Troubleshooting Suite

Customer Demand

A mobile network operator provides a mix of voice and data services to its sub-scribers. The subscribers demand high uptime, high bandwidth, and high quality for increasingly complex services at lower prices. All of this puts pressure on the mobile network operator to have a cost effective and efficient network operations department.

One specific process that helps the operator organization in meeting these de-mands is network troubleshooting as illustrated in the Figure below.

• Fault Detection: The troubleshooting engineer uses a tool for identifying the network elements with worst performance according to certain Key Performan-ce Indicators (KPIs). This task is typically highly automated.

• Diagnosis Creation: Each of the identified network elements with poor perfor-mance is diagnosed to determine the root cause of problems. The troubleshoo-ting engineer uses a set of performance monitoring tools to carry out this task. This task is mainly manual and based on human experience.

• Solution Deployment: When a root cause is determined for a network ele-ment, a trouble ticket is typically raised for someone to go and conduct a repair action. As part of Solution Deployment, the troubleshooting engineer validates the repair action.

The network troubleshooting process

2operate’s Solution

Concept Description

The 2solve Troubleshooting Suite is a product for operators who wants to auto-mate troubleshooting processes in their network operation center. The product can be delivered as a turnkey solution including a ready-made reasoning model which ensures rapid implementation and thereby immediately adds value to the organi-zation.

2operate has developed a new concept to support the troubleshooting process from Fault Detection, over Diagnosis Creation, to Solution Deployment.

Where traditional troubleshooting toolsets provide automation only in the Fault Detection task, 2operate is able to automate Diagnosis Creation as well as part of the validation task in Solution Deployment. The solution has been designed to capture data in each troubleshooting incident when the root cause is known, such that it will continuously become more accurate in its automated Diagnosis Creation function.

Architecture OverviewThe 2solve Troubleshooting Suite is the core of the 2solve product portfolio. It is a web application running on a server in the operators IT environment, as illustrated in the Figure below.

The 2solve Troubleshooting Suite is installed in a web server with data stored in the 2solve Database. The user will access the tool from a web browser (as a web client). This means that there is little installation overhead when deploying and upgrading the solution in the operator organization.

Architecture of 2solve Troubleshooting Suite

2Solve Troubleshooting Suite Feature List

General functionality

• Dashboard: View and build a user-specific dashboard using a list of ready made portlets. The portlets can be configured by the user in order to provide the exact content that the user needs in each situation.

• Localized Application: 2solve comes in English, French, and Danish, and can be provided in any language with little overhead. Each individual user can choose his/her own language among those supported in the installed version.

Troubleshooting functionality

• Network Topology: Browse the network topology in a hierarchical tree and from there utilize the core functionality of the system.

• Worst Performance Analysis: Find network elements with poor performance according to certain KPIs.

• Performance Alarms: Spot whenever a network element starts showing ab-normal performance according to certain KPI thresholds.

• GIS: View the network elements in a GIS (Geographical Information System). The elements are shown on the map at their geographical location and from here you can click on elements to immediately get a diagnosis as a top 3 list of most probable faults.

• Diagnostic Performance Monitoring: A panel showing a predefined set of KPIs along with a diagnosis for individual network elements.

• Troubleshooting Case Handling: Create troubleshooting cases for individual network elements when a problem seems present. In addition to traditional trouble ticket information, the troubleshooting case contains KPI snapshots (a snapshot is KPI readings for a certain time window) and the identified root cause(s) when the problem is solved.

Model Maintenance functionality

• Build Reasoning Model: Build a model from scratch by specifying the root causes (faults) and KPIs that should be used by the application. The relation-ship between root causes and KPIs are also specified along with the strength of the relationship.

• Maintain Reasoning Model: Existing models can be updated or extended to match new requirements and perform even better.

• Reasoning Model Learning: Select cases and learn a specific reasoning model from these cases.

• Reasoning Model Performance: Select a reasoning model and view its success rate.

• KPI Specifications: Specify thresholds for KPIs (for the Performance Alarms function).

Administrative functionality

• User Management: Manage users and specify roles of each individual user. There are three roles: ”Troubleshooter”, ”Model Maintainer”, and ”Administra-tor” which can be used in any combination.

• Network Responsibilities: Assign sub networks to individual ”Trouble-shooter” to enable focus and efficiency in the troubleshooting process.

Q: Want to reduce OPEX?

Q: Concerned about Quality?

Q: Does your Organisation Learn?

A: Automate processes with new, disruptive technology!

Niels Jernes Vej 10DK-9220 Aalborg ØDenmark

Email: info@2operate.comPhone: +45 9635 6150Fax: +45 9635 4599

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Company Background

2operate is a high tech start-up company established in 2009 by a team of ex-perienced software/telecom engineers to develop and market a new, innovative solution to support troubleshooting processes in network operations organisations. 2operate was placed at NOVI, a business park at the campus of Aalborg University in Denmark. Based on experience from two large scale European research projects 2operate has developed a new concept with products and processes that enables mobile network operators to reach a high level of process automation leading to cost reductions without sacrificing quality.