Implementation of an OSS Service Assurance solution

Implementation of HP OpenView C/A

Customer: Central European Operator

The challenge

Our customer wanted to centralize the operation of the core network infrastructure and network elements in order to have a single Fault Management solution for their heterogeneous environment.

The solution

HERMES SoftLab’s OpenView team of consultants designed and implemented a Service Assurance solution based on HP OpenView C/A. The implementation included the integration of 30 different Networks Elements and Network Elements Managers (ranging from BSC to MSC to SMSC and Call Centers) covering more than 15,000 instances with OpenView Communications, without impacting the GSM operator’s operations. We were also required to design and implement a fault management monitoring solution for their telecom and IT environment.

The project was critical for the customer. Due to rapid subscriber growth the network environment was complex and changing and time pressure was acute.

In a project that lasted 9 months, with 5 to 10 consultants involved on different stages in a mixture of on and off-site work modules, totaling 800+ consulting days, HERMES SoftLab managed to hit each delivery target on time and within budget. This was despite the additional customization work that was required to complement the functionality in the product and to extra change requests.

Part of success was due to our ability to develop special simulators to replicate network elements such as MSC which were in production and not available for development and testing purposes. This allowed us to work off site and most importantly, not intrude on the performance of mission critical infrastructure.

Our delivery included:

• Prioritizing Alarm Collection

• Low level specification

• Migration of Nortel BSC Q3 Manager to OpenView Communications architecture

• OpenView Communications integration with Network Elements and Network Elements Managers using standard data collectors (TCP, SNMP)

• Development and integration of interfaces and custom data collectors for particular Network Elements (Ericsson GSM Pro, SEMA AUC, SEMA EIR, NEC SDH)

• OpenView Communications Service Assurance product configuration related to integration with Network Elements.

• Integration of OpenView NNM/OVO with OpenView Communications

Key benefits

• Central management point with overall visibility of the whole network infrastructure simplifying operations and problem root-cause identification

• Ability to detect network faults or performance issues before subscribers are affected

• Proactive monitoring of the network to avoid revenue looses

• Remove the need for skills, operations and maintenance of the different management tools from the different network equipment manufacturers