Comprehensive suite for Network and Service Management

Comarch OSS Suite

telecommunications

Telecommunications

Comarch OSS Suite is a cost-effective network and service

management solution that can be precisely tailored to

meet individual needs of a particular Customer, while

helping accelerate ROI and decrease operating costs. This

premier suite for the management of corporate IT and

telecommunication infrastructure and services not only

makes a profound difference in the way businesses are

run, but it also enables companies to immediately reap

the benefits of their unique competitive advantages.

Introduction

2

Telecommunications

Comarch OSS Suite

Challenges and Opportunities

Taking a closer look at the telecommunications network

of any existing operator, it is noticeable that it compris-

es a wide range of network elements of different tech-

nologies (e.g., GSM/UMTS, IP, NGN) supplied by various

vendors. Going one step further, it is important to re-

member that operators need to manage all of these sys-

tems. Of course, these systems can be handled individ-

ually with a set of disparate proprietary management

systems; however, this kind of approach is usually ex-

pensive and has several flaws.

On the other hand, understanding, deploying and man-

aging services in the modern telecommunications en-

vironment demands excellent correlation and coordi-

nation between existing management systems, service

management systems and network equipment expand-

ing across various technologies.

These challenges can be handled in two ways:

• By employing large numbers of people – which in-

creases OPEX and introduces human error and delays

in servicing customer issues.

• By utilizing a „manager of managers” approach to au-

tomate the data management problem of coordinating

and correlating events and controlling and managing

services through an Umbrella Management System.

There are three main approaches that can be utilized in

fulfilling the requirements of Management System:

1. Take various Management solutions from various ven-

dors and try to make them work together – it involves a

great deal of complexity in the implementation phase

as well as on-going maintenance, administration and

upgrading, therefore it is inefficient.

2. Complete Customization – it has the serious drawback

of not being able to take advantage of state-of-the-art

solutions that are already available globally and would

mean not keeping pace on the market.

3. NGOSS-based approach – it involves the application

of NGOSS philosophy using principles that minimize

complexity and cost. This third approach is the phi-

losophy that Comarch brings to its customers with

Comarch OSS Suite and its modules.

To summarize, what the operators should be trying

to achieve is a single, comprehensive and integrated

Network Management System that directly manages

and monitors all the different network elements and

services.

3

Telecommunications

Comarch OSS Suite

Comarch OSS Suite pre-integrated product modules in-

clude service and resource inventory, provisioning, net-

work discovery and reconciliation, performance and

fault monitoring, as well as service and SLA’s manage-

ment. The whole platform is based on Comarch OSS

Framework which provides core functionality and su-

pervises the operations of Comarch OSS modules. OSS

Framework shared functionalities include Visualization

Engine, Reporting and Notification Service, Administra-

tion Tools and Reasoning Engine – Comarch’s in-house

built correlation engine that enables automation of

alarm event processing. Seamless integration of the Suite

with third-party software in an existing environment is

ensured by Comarch OSS Mediation module.

Comarch Network & Service InventoryThe core module of Comarch OSS Suite is Comarch Net-

work & Service Inventory, which is designed to store

complete information about all network’s resources

and services. It enables ways to fully achieve the net-

work’s potential as well as to create and manage new

services.

Fraud Management

System

Operations

Customers

Operations Support & Readiness

AssuranceFulfillment Billing

Strategy, Infrastructure & Product

Customer Relationship Management

Service Management & Operations

Resource Management & Operations

Supplier/Partner Relationship Management

Product Lifecycle

Management

Infrastructure Lifecycle

Management

Strategy & Commit

Marketing & Offer Management

Service Development & Management

Resource Development & Management

Supply Chain Development & Management

Enterprise Management Knowledge & Research

Management

Enterprise Effectiveness Management

Enterprise Risk Management

Strategic & Enterprise Planning

Human Resources Management

Stakeholder & External Relations Management

Financial & Asset Management

Comarch OSS

Comarch OSS Suite vs. eTOM

4

Comarch OSS Suite

Its main features are:

• Providing detailed information on operator’s resources

and services

• Representing actual network state

• Enabling complex database searches

• Managing operator’s storehouses

• Providing comprehensive numbering resources

management

Comarch Network & Service Inventory consists of sev-

eral sub-modules; the main ones are Network Invento-

ry and Service inventory.

Comarch Network Inventory ManagementNetwork Inventory is responsible for representation of

the current state of telecom infrastructure managed by

the OSS. Network Inventory component provides de-

tailed information on network elements and enables

the user to search the database under a wide range of

criteria. The main benefit of Network Inventory is end-

to-end visibility of the network resources (both phys-

ical and logical) and their inter-dependencies across

multiple vendors, domains, technologies and layers. If

Comarch Network Inventory Management is integrated

with Fault Management system information from inven-

tory module can be used to event enrichment.

Comarch Service Inventory ManagementService Inventory is responsible for modeling and stor-

ing relationships between resources, resource -facing

services and customer-facing services. The module al-

lows for flexible modeling services and storing these

models in service templates. Based on its template each

service can be composed from other services (already

existing in the inventory or newly created) or built on

top of the network resources stored in the resource in-

ventory. Deep integration of resources and service in-

ventory and storing the whole structure of the service

allow an operator to smoothly drill down from the top

layer of the service, through internal reusable services

into the underlying infrastructure. The additional value

of the system is the information visible on the resourc-

es about customer-facing service using them.

Comarch Network & Service Inventory supports also Au-

to-Discovery and Reconciliation functionalities which al-

low you to keep the information up to date with changes

occurring in the network. These modules allow verify-

ing information stored in inventory database by adding

or deleting resources on the basis of actual network in-

frastructure state.

Comarch OSS Suite – Logical View Comarch Inventory Management – Service Inventory

5

Telecommunications

Another functionality of Comarch Inventory is Network

Provisioning which allows for execution of commands

upon NMS/EMS in order to setup end-to-end connec-

tions in the network. Provisioning is assured thanks to

bi-directional interfaces with the network provided by

Comarch OSS Mediation.

Integration with other Comarch products as Comarch

OSS Process Management gives additional benefits.

Comarch OSS Process ManagementComarch OSS Process Management allows fully man-

aged and controlled execution of all operational pro-

cesses. It supports task automation in order to reduce

operation time and cost with increased overall OSS so-

lution efficiency. Comarch OSS Process Management

is the first released product of the new Comarch OSS

Suite 4 which features include:

• Task automation

• Monitored and controlled incident and problem

resolution process

• Automatic service impact calculation

• Organized and supervised, quicker and more efficient

change management

• Groups of predefined processes and set of ready to

use tasks to reduce implementation time

• Dedicated user interface forms

The strength of the Comarch OSS Process Management

relies on tight integration with other Comarch OSS Suite

modules. The ITIL processes of Order, Change, Incident or

Problem Management are delivered in predefined librar-

ies and after customization all the standard operations

and tasks in the area of inventory or fault management

are controlled by a structured workflow. This feature

gives also an ability to build Trouble Ticket system on the

base of Comarch OSS Process Management used as the

first line support. An integrated Knowledge-Base speed-

ing-up the resolution of repetitive problems and improv-

ing knowledge transfer is also an added value.

Comarch Fault Management Comarch Fault Management is a complete solution to

ongoing fault issues inside operators’ networks. It mon-

itors all important elements of the network, receives,

displays and efficiently tracks alarms, allowing users

to manage potentially dangerous network problems

quickly and effectively. Its flexible and extensive range

Comarch OSS Suite – Process ManagementComarch OSS Suite – Network Inventory

6

Comarch OSS Suite

of features assist operators in detecting and solving is-

sues that are at the root of network faults.

Comarch Fault Management offers:

• Alarms escalation

• Events de-multiplication

• Assistance in fault resolution

• Events detection and tracking

• Comprehensive alarms visualization

• Events filtering

Comarch Fault Management integrated with Comarch

Service Level Management provides the ability to mon-

itor offered services with automatic business impact

calculation and effective root cause analysis based on

Fault Management correlation engine. Used together

with Inventory Management module offers advanced

event enrichment and presentation of actual network

device state in all inventory views.

Comarch Network Performance Management Comarch Network Performance Management allows op-

erators to considerably improve network performance

and efficiency in a cost-effective manner. The goal of Co-

march Network Performance Management is to provide

a centralized control point of performance monitoring

and network performance reporting, which allows to

maintain maximum availability of mission-critical net-

work resources. It assures:

• Network Elements performance data collection and

processing

• Long-term data preparation for further analysis of

network resources usage

• Network efficiency monitoring in a semi real-time

mode

Data calculated by Comarch Network Performance Man-

agement may be further used by Service Level Man-

agement system to check if threshold violations af-

fect offered services. Violations can be also reported

as events and transferred as alarms to Fault Manage-

ment module.

Comarch OSS Suite – Performance ReportComarch OSS Suite - Alarm List

7

Telecommunications

Comarch Service Level ManagementComarch Service Level Management is a high level moni-

toring solution designed to model the full range of busi-

ness services and SLA’s concerning services provided by

the operator. Comarch Service Level Management al-

lows operators to define and monitor services and re-

lated SLA’s in such a way that will considerably increase

customer satisfaction minimizing losses resulting from

SLA complaints. This module ensures continuous moni-

toring of service quality, it enables:

• Online monitoring of SLA defined parameters

• Event generation in the case of threshold overrun

• Automatic action when the threat of SLA violation

occurs

• Powerful reporting

• Ready-to-use predefined service level parameters

• Decision process support for actions that minimize

losses

Comarch OSS Suite System IntegrationOperators can greatly benefit from integrating compo-

nents of Comarch OSS Suite into one single solution.

Each module can be delivered separately and integrat-

ed in OSS environment.

Comarch OSS Mediation provides integration with NEM

Layer or with other systems.

Comarch Fault Management can take the required net-

work information from any Inventory system, use it to

correlate and enrich network events, which then can

be forwarded to other systems like Service Monitoring

or Trouble Ticketing systems.

Comarch Network and Service Inventory are flexible

modules, which can be implemented integrated or Ser-

vice Inventory can be implemented over any 3rd party

Resource Inventory. On the other hand the system usu-

ally depends on other data sources when Customer in-

formation or Product information is concerned.

8

Comarch OSS Suite – Geographical View Comarch OSS Suite – Network Overview

Comarch OSS Suite

Comarch Service Level Management can be integrat-

ed with any Resource Inventory for getting the needed

information for resource-facing services. As far as the

event source any Fault Management or Performance

Management system can be used. It is also possible to

integrate the SLM with TT for getting the events for the

service itself.

Tasks and processes needed to manage the network

and services can be controlled and supervised mostly in

automatic way by Comarch OSS Process Management.

The module is tightly integrated with all other Comarch

OSS modules and can be used for integration with other

workflow system. It provides web service API, which can

be used for instance for triggering the order manage-

ment process for services as a part of larger Customer

oriented Order Management process. Integrated with

Fault Management the module can deliver TT function-

ality or can be a part of a larger TT solution.

Comarch can also integrate its OSS modules with sub-

systems from other vendors used by our customers to

create a seamless company–wide IT solution.

9

Comarch OSS FrameworkComarch

OSS Process Management

Comarch Inventory

Management

Comarch Fault

Management

Comarch Performance Management

Comarch Service Level Management

Enhanced Communication Bus

Comarch Mediation Platform

Network Environment

OSS Suite architecture

Comarch OSS Suite

Authentication Service

Notification & Escalation

Service

Comarch OSS Console

Reporting Service

Telecommunications

• Modern technologies used to develop Comarch OSS

Suite guarantee the integration of IT systems and the

efficient flow of information among various platforms

and systems

• Comarch OSS Suite modules can be selected and

tailored according to individual needs

• Scalable architecture provides a wide range of pos-

sibilities for increasing the system’s efficiency and

capabilities

• Comarch OSS provides extensive functionality and

can be easily customized to fit any operator business

model, as reflected by its telecommunication or IT

environment

• Thanks to its numerous special design techniques,

the powerful Reasoning Engine and Process-driven

operations, the Suite can handle even the most complex

scenarios

• Based on NGOSS principles and SID data model which

guarantees its high accessibility

• Delivered with predefined templates of process based

on best practices like eTOM, ITIL and TMF GB921V Comarch OSS Suite helps in building end-2-end

automated processes for operations support and

assurance

• Comarch OSS Suite communication bus and event

repository, which are able to process several hundreds

of network events per second guarantees its unrivalled

efficiency

• Very efficient data model, which introduce a compro-

mise between flexibility and performance in resource

layer and gives high flexibility in the service modeling

allows for easy and quick introducing new types of

equipment as well as designing new services

10

Comarch OSS Suite Features

Users benefit from a premier service and network man-

agement suite that allows them to:

• fulfill the potential of their network,

• quickly react to the changing business environment,

• increase ROI and decrease operating costs,

• fully control and efficiently manage their networks,

• significantly reduce the number of faults and

malfunctions,

• easily and accurately plan the development of their

networks,

• fully meet their customers’ needs,

• easily and quickly introduce new services.

To keep network infrastructure operating at optimal

levels, a highly specialized, flexible and effective tool

is needed to manage it, one that offers:

• fast and reliable collection of network data,

• comprehensive analysis of the collected data,

• incident and problem management,

• inventory control,

• secure data storage and role based access to both

data and management tools,

• measurement of customer service quality through

management of service level agreements (SLAs),

• service monitoring,

• easy integration with CRM, Customer Care and Billing

systems.

Business Benefits

Comarch OSS Suite

Comarch OSS Suite modules

FulfillmentOperations Support & Readiness

Auto-discovery & Reconciliation

Network Inventory Management

Provisioning

Comarch OSS Suite

Service Inventory Management

Assurance

Service Level Management

Fault Management

Network Performance Management

Network & Service Assurance

Network & Service Inventory

OSS Mediation

OSS Process Management

11

At PTC we needed a sophisticated and open Umbrella

Management System, which would perform the central

role in our Technology Operations Center. After the pilot

phase with four selected products we chose Comarch

OSS Suite to implement our Fault Management System.

We can recommend Comarch as a reliable company with

professional and experienced staff. We are convinced

that Comarch OSS Suite is a modern and flexible solution

that will enable us to achieve rapid time-to-market with

next generation services management.Dariusz Antoniewicz,

Service Management Unit Manager, PTC (T-Mobile Group), Poland

telecommunications.comarch.comwww.comarch.com www.comarch.pl www.comarch.de www.comarch.ru

Comarch has been developing BSS/OSS solutions for telecommunications

since 1991. Today our solutions and managed services are chosen by incum-

bent operators, broadband and Triple-Play carriers, MVNOs/MVNEs, as well

as start-up operators worldwide. Our new generation of billing, network

and service management systems enable the launching of next-gen servic-

es and support innovative business models. Comarch’s primary advantage

lies in its extensive domain knowledge amassed in our software which we

use to deliver and integrate sophisticated business IT solutions.

EN-2008.11

ComArch Spółka Akcyjna with its registered seat in Kraków at Aleja Jana Pawła II 39A, entered in the National Court Register kept by the District Court for Kraków-Śródmieście in Kraków, the 11th Commercial Division of the National Court Register under no. KRS 000057567. The share capital amounts to 7,960,596.00 zł. The share capital was fully paid, NIP 677-00-65-406

Copyright © Comarch 2008. All Rights Reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of Comarch. Comarch reserves the right to revise this document and to make changes in the content from time to time without notice. Comarch may make improvements and/or changes to the product(s) and/or programs described in this document any time. The trademarks and service marks of Comarch are the exclusive property of Comarch, and may not be used without permission. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

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