.

The Quality Assurance approach implemented here will also leverage the user team to

create and verify the business needs for each test case created within the test plan. The test plan

will be created using the requirements documents created during the requirements gathering

phase. User input will help the System Test team understand the business drivers and priority of

each aspect of the test case.

Solution Testing

Quality assurance will have four phases within the software development life cycle of the

project. The first phase will be the development of a collaborative test plan. This will be done

with personnel from the Requirements, Development, System Test, and User groups. The second

phase will be that of development unit testing. This will take place as developers finish the

Chronic Migration GUI. Unit testing will not address any interface or flow through testing. The

third round will be that of Systems Integration Testing in a live test environment. Here Systems


Testers will ensure each interface can communicate properly with each other. Finally prior to

production delivery, System testers will work hand and hand with Users to test the migrations of

circuits with chronic issues from end to end utilizing live network elements to ensure flow-

though and activation of network elements work correctly prior to production .

Working with the User teams four different test scenarios were determined to be critical

to the DS1 migration project. These four test scenarios are:

Basic Migration - An engineer/user, upon responding to a trouble report, accesses the

new DS1 Copper to GPON Migration GUI, fills out the required fields, and submits the

appropriate customer and network information to start the migration order. Through existing

processes, the order flows to the provisioning applications where the OLT (optical line terminal),

GWR (Gateway Router), and TA5000 are activated. After successful activation, a field

technician is dispatched where an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) is placed at the customer

premises and activated. Once the dispatch is complete, the customer circuit is in service and the

migration of the customer's DS1 service from copper to GPON infrastructure is complete.

Changing Due Date - An engineer/user accesses the DS1 Copper to GPON Migration

GUI to adjust the customer service date of a pending DS1 migration order. Once the due date is

changed the migration follows the same path as the basic migration.

Canceling Migration - An engineer/user accesses the DS1 Copper to GPON Migration

GUI and cancels the pending work on a DS1 migration order. This means the customer will

remain on copper.

Disconnecting Migrated Circuit - An engineer/user accesses the DS1 Copper to GPON

Migration GUI to fill out and submit the appropriate customer and network information to take

the customer's DS1 circuit on GPON infrastructure out of service. This will result in the

customer having no service at all for the specific circuit.


Revisions

During the testing cycles, any issues or process gaps uncovered will be taken back to the

requirements team where stakeholders will discuss solutions to care for these issues. Any major

revisions will require buy-in and acceptance from all stakeholders. Minor changes such as new

xml tags or cosmetic changes to enhance look and feel do not need buy-in from all stakeholders.

These minor changes will only require buy-in from the User group.

Summative Evaluation Plan

Summative evaluation of the project will take place via testing through agreed upon test

plans for each phase of the testing process. Unit testing, SIT testing, and End to End testing will

each create metrics so that progress can be tracked. These metrics will track Pass, Failure, and

Pending test cases along with defect counts. This will aid project management to track

completion of milestones as well as direct resources to where the project is having the most

difficulty.

Disseminating Results

Dissemination of evaluation results will take place in two forms. The first is through

automated reporting of metrics and defects via HP Quality Center. This will let project

management see progress and hurdles in real time. Testing team leads will also send daily status

reports with an in depth reporting of progress made for the day. While these reports will carry

the testing metrics, it is imperative that a human feel for the daily progress is given to help

manage soft qualities of the stakeholders. These soft qualities include morale, understanding,

and engagement of all stakeholders involved within the project.


Post Implementation Support and Issues

The scope of this capstone is only the first phase of a comprehensive project to move all DS1

circuits to GPON infrastructure as well as adding new services to GPON infrastructure. It will

however need to be supported during the additional phases and after their completion. This

section will include what the post implementation support will maintain, who will maintain the

functionality, and if any additional changes are needed.

Post Implementation Support

The support plan going forward will need engagement from the user community. Manual

intervention will be needed for each migration to be started which will constitute this ongoing

user support post implementation. Additional network support as the project expands to new

geographical regions will be needed to add TA5000s to the GPON infrastructure. As TA5000s

reach capacity more network support will be needed to add to the infrastructure as well.

If code related issues are introduced in future releases, fixes for minor issues will be

provided in the next code release. Major showstopper issues will be addressed immediately by

means of a point release or via scripting. If scripting can be used, a code fix will be made in the

next available code release to production.

Post Implementation Support Resources

After the roll out is complete, users will be responsible for starting and completing

migrations. As well as everyday monitoring of the processes and systems. However any issues

falling outside of standard processes will fall to the production support teams consisting of

Database Administrators, Network Administrators, and Systems Experts. Each of these groups

have the authority to reach out to developers and system testers as needed for additional

expertise. This will allow for quick resolution to issues and will be provided by the existing

production teams supporting fiber networks within the telecommunication provider.


Maintenance Plan

The short-term maintenance plan relies on keeping the new TA5000 network element up

and running on the GPON infrastructure. The short-term will also need to ensure training plans

are updated with new information as processes are aligned with new roles in the production

environment. The long-term maintenance plan will be to ensure that training plans are kept up to

date as processes are changed. This long-term plan will also need to include capacity

management of the TA5000. Being proactive to capacity issues will aid the placement of new

TA5000s before capacity is reached and allow the provider to place them in or move them to

areas as needed.


Conclusion, Outcomes, and Reflection

In this final section of the capstone project, is the discussion and summary of the project

and solution that was employed as well as the project deliverables and overall outcome.

Project Summary

The intent of this project was to develop a process for migrating customers with chronic

issues on DS1 on copper infrastructure to GPON infrastructure. Aging and failing copper

infrastructure leads to ever increasing costs for repair and maintenance. This migration from

copper to GPON infrastructure would lead to reduced maintenance and resource costs over time.

If left undone, telecommunication providers would continue to shed customers due to poor

reliability and availability of the copper networks. The necessity of a process and GUI to be

developed and tested was the crux of this project.

Deliverables

Deliverables submitted for this project include the collaborative end to end test plan, cost

analysis for the roll out for the initial Central Office, and project time-lines. These deliverables

support the decision to use a phased approach to the migration of DS1 circuits from copper to

GPON infrastructure.

Outcomes

This project was actually implemented for however cost projects were made by

independent research. The strategy used for the quality assurance was developed by the writer of

this capstone and gained much support throughout the business and users communities. One

major problem that came about during the FOA was that of a jitter buffer under run. This caused

quality issues taking the customer out of service. It was discovered that the issue could only be

found by sustained activity for months at a time and not something that would have been feasible

to execute during the testing window. The jitter buffer under run issue was determined to be in


the vendor hardware/firmware itself and not in any software developed or implemented in the

scope of this project.

As how I feel about the work accomplished here, I am more than satisfied with the way I

was able to work and negotiate with user and business groups to deliver a successful project.

Since implementation of the project this year I have won three awards for the strategy I

employed to bring user resources into End to End System testing to shore up testing resources,

enable earlier training, and acclimate users to the new processes developed. Work on this project

and the subsequent phases have really been a bright point in my three years with the company.

Reflection

The most important lesson I took away from this project is how to bring together and lead

teams from across disparate IT and business groups. Here I found to actually lead does not take

a title or formal recognition of the leadership from executives teams. It takes the ability to listen

and hear team-members and then make them feel as they are important to the process. I also

learned more about the DS1 over GPON product offering than I had ever dreamed I would know,

becoming the subject matter expert within multiple organizations.


References

Adtran Total Access 5000 DS1 32 Port Gateway Module 1187800L1. (n.d.). Retrieved December

2, 2014, from

http://refurbphoneexchange.com/products/1187800l1?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=go

oglepla&variant=289754678&gclid=CKeG6tPqpcICFQgDaQodjXEAtg

Business Class Services over a GPON Network. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2014.

http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/TEL/fnc/whitepapers/BusinessClass-GPON.pdf

DS1 Line Module Total Access 5000 DS1 Line Module. (2006, October 1). Retrieved December

2, 2014, from

http://www.adtran.com/pub/Library/Data_Sheets/Default_Public/Total_Access_5000_DS

1_Line_Module.pdf

Liu, S. (2012, August 12). NBN to save up to AU$700m in copper maintenance costs | ZDNet.

Retrieved November 12, 2014, from http://www.zdnet.com/au/nbn-to-save-up-to-

au700m-in-copper-maintenance-costs-7000002846/

SDLC | Waterfall Model. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2014, from http://www.waterfall-

model.com/sdlc/

Trost, J. (2008, November 14). An Overview of GPON in the Access Network. Retrieved

November 24, 2014, from hhttp://www.pitt.edu/~dtipper/2011/Slides10.pdf


Appendix A:

Glossary of Terms Used

B

BPON

Broadband Passive Optical Network

C

Chronics

A customer circuit that has three or more issues within a year time frame.

Copper

Legacy network media truly comprised of copper wire.

D

DS1

Digital Signal 1. Standard of business data service. Traditionally 24 channeled DS0

circuits. Approximately equal to a TLS.

E

End to End Testing

Testing functionality from the point of order origination through activation of service to

completion of the order. This means hitting ever facet of the order provisioning process.

F

FOA

First Office Application

G

GA

General Acceptance


GPON

Gigabit Passive Optical Network. Fiber Network Architecture

L

Loopback

Testing methodology when systems or network elements are not available. A

simulated response is given so that testing downstream can continue

Live

When all applications and network elements are available and working together. Can

also be used to mean a production or production-like environment

O

ONT

Optical Network Terminal. Demarcation point on the customer premises

S

SIT

System s Integration Testing

T

TA5000

Piece of equipment that joins legacy and next generation networks

TLS

Standard of business data service at 1,544,000 bits per second

W

war-rooms

a group of experienced individual gathered together to support issues/crises in real-time

in support of live customers

Documents

Capstone - Benjamin Wright