OSS and Security

Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about security and it’s implications on our OSS systems. As OSS are seen mostly “internal” to our organization, most of the time, an OSS system is not security hardened, before going into production. We open up the ports SNMP 161,162 in our firewalls(if any) from the devices… Read More »

Strategies for the OSS/BSS Integrator

Integration plays a very important role for the success of an OSS/BSS project. Lots of parties(sw houses, neps, integrators) offer integration services however few of them are able to deliver within scope, on time or within budget. Knowing the importance of  integration in an OSS/BSS project, customers began to be more selective. In this post,… Read More »

Are you ready for SLA Management?

This should be one of the top questions of the mature operators that provide corporate services to it’s customers. Customers are demanding more quality, less downtimes while the network capacity has been under pressure of these smart phone facebook traffic, M2M transactions etc. In such circumstances, it is hard to commit on a bit rate, or downtime percentage. Of… Read More »

Common Data Model: Does it worth implementing?

As the name implies, common data model or CIM, is a business (and technical) model of entities that are used during a telecommunication operator’s activities. As the businesses and the operational functions become complex, integrations between tools that are handling those also become complex. Telecommunications, probably the most complex business among the others has been… Read More »

IBM and Stream Computing

Normally I do not write about vendor products but since today’s topic seems to be a new driver for the industry, I will make an exception. Today’s topic is about IBM Infosphere Streams product which introduces a new term to our industry: Stream Computing. Stream Computing concept stems from the fact that todays’ OSS/BSS environment… Read More »

Mobile Device Agents

Today, I want to talk about a new trend that seems to popped up in the SQM/CEM field: Mobile Device Agents. Mobile Device agents are software components that reside on user devices and collect statistics about the quality of user experience which will enable the operator to act upon service degradation. Operator can also have the… Read More »

Why TAM is “less” popular?

OSS is all about automations and tools automate things. Maybe we should pay more attention to TAM rather to eTOM. This is all about marketing indeed. TMForum “sells” eTOM in a very successful way. TAM, on the other hand, seems to be left on one side to it’s destiny. If you have a look at the documentation… Read More »

CFS and External Business Service Catalogs. When terms collide..

Anyone who enters the complex world of OSS/BSS transformations, will face different technologies, standards and their terminology they carry with. Management standards depict the terms, and the terms become the language people talk to each other. Take IT for example.  ITIL is the dominating de-facto standard for managing the whole lifecycle of IT services, from birth to… Read More »

Who are the Service Owners?

As we enter the challenging environment of service management, one question arises naturally. We are managing the services but who owns them within the organization? The answer should be obvious but surprisingly it is not that simple for most operators. In a typical SQM / Service Management project, we have to interface with the service… Read More »

Who are the VIP Customers?

VIP customers of the service providers have always got the attention and put first in the retention and churn related initiatives. But who are the VIP customers? In the early days of telecommunications, where there are only primitive tools available to the sector, service providers started to search for their VIP customers in their CRM… Read More »

Category: CEM