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September 2008

Operation Support Systems & Business Support Systems: An Overview By Ravi Sharda

1. Overview

Before the initial 1970s, most of the support activities in a telephone company such

as taking orders, maintaining network inventory, provisioning services (for example,

line assignment and testing), configuring network components, managing faults and

collecting payments were performed manually. It was realized that many of these

activities could be replaced by computers. In the next few years, a number of

computer systems and software applications were created to automate these

activities. Examples include TIRKS, RMAS, SES, etc. Thus came the term Operations

Support Systems (OSS).

OSS are “network systems” dealing with the communications network and

supporting processes such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services,

configuring network components, managing faults.

Business Support Systems (BSS) is a newer term and typically refers to “business

systems” dealing with customers and support processes such as taking orders,

processing bills, collecting payments, sales and marketing, supporting customer care

agents in response to service requests, trouble reporting and billing inquiries, etc.

OSS and BSS systems together are often abbreviated as BSS/OSS or B/OSS. The

term OSS was historically used to include both network and business systems. Some

industry analysts, system integrators and service providers still use the term OSS to

include both network and business systems, which sometimes causes confusion.

This article provides an overview of some of the core areas in OSS & BSS such as

Order Fulfillment, Service Assurance and Billing systems. The following BSS/OSS

systems are covered:

Order Fulfillment – Order Management, Service Provisioning and Inventory

Management

Service Assurance - Fault & Trouble Management, Network Performance

Management, Topology & Configuration Management, Planning & Testing

Billing - Billing Mediation, Rating, Billing Systems, Interconnection Billing,

Revenue Assurance

The article explains some of the basic functions of these systems, flow and some of

the products available from OSS/BSS vendors. It then provides an overview on some

of the available standards in OSS/BSS such as Telecommunications Management

Network (TMN) Model, Enhanced Telecommunications Operations Map (eTOM), “OSS

Through Java” (OSS/J) initiative, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), etc.

Terms marked with suffix “*” are explained in the “Terms” section. References list

out the references used in the article as well as others for the reader’s reference.

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2. The Realm of OSS/BSS in Order Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing

2.1. Order Fulfillment

Communications products/services could range from Voice services to IP and Data

services to Hosting and CPE services. Some of the examples of communications

products/services are:

Voice – Basic telephony, long distance, toll-free, Voice over IP (VoIP), Contact

Center, Local Access, etc.

Internet Protocol (IP) – Internet Access, VPN, Contact Center, VoIP, Remote

Access, etc.

Data – Layer 1 Wide Area Network (WAN) Services such as SONET*, Layer 2

WAN services such as ATM, Frame Relay, Private Lines, Layer 2 VPN and

Metro Ethernet, etc.

Hosting – Custom Application Environments, Disaster Recovery, Managed

Services such as storage, security and network services, Web Site Hosting,

etc.

Order Fulfillment functions are a critical set of activities performed in order to fulfill

customer orders for services in a Communications Service Provider (CSP)*.

Figure 1 shows a high-level Order Fulfillment activity flow in a typical CSP

environment.

Enter Order

Validate &

Submit

Order

Order Valid?

Send Order

Rejection

No

Decompose

Order

Yes

Circuit

Design

Facilities

Available?

Procure &

Commission

Test

No

Activate

Service/

Circuit

Integrate &

Test

Test Results

Passed?

Yes

Perform End

to End Test

Yes

No

Test Results

Passed?

No

Initiate

Customer

Testing &

Acceptance

Yes

Put Details

to Inventory

Order Management Service Provisioning & Inventory Management

Figure 1 Order Fulfillment Flow

After order entry, validation and submission, orders are decomposed and sent for

provisioning. Upon fulfilling the decomposed orders and appropriate testing of the

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circuits, the orders are put into inventory. The following sub-sections explain the

Order Fulfillment related functions and OSS/BSS systems.

2.1.1. Order Management

Order Management systems are complex systems that allow customer or customer

service representatives to capture and process new orders, modify existing orders,

process customer moves and changes, price quotes and orders, validate orders, etc.,

while supporting multiple channels such as Web, Order template documents and

partner applications as well as multiple lines of businesses.

Order Management includes the following areas:

Order Entry and validation – The Order Entry process captures order details

such as package or plan, service address, service details, customer accounts,

relevant contacts and applicable contracts. Data entered during Order Entry is

also validated against predetermined rules.

Orders can be validated as the data is entered and/or validation after all the data

has been entered. Products/solutions that validate order data as they are entered

and walk the user through the product configuration process are known as

“Product Configurators”. One of such tools available in the market is Selectica

COnfigurator.

Order Decomposition – A single customer order can be decomposed into one

or more service requests, typically based on service types or quantities, in order

to be able to fulfill an order.

For example, if a customer order contains both a VoIP order and a phone line

order, two service requests would be created, one each for VoIP and the phone

line, each of which would be sent to the appropriate provisioning systems.

One of the major problems service providers often grapple with is that, as new

services are added to the offerings, led by different business units, the lack of

flexible order management platform results in product/service specific OSS/BSS

applications. These in turn result in higher time-to-market as well as increased costs

of maintaining many different applications and systems. Product catalog based Order

Management solutions attempt to solve these problems by storing and processing

qualification rules for services based on customer profiles, ordering channels, service

locations, product interdependencies, availability, customer eligibility and other

business constraints. One of the solutions available offered in this area is IBM

Websphere Product Center.

Vendors/products in the Order Management area include:

MetaSolv (Priorly Architel and Nortel) Order Management System (OMS)

Lucent Arbor Order Manager

Oracle Order Manager (part of the e-Business CRM suite)

IBM Websphere Product Center

NTG Clarity Unified Service Ordering

ConceptWave Order Care Suite

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2.1.2. Service Provisioning

Service Provisioning systems are systems used to setup products/services for the

customer after an order for the services has been created and accepted by the CSP.

Service provisioning activities include specifying the pieces of equipment and parts of

the network to fulfill the service, configuring the customer’s routing path, allocation

of bandwidth in the transport network, setting up of wiring and transmission, etc.

Some of the systems that constitute provisioning systems are: Circuit Design &

Assignment Tools, Activation systems, and Field Service Management systems.

Circuit design refers to specifying whether facilities exist to provide the service and

which pieces of the network equipment and routes the service shall utilize.

One of the most widely used systems providing Circuit Design facility is Telcordia

TIRKS. Apart from Circuit Design support, it also provides circuit order control,

inventory record maintenance, selection and assignment of components from

inventory, and preparation and distribution of circuit work orders. The order control

module in TIRKS works with a circuit provisioning system and operates in

conjunction with other TIRKS components to assign facility and equipment

information for circuit orders and design circuits. TIRKS can then provide automated

design criteria for certain circuit orders. The circuit design generated in TIRKS is then

communicated to field operations or automated activation systems for

implementation.

Circuit Design and Assignment tools these days often have graphical tools that allow

a user to create services on a network map using mouse clicks and drag-and-drop

rather than drawing maps by hand or using an abstract set of equipment identifiers

displayed in a table.

After a service is designed based on the existing equipment and circuit inventory, it

is ready to be activated. If new equipment or lines need to be configured manually, a

Field Service Management (FSM) system is notified which in turn dispatches

technicians.

Moreover, certain activations can be performed automatically. For example, issuing

commands to ATM* or circuit switches to provision circuits, to SONET* terminals to

allocate bandwidth, and to a wide array of access devices such as DSLAMS*, Digital

Loop Carriers (DLC)*, or cable modems. For such activations, Service Activation

systems pass the device specific commands and configuration changes to the

network elements, Element Management Systems (EMS)*, Network Management

Systems (NMS)* or application hosts.

EMSs* are designed to receive and execute commands sent by activation systems on

the devices. EMSs* can also feed equipment status data back to network and trouble

management systems. EMSs* use protocols such as Common Management

Information protocol (CMIP) or Transaction Language (TL)* or Simple Network

Management Protocol (SNMP) to communicate with activation and other systems.

Activation systems often comprise a library of adapters to various network systems.

They usually also support transaction control, i.e. the capability to roll-back

operations already performed, in case an error occurs. Some of the Activations

Systems are:

Ericsson SOG (Service Order Gateway)

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Nortel ASAP (Automated Service Activation Platform)

Oracle SFM (Service Fulfillment Manager, part of the e-Business suite)

Ehpt Service Initiator

It should be noted that Provisioning systems interact with the Inventory systems,

both to verify that the required network elements and other facilities are available,

and once the resources are provisioned - to reflect the changed on-line configuration

of the facilities. Therefore, provisioning systems have close channels with inventory

systems. As a result, some vendors such as Axiom, Xenicom, Cramer and Granite

have combined workflow capabilities with inventory management capabilities in their

products.

2.1.3. Inventory Management

Tracking inventory involves tracking equipment, facilities and circuits.

Some examples of information tracked are: the location and quantities of the

equipment, how a piece of equipment is configured and its status, etc.

Inventory Management Systems track both the physical network assets (such as

equipment and devices) as well as “logical” inventory (such as active ports, circuit

ids, IP addresses, etc.), although not all support both.

By relating usage of network assets to specific customers and services, an inventory

system can help network operations determine the network usage and available

capacity as well as enable automated network design and planning. Inventory

Management Systems also enable Service Assurance systems to find the impact of a

network fault on the customer’s circuits.

Some tools also have “auto-discovery” features to automatically check physical

network assets and match the results with the information held in the inventory.

However, these work only with some of the newer intelligent network elements.

Some of the vendors and their products include:

Granite System’s Xpercom

Cramer System’s Dimension

Telcordia’s TIRKS

Visionael’s ServiceBase

2.2. Service Assurance

Communications service providers (CSP) strive to differentiate themselves from their

competitors by implementing attractive Service Level Agreements (SLA). SLAs are

formal contracts where the level of service delivered by the CSP to his customer is

stipulated. An SLA may specify levels of service availability, performance, operation,

etc. as well as penalties upon violation of the SLA.

Offering SLAs implies that the service provider has the ability to monitor, act and

report the level of service, in order to assure the quality of services delivered to the

customers. Service Assurance refers to all the activities performed for such an

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assurance. The goal of Service Assurance is to provide an optimal customer

experience, that helps retain existing customers, attract new customers and prevent

penalties arising out of violation of SLAs.

The following sub-sections introduce some of the common service Assurance

systems.

2.2.1. Fault & Trouble Management

Fault Management Systems are designed for detection, isolation and correction of

malfunctions in a communications network. They monitor and process network

alarms* generated by network elements (routers, switches, gateways, etc.). An

alarm* is a persistent indication of a fault that is cleared only when the triggering

condition is resolved.

Examples of trouble or fault in a network are damage to an optical fiber line, switch

failure, etc. Such a problem in the network can result in a chain reaction where many

network elements in a certain path produce alarms*.

Fault Management Systems may be either a component within Network Management

Systems or as a standalone set of system and application software. Figure 2

illustrates how Fault Management Systems work.

DSLAMIP

NetworkATM/Frame

Network

Network Element Layer

Element Management Layer

EMS A EMS Z

Trouble Ticketing System

Service Management Layer

Fault Management

SystemsAlarm Handlers

Network Management

Systems

Network Management Layer

* Collect event alarms via SNMP

traps or polls and forward to NML

* Low level event correlation.

* Low level event enhancement

* Event conversion to Common Alarm

Object, Alarms Correlation,

suppression, and Root Cause

Analysis.

* Alarms Ticketing Rules monitoring.

* Alarms GUI monitoring

* Network Element such as switch or

router, generate events via SNMP,

TL1, or by Poll

* Trouble ticket rule definition

* Trouble ticket creation based on

alarms

* Trouble ticket grouping and

distribution

Figure 2 Fault Management Systems

Network Elements* are designed to provide various levels of self-diagnosis. Older

Network Elements* might simply send an alarm* notifying a problem while newer

Network Elements can provide more precise and detailed messages. Fault

Management Systems may collect alarms* via SNMP traps, CMIP events or

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proprietary agents, via EMS*. They use complex filtering systems to assign alarms*

to specific severity levels and correlate different alarms* to locate the source and

cause of a problem.

After a problem is identified, the FMS then notifies appropriate network operators as

well as pass the problem information to a Trouble Management System that in turn

logs the problem and issues a trouble ticket to start the repair process.

The Trouble Management System then sends commands to appropriate systems

such as Field Service Management to schedule and dispatch technicians to repair the

equipment and/or to EMS* to reroute network traffic around the problem areas.

Trouble Management systems also handle automatic escalation, such as progression

of a ticket from minor to major or major to critical, etc., and support a variety of

notification methods such as paging, emails, synthesis voice dial-out.

Fault Management systems usually provide graphical network displays which are

projected on large screens at the Network Operations Centres (NOC). NOC operators

can see role-based views on their consoles, shortcuts to operations they perform the

most as well as tools to quickly make connections to EMS* to perform any testing or

diagnostic operation.

Popular fault management systems include:

Micromuse Netcool/Omnibus (also marketed as Cisco’s Cisco Info Center)

HP Open-View and TeMIP

Agilent OSI NetExpert

Riversoft OpenRiver

2.2.2. Network Performance Management

Performance Management components in NMS* and other Alarm Handlers monitor

applications and systems and collect performance variables of interest at specified

intervals. Performance variables of interest may be service provider network edge

availability, customer premises availability, response times, packet delivery rate,

packet losses, latencies, jitters and out of sequence packet reorder, etc., to name a

few.

One way to capture performance metrics is collecting event logs, CDRs and other

performance data such as counters or timers that the network and system elements

maintain as part of their normal operation. This is referred to as passive

measurement. Performance data is captured by polling MIB* using SNMP or using

syslog*, (I & II), FTP, EMS* feeds, etc. Most passive measurements report on a

single network element.

For example, an Ethernet Switch may have a MIB* which provides in and out data

volumes of each port, histograms of frame sizes, number and types of erroneous

frames, central processing unit (CPU) busy status. Associated Remote Monitoring

(RMON) MIB*-type data can then list ten most active users, etc. Performance

Management tools can access the data by using SNMP to poll the MIBs* at

predefined intervals.

Statistics on performance variables can also be captured via dedicated network

appliances known such as “probes” and “sniffers” that monitor or probe customer’s

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local loop* connections, packet performance, etc. This form of performance testing is

usually referred to as active testing.

Packet sniffers typically monitor signaling protocols such as SIP and RTP by

inspecting packets on the wire/fiber, using pings, DNS, FTP, HTTP fetches, etc.

Examples include WireShark and Geoprobes.

Probes such as Brix Networks BrixWorks Verifiers and Tektronix/Minacom IVR tools

typically emulate customer traffic in order to test or probe specific paths to measure

the quality of the services supported. Probes could be either placed into the network

or could be built into network elements* such as in the case of Cisco’s IP Service

Level Agreements tools.

Note that active measurement measures a service, such as application response

time, instead of the internal operation of a network element.

An example of active network performance test is injecting “ping” (short, network

layer echo packet) into the network aimed at a remote IP address. Round-trip time is

measured if the ping packet returns, and an error counter is incremented if it

doesn’t.

Performance statistics captured by “active” or “passive” performance tests are

normalized and routed to relational databases and/or data-warehouses. An

alternative is to pass the performance data directly to Performance Management

tools. For example, Concord eHealth could collect performance statistics from Netcool

agents via SNMP polls at a pre-defined interval.

Performance statistics are initially analyzed to determine the normal (baseline)

levels. Appropriate thresholds are determined for each of the interesting

performance variable so that exceeding the thresholds indicates a problem.

Performance Management tools then measure the performance variables against

SLAs defined as thresholds per application or service, on an on-going basis. In case

of exceptions they report them to alarm handlers. This form of performance

monitoring is reactive performance monitoring. Some tools also support proactive

monitoring by way of providing simulation tools that helps network operators project

how growth in network traffic will affect performance metrics and plan to take

proactive countermeasures such as increase capacity.

Performance Management tools may also support real-time and historical reporting.

Some CSPs have taken performance statistics of the network affecting customers’

circuits to their customer self-service portals.

Some of the products widely accepted in the Performance Management area include:

Lucent VitalSuite

Ericsson Net-Tuner

ADC Metrica

InfoVista

Brix Networks – BrixWorx (Software) and Verifiers (Hardware)

Computer Associates eHealth

Unicenter NetMaster Network Management

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2.2.3. Topology & Configuration Management

Older networks and systems were static and the network wiring was fixed in place,

and sometimes required long outages while changes to the network and its

configuration were being made. Any error or inconsistency in the configuration files

of different network devices caused problem, and therefore these changes were well

controlled [3].

According to [3], with the rise of IP-based, dynamically routed networks, network

topologies started becoming dynamic. The topology of the network became dynamic

because a few of routers might decide, on their own, to shift routing patterns, or

because a network operator group might add a new router or switch to the network,

possibly without everyone else in the network operations center being aware of the

changes. Instead of static associations between users and network addresses (as

was set in the old “hosts” file), DHCP and other techniques allowed users to appear,

move, and disappear without providing prior notice to the network administration.

Most major NMSs therefore provide capabilities to automatically discover a network’s

actual topology, which is critical to understand network performance or root cause of

network alarms*, etc.

Probes are placed into the network to automatically find devices and circuits. Also,

most network elements* provide MIBs* that can be polled via SNMP to discover the

network, although discovering the network topology in its entirety may not be

guaranteed. Backup paths, virtual private networks, MPLS, etc., can make it very

difficult to discover actual paths, through multiplexed* links, patch panels, and test

equipment [3].

Also, most Topology Management Systems allow the network operator to provide

hints so that the system, for instance, in order that the system can ignore certain

portions of the network. This makes it easier to discover relevant portions of the

network more accurately.

Some service providers may run network discovery routines on a daily basis to

discover any unauthorized changes to the network topology as a result of security

intrusions or unplanned insertion of devices.

Moreover, network elements and computer systems have a variety of version

information associated with them. For example, a workstation may have: Operation

System, version 32, Ethernet Interface, version 5.4, TCP/IP Software, version 2.0

and SNMP Software, version 3.1. Since multiple engineers/network operators work

on making changes to the network equipment, tracking the changes manually would

be very tedious and error-prone. Configuration Management tools help automates

the tracking of the changes. Configuration Management systems store the

configurations in a database or LDAP server for easy access.

They also enable network operators to change configurations of the network

elements as well as to roll back a change to a previous configuration, if required.

When a problem in the network occurs, network operators often search the

Configuration Management database for clues that can help solve the problem.

Configuration management vendors/tools include:

CA Concord – Aprisma

TripWire

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AlterPoint

Opsware – Rendition

Visionael

2.2.4. Planning & Testing

Network Planning solutions help determine when a communication network needs an

upgrade or additional equipment as well as to predict the impact of changes to a

service provider’s network’s topology, configuration, traffic and technology. They

provide simulation tools that help the network operators to project how growth in

network traffic will affect the network performance. Based on the results and other

planning activities, network operators can take countermeasures such as increase

capacity.

Testing is an important activity in setting up a network or customer circuits. For

simplicity in understanding the gamut of testing activities, let us divide them into the

following:

1. Testing of existing network or a change

2. Integration testing of services configured for the customer

3. End-to-end testing of services configured for the customer

Testing the entire network platform - including the equipment, services and call

quality – is critical for assessing the system prior to deployment and for service

assurance in production environments [4].

Network testing tools usually simulate a production environment and generate

synthetic voice, video and data traffic, which helps measure call/data quality,

network performance, and the affects of any changes to the network or increasing

traffic or adding new applications. These tests typically include tests like DNS, HTTP,

RTP, Ping, etc. Also, during ongoing operations, these testing tools enable active

testing of facilities. Some of the tools available are from vendors such as Brix

Networks, Concord Communications, Viola Networks, InfoVista, PROGNOSIS,

Micromuse, Cisco Systems and NetIQ.

Another form of testing is integration testing of network setup for the customer, i.e.,

routes, circuits, etc. configured for a customer. Network operators or field engineers

perform integration testing of services upon completion of activations and other

provisioning activities. Field engineers typically use equipment and network element

specific applications to perform integration testing.

Upon completion of integration testing, field operations teams are notified to perform

end-to-end testing. End-to-end testing includes testing of circuits, both within the

CSP’s network as well as local access* circuits between the CSP and the customer

premises. Some service provider’s use craft access systems for the benefit of field

technician’s access to their internal systems through a hand held terminal [5]. The

hand held terminal helps them to access loop testing system and to view the

complete test summary from remote locations.

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2.3. Billing

IDC [6] defines Billing as: the processing and compiling of charges and enabling of

revenue collection for network usage, feature transactions, and access charges of the

services.

Figure 3 depicts a simple billing flow:

CDR/IPDR

Switch

Customer

Makes a Call

Call data is collected

Call data is stored

Billing

Mediation

Rating

Calls rated for billing

Billing

Billing is run

Invoicing

Interconnection

Billing

Other Service Providers

Figure 3 Billing Flow

The following sub-sections explain the systems depicted in the figure and the flow.

2.3.1. Billing Mediation

Mediation systems collect network usage data from the network elements and

convert to billable statistics.

Traditionally for phone calls, Call Detail Records (CDR) have been used to record the

details of the circuit-switched phone call. CDR includes information on start time of

call, end time of call, duration of call, originating and termination numbers. CDRs are

stored until a billing cycle runs. For IP Based Services, a new standard is gaining

acceptance called Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR). IPDR supports both voice

and data.

Billing systems use mediation output to determine charges for the customers. It is

also used to feed other downstream applications such as Fraud and Churn

Management.

Market leading mediation product vendors include:

Comptel

XACCT

HP Smart Internet Usage

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Ehpt BMP

2.3.2. Rating

Rating systems calculate the charge for an individual call, IP usage event, etc. using

the CDRs/IPDRs. Rating systems apply charges based on pre-configured pricing

rules, applicable discounts and rebates from promotions.

This rating process has grown increasingly complex in recent years. In older times, it

was solely a matter of taking the length of the call, assigning a price based on the

mileage band (calculated by cross-referencing the prefix of the originating and

terminating numbers in a table of values), and assigning discounts based on the time

of day (peak, evening, night), day of the week, and holidays.

Modern rating systems can assign discounts based on calling circles, provide flexible

rating plans based on size of accounts and increase switching costs [2]. These serve

as strategic marketing tools but can be very complex to administer and operate.

2.3.3. Billing Systems

Billing systems aggregate rated calls, IP/data usage events, etc. and calculate

customer invoices. In the United States, billing is usually performed once a month.

Billing systems combine rated records with prior balance information, payment

records, recurring charges (such as line rentals), one-time fees (such as installation

and service charges), promotions and discounts associated with the customer

account, taxes and credits. Overnight billing batch jobs are among the largest batch

environment at a CSP’s operating environment. Each customer is assigned a specific

billing cycle.

According to Insight [2], the holy grails of the billing industry are unified billing and

convergent billing. With unified billing, a customer gets a single bill for all services

provided (or billed) by the service provider, appropriately rated, discounted, and

taxed, and a single contact for inquiries and negotiation.

Some of the main vendors and products in the area of rating and billing are:

Lucent Arbor Billing Platform

Amdoc Internet Administration Framework (IAF)

Portal Software’s Infranet

Geneva

AMS Tapestry

2.3.4. Interconnection Billing

In the competitive world of communications, service providers often tie-up with

partners, in order to bundle their own products with their partners. This helps the

service providers to provide attractive bundles of products and services. However, in

order to successfully settle interconnect billing settlements an effective

Interconnection Billing is required.

Interconnection Billing products support inter-working of a service provider’s billing

systems with the corresponding systems of another service provider, based on

interconnect agreements and contracts.

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Some of the products in this area are:

InterconnecT from Intec Systems Ltd. These also contain Application Network

Operator

Prospero from ICL

INCA from BT

2.3.5. Revenue Assurance

Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management systems verify billing, detect and identify

unauthorized usage of service provider network assets. Some of the kinds of frauds

are Usage and Subscription.

Usage Fraud means that a customer uses the telecommunications network illegally.

This is accomplished either by obtaining a service with no intent to pay or by

obtaining unauthorized access to the network (i.e. “hacking” or “cracking”).

Fraud Management systems typically detect and prevent unauthorized access to a

communications network by analyzing traffic patterns on the network. Some

examples are provided in [8]:

One technique involves analyzing the average call duration or the number of

calls placed to foreign countries to determine whether the traffic patterns are

consistent with a subscriber's call history or pattern. If a call is inconsistent

with the subscriber's call pattern profile, the subscriber is provided with a

report of the abnormal call activity.

Other methods for dealing with the problem of unauthorized use involve

automatically denying or blocking access to the network when abnormal use

is detected to minimize the subscriber's financial loss.

Subscription fraud means that a customer obtains a service account by giving a false

identity (name and/or SSN) or by giving a false address or false credit worthiness.

Detecting subscription fraud involves searching recent order and existing customer

data for multiple orders and/or accounts with the same customer name, SSN, or

service address.

Common subscription fraud patterns include

Change of billing address within a few weeks of opening an account.

Substantial deviation of usage profile of a new user from an average new

user.

Common techniques to control subscription based fraud include threshold based

analysis, inference rules analysis, profile based analysis such as habitual user profiles

and neural networks.

Fraud Management Systems typically read and store usage data from the service

provider’s network switching equipment and allows queries to be executed against

the data that detect suspicious usage patterns.

They also allow operators to review customer accounts that have suspicious activity,

to track their investigation and record the final case resolution. One of the available

tools in this area is SAS Fraud Management.

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It should be noted that fraud is different from revenue leakage. Revenue leakage is

characterized by the loss of revenues resulting from operational or technical

loopholes where the resulting losses are sometimes recoverable and generally

detected through audits or similar procedures [1]. Fraud, on the other hand, is

characterized with theft by deception, typically characterized by evidence of intent

where the resulting losses are often not recoverable and may be detected by analysis

of calling patterns.

Another important class of Revenue Assurance tools includes Churn Management

tools. Churn management is an important area for service providers that have

subscription-based business - due to price wars, aggressive marketing and

promotions from competing service providers, and customer’s expectations related to

customer service.

Churn Management tools provide functions such as automated behavior analysis,

forecasting and simulation, empirical profiling, churn metrics capture, that enable

service providers to learn which customers are likely to leave and take appropriate

countermeasures. Some of the tools/vendors in this area are:

HP Oneview Churn Management

Amdocs

CGI Churn Management

2.4. Standards & Protocols

2.4.1. Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) Logical Model

To survive in a highly innovative and competitive communications market, service

providers must use a robust architecture for network and service management. TMN

was formed with an aim to provide such an architecture framework. It was defined

by ITU-T (International Telecommunications Union – Telecommunications Services

Sector).

TMN provides a framework that helps service providers to achieve the

interconnection between various types of operating systems and/or

telecommunications equipment for the exchange of management information with

standardized interfaces including protocols and messages.

TMN describes network management from the following different viewpoints:

Logical or business model

Functional model

A set of standard interface

The scope of this section is the TMN logical model. The reader is referred to [11] for

detailed information on the TMN models.

The TMN logical model breaks down the functions related to managing a

telecommunications support environment into manageable subsets and helps service

providers to think logically about how the business of a service provider is managed.

It introduced the concept of logical layered architecture, consisting of four layers,

each of which reflects particular aspects of management.

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Figure 4 below depicts the TMN Logical Model.

BUSINESS

MANAGEMENT

SERVICE MANAGEMENT

NETWORK AND SYSTEMS

MANAGEMENT

ELEMENT MANAGEMENT

Figure 4 TMN Model

The idea is that management decisions at each layer are different but interrelated.

Each layer imposes requirements on the layer below. Each layer provides a capability

to the layer above.

For example,

Detailed information is needed to keep a switch at the element management

layer operating, but only a subset of that information is needed to keep the

network operating (e.g. is the switch operating at full capacity?).

Network elements emit several low-level syslog* events. Not all of the events

are important or interesting to a network operator. Instead network operators

may rely on systems at the Network Management layer to filter the events

and show important ones.

The four layers in the TMN model as shown in Figure 4 are as follows:

Element Management - The Element Management layer (EML) is used to

manage an individual network element or a sub-network. In this layer, data

such as logs, audit trails and performance statistics from network elements

within the layer’s span of control are analyzed and interpreted in a meaningful

manner to monitor and control the subnetwork. As a subnetwork is a subset

of the whole network, relevant data are passed on to the Network

Management Layer applications for integration of the views of the whole

network.

Network Management - The Network Management layer (NML) is

concerned with the management of the whole network. It receives data from

the lower level EML and synthesizes the data into a meaningful end-to-end

view of the network.

The NML communicates with other layers using standard interfaces.

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Service Management - The Service Management layer (SML) is concerned

with and responsible for, the contractual aspects of services that are being

provided to customers.

Examples of functions at the SML include: customers interfaces, service

provisioning, opening new accounts, closing existing accounts, resolving

customer complaints including those related to billing, fault reporting,

maintaining statistical data (e.g., QoS), interaction with the business

management layer, interaction between services, etc.

Business Management – The Business Management layer (BML) includes all

the functions necessary for the implementation of policies and strategies

within the organization which owns and operates the services (and possibly

the network).

Examples of functions at the BML include network planning, agreement

between operators, executive-level activities such as strategic planning,

decision making for optimal investment and goal-setting

2.4.2. Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) Model

New Generation Operations Systems & Support (NGOSS) aims to deliver a

framework that will help produce New Generation OSS/BSS solutions, and be a

repository of documentation, patterns, models and code in support of these

developments.

It is driven and managed by TM Forum (TMF), a non-profit organization, which

consists of more than 340 member companies around the world.

The eTOM model – the business process pillar within NGOSS, effectively captures the

complex business processes in a communications service provider.

The eTOM defines business processes through a hierarchical process decomposition

that begins at the overall Enterprise/conceptual level (referred to as Level 0), and

each level is decomposed into greater detail at the next lower level (Level 1, 2, 3

etc.). Each level captures process descriptions, inputs and outputs, as well as other

key elements.

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Figure 5 eTOM Model (Reference: http://www.tmforum.org)

Figure 5 above captures eTOM level 0 and 1 process areas. “Operations”, “Strategy,

Infrastructure and Support” (SIP), and “Enterprise Management” form level 0

processes.

Operations – Covers the core of operational management

Strategy, Infrastructure and Support (SIP) - planning and life cycle

management

Enterprise Management (EM) covering corporate or business support

management

According to [12],

“The eTOM Framework contains seven end-to-end vertical Level 1 process groupings

across OPS and SIP, representing the processes required to support customers and

to manage the business. The focal point of the eTOM is around the core customer

operations processes of Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing (FAB) within OPS.

Operations Support & Readiness (OSR) forms the fourth vertical grouping within

OPS, and is differentiated from FAB real-time processes to focus on enabling support

and automation of the FAB processes. The SIP process area contains more “back-

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office” processes that typically work on different business time cycles than the real-

time Operations. The SIP processes enable, support and direct the work in OPS.

The eTOM also includes horizontal views of functionality across a service provider's

organization, in OPS and SIP. These Level 1 horizontal functional process groupings

gather together functionally-related processes, e.g., customer-facing processes such

as Marketing, Selling, etc, within Customer Relationship Management.”

To illustrate the hierarchical process decomposition concept, let us take a case of one

such hierarchy to illustrate the hierarchical process decomposition process.

“Operations” is a level 0 process.

“Operations Support & Readiness (OPS)” is a level 1 process within the

“Operations” process is responsible for support to the "FAB" processes, and

for ensuring operational readiness in the fulfillment, assurance and billing

areas.

“Customer Relationship Management – Support and Readines” is a level 2

process within OPS and is responsible for managing classes of products,

ensuring that all CRM processes in Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing are

supported and able to manage interactions with customers promptly and

efficiently.

One of the level 3 process under “Customer Relationship Management –

Support and Readines” is “Support Order Handling” and is responsible for

ensuring that new and/or modified Order Handling related infrastructure is

deployed effectively, and to ensure that Order Handling processes can

operate effectively

For each of the processes under each levels, eTOM defines details of specific

responsibilities. For example, “Order Handling” level 4 process has the following

responsibilities, with details defined in eTOM.

Determine customer order feasibility

Authorize credit

Track and manage customer order handling

Issue customer orders

Report customer order handling

Close customer order

2.4.3. “OSS Through Java” (OSS/J) Initiave

OSS/J stands for “OSS through Java”. The goal of OSS/J is to provide open interface

standards for the integration of OSS/BSS, through the Java Community Process

(JCP).

OSS/J creates API specifications, reference implementations, technology

compatibility kits and multi-technology profiles (Java, XML, and Web Services) for

OSS integration and deployment.

The OSS/J API specifications use the Core Business Entities (CBE) model, which is

based on the TMF's NGOSS Shared Information/Data (SID) Model and therefore, the

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initiative provides a technology neutral implementations view of the NGOSS

architecture [9]. The initiative also produces the design guidelines for defining

interfaces and implementing the specifications.

Some of the core OSS/J APIs available are:

Customer Management - for creating, modifying, suspending, and terminating

customers.

Order Management - for creating, modifying, suspending, and canceling

orders and order activities.

Service Activation - to activate services as defined by TMF’s eTOM and SID.

Product Inventory - for populating, querying and updating the Product

Inventory repository.

Service Inventory - for populating, querying and updating the Service

Inventory repository.

Trouble Ticketing - for creating, tracking, and deleting trouble tickets.

Service Quality Management - for querying, creating, updating and deleting

Service Level Specifications objects, Service Quality Objective objects, and

Service Quality Report objects, as well as subscribing for notifications on

object violation events and availability of new service quality reports

Fault Monitoring - reception of alarms*, state changes, and threshold crossing

alerts from the network and maintaining a list of active alarms*.

Performance Monitoring - for creating and deleting metric and threshold

objects. collection of performance data from the network, setting thresholds,

and generating/forwarding threshold crossing events.

Billing - for rating services and calculating billing records, sending invoices to

customers, processing their payments, and performing payment collections,

handling inquiries by the customer about bills and billing problems.

Billing Mediation - for matching usage to individual services for usage-based

services

Pricing – to determine offers and prices based on a variety of criteria including

a specific customer profile, location, current promotions, other parties in the

transactions, factors peculiar to the request, and any other set of complex,

possibly inter-related points

OSS/J helps service providers get around vendor lock-ins and improve

interoperability among OSS/BSS products from different vendors and customer

developed applications.

OSS/J interface specifications represent operations that are “business-function-

focused” – e.g., “createOrder”, “createTroubleTicketByKey”. Profiles are available for

RMI/IIOP, XML/JMS, Web Services implementations.

2.4.4. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

SNMP is a widely used communication protocol used by network management

platforms to manage (for example, to obtain configuration and statistical

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information) network devices such as routers, gateways and switches and server

elements.

Almost all network elements and server elements support MIBs*, which can be read

by SNMP to obtain management information.

For example, an Ethernet switch contains an MIB* for each Ethernet port that

provides port statistics such as status, port configuration, number of frames and

octets transmitted and received [3]. The switch also includes MIBs* that give

information on the switch such as status of power supply and the number of active

ports on the switch. Routing tables MIBs* give status of routing protocols, entries in

the routing tables, etc.

SNMP normally operates through requests and responses. Also, Management

platform can send configuration information to a network element or server, and

have the server acknowledge a receipt [3]. Also, SNMP can send un-requested

messages (“traps” or “inform” signals) asynchronously to a management platform,

for example when it reinitializes itself.

2.4.5. Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP)

CMIP is an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) based network management

protocol that supports exchange of information between network management

systems and management objects or network elements such as network devices and

circuits.

CMIP can be used for accessing information about network objects or devices,

modification their configuration, and receiving status reports from them. CMIP is

object-oriented and can help manage very complex hierarchies of managed objects.

It is more sophisticated then SNMP, although lot less popular than SNMP. CMIP

provides better security and fault reporting capabilities.

3. Conclusion

3.1. Summary

OSS/BSS systems and applications automate many of the day to day operations

performed in a communications service provider’s operating environment. They

optimize the time taken to perform these operations and make the business

processes more efficient.

There are no all-encompassing OSS/BSS systems that can be installed, integrated,

tested and allow the service providers to easily modernize their end-to-end

operations functions.

Service providers, therefore, use all the different approaches: best-of-breed in some

areas, off-the-shelf in some, and home-grown custom applications in the remaining

areas, to modernize and optimize their operations.

More often than not, many of these OSS/BSS systems are integrated with the others

in a point-to-point fashion, as part of discrete projects and programs, sponsored out

of different business units. This leads to point-to-point integration of OSS/BSS

systems unless the programs/projects are planned with a strategic goal.

An example of point-to-point integration is: Netcool, a popular Alarm Handler,

provides a gateway that links directly into the Trouble Ticketing product Remedy

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ARS, which is a point-to-point integration. The mechanism is quick to use and easy

to deploy leading most system integrators* and service providers to prefer the

mechanism. A negative side of the approach is it makes taking the component out

for replacement more difficult. Integration and flexibility are the key challenges faced

by service providers with respect to their OSS/BSS systems, due to their time-

consuming nature and high costs.

A side effect of the difficulty in integrating the various OSS/BSS systems is many of

the OSS/BSS systems in a service provider’s operating environment may not be

integrated at all. For example, it is not unusual to find the following scenario: when a

customer orders a new telephone line, the ordering system takes the details of a

customer’s order, but a manual process is present to configure the telephone

exchange using a switch management system. Details of the order entered in the

Order Handling system is re-keyed manually by the technician into the Switch

Management System – a process often referred to as “Swivel-Chair Integration”.

The article provided an overview of some of the core OSS/BSS areas in Order

Fulfillment, Service Assurance and Billing.

3.2. Terminology

Alarm - A persistent indication of a fault that is cleared only when the

triggering condition is resolved

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) - ATM is a packet-oriented

technology that allows multiple logical connections (voice, video and data) to

be multiplexed over a single physical interface as fixed-sized packets called

cells.

ATM is more often used as a backbone technology, working behind the scenes

transporting customer-facing services such as Frame Relay, Voice over

Internet Protocol (VoIP), Ethernet and Internet Access. For example, traffic

originating at customer-facing frame relay end-points is terminated on ATM at

corporate hub. Moreover, carriers often transport frame relay traffic on ATM

backbones.

Communications Service Provider (CSP) - A CSP sells one or more of the

following: telephone lines, long distance, LAN & WAN products, bandwidth,

network access, managed network/storage/security services, etc.

All of the following are CSPs: Telecommunications carriers, wireless

communications providers, Internet Service Providers (ISP) and cable service

providers providing high-speed internet access.

Digital Loop Carriers (DLC) – A DLC uses digital transmission to extend the

range of a local loop* farther than would be possible using usual twisted-pair

copper wires. It digitizes and multiplexes* signals carried by local loops*.

DSLAM – A Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) is a network

device located in the telephone exchange (or central office) of a service

provider that connects multiple customer DSL lines to a high-speed internet

backbone (for example, ATM/Frame Relay or IP network) using multiplexing*

techniques.

Element Management System (EMS) – An EMS manages one or more of a

specific type of network element. Typically, the EMS manages the functions

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and capabilities within each network element but does not manage the traffic

between different network elements in the network [10]. To support

management of the traffic between itself and other network elements, the

EMS communicates upward to higher-level network management systems

(NMS)* as described in the telecommunications management network (TMN)

layered model.

Local Loop - The customer premises connects to the telephone company's

central office (CO) switch by means of the local loop, which is often referred

to as the access portion of the network. This CO switch is a link between the

local loop and the network backbone.

Management Information Base (MIB) - An MIB is a collection of

information on managed objects such as routers and switches and the

commands they can execute, stored in a virtual database. SNMP polls

information from MIBs and passes the information to Network Management

Systems or executes commands specified for the MIBs.

Multiplexer/Multiplexing – A multiplexer is a device for converting several

data streams (for example, voice, video and data) into a single output for

transporting via a single communications channel. De-multiplexing is the

opposite in that it converts a single stream into multiple data streams. Time

Division Multiplexing and Wave Division Multiplexing are methods of

multiplexing.

Network Element (NE) – Network element usually refers to a logical entity

or structural group uniting one or more of devices for a single purpose. For

example, a telephone exchange is a distributed group of devices such as

subscriber line units, line trunk units, switching matrix, CPU and remote hubs,

etc. and is typically referred to as a telephone exchange network element.

Also independent routers, switches, gateways and other devices are referred

to as network elements.

Network Management System (NMS) – Network Management Systems

(NMS) consist of hardware platforms, application software, middleware and

services that together allow network operators to manage network elements.

Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) - SONET is a physical layer

network technology that defines optical carrier standards and therefore

enables fiber-optic systems from different vendors to work with each other.

Syslog – Syslog is a standard for forwarding log messages and is used to

forward events/messages from network elements and computer systems. It is

a client/server protocol, where a syslog sender sends cleartext textual

messages to a syslog receiver, via TCP and/or UDP protocols. It can be used

for monitoring audit trails, logging network and system events, etc.

System Integrators - Refers to a company providing professional services

required to install, configure, integrate, test a solution. It could be a

consultant company like Infosys, Wipro, etc. or an equipment/software

supplier.

Transaction Language 1 (TL1) - Transaction Language 1, Is mainly a

control protocol, and has been use for several years, for issuing commands to

voice network elements.

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3.3. References

[1] Who Makes What: OSS,

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=113052&print=true,

Light Reading, Dec 2006

[2] The 2007 Telecommunications Industry Review, The Insight Research Corp.,

Dec 2006

[3] Eric Siegel, Architectural Overview of Network Management, The Burton

Group, Oct 2005

[4] Arindam Banerjee, Network Management is the Key to the Success of Next-

Generation Architecture, Yankee Group, Jan 2007

[5] Senthil K. Ramachandran, Order Fulfillment Core Processes and Pain Areas,

TMFC 2122 White-paper

[6] Sterling Perrin et al., IDC's Service Provider Infrastructure Taxonomy,

2004, IDC

[7] Lars Andersson, OSS Solutions for Network Operators – white paper, 2002

[8] Telecommunications Fraud Detection Scheme, US Patent 5504810,

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5504810/description.html, April 1996

[9] OSS Through Java Initiative, OSS/J Roadmap, TeleManagement Forum, Jan

2007

[10] Element Management Systems – Definition and Overview, Web ProForums,

International Engineering Consortium (IEC)

[11] Divakara K. Udapa, TMN Telecommunications Management Network, McGraw

Hill, ISBN:9780070658158, 1999

[12] Enhanced Telecom Operations map - eTOM: The Business Process Language

of NGOSS, TeleManagement Forum

[13] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_Support_Systems

[14] Elisabeth Rainge, Next-Generation OSS and Billing Market Taxonomy, IDC,

Oct 2004

[15] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_management

[16] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_base

[17] Network Management Basics,

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/internetworking/technology/handbook/NM

-Basics.html

[18] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_planning_and_design

[19] Balan Nair et al., Method and system for planning a telecommunications

network, United States Patent 5974127,

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5974127.html, Oct 1999

Page: 24

[20] Telecommunications Fraud Detection Scheme, US Patent 5504810,

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5504810/description.html, April 1996

[21] Stephen Brown, Telecommunication Fraud Management, Jan 2005,

http://www.waveroad.ca/ressources/Whitepaper_SB_Janvier2005.pdf

[22] Eric Siegel, Measuring Performance of Networks and Applications, The Burton

Group, Feb 2007

[23] International Engineering Consortium (IEC), Tutorials,

http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/