NexusMEDIATION 9 Product Brief 130111

7/28/2019 NexusMEDIATION 9 Product Brief 130111

1/20

PRODUCT BRIEF

NexusMEDIATION 9Billing and OSS / BSS Mediation Solution

Issued January 2013

Issued by NEXUS TELECOM, Switzerland

Document Z-03-00408


2/20

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary.........................................................................................3

2 NexusMEDIATION Overview...........................................................................4

2.1 System Concept.......................................................................................4

2.2 Customer Benefits....................................................................................5

3 NexusMEDIATION System Functionality......................................................7

3.1 Core Functionality.....................................................................................7

3.2 Collection Interfaces.................................................................................7

3.3 Core Mediation Flow Modeling.................................................................8

3.4 Data Management and Multi-Vendor Support.......................................10

3.5 Distribution Interfaces.............................................................................10

3.6 Performance, Scalability, and Reliability................................................10

4 Operations and Maintenance........................................................................11

4.1 Security...................................................................................................11

4.2 Auditing Capabilities...............................................................................11

4.3 Systems Management............................................................................12

4.4 Monitoring...............................................................................................12

4.5 Alarming.................................................................................................13

4.6 Logging...................................................................................................13

4.7 Management of Rejected CDRs / Record Repair..................................14

4.8 Additional Functionality..........................................................................14

5 Supported Hardware, OS, and DB Systems................................................15

5.1 Hardware Architecture............................................................................15

6 Supported Technologies...............................................................................16

6.1 Supported Network Element Types.......................................................16

6.2 Supported BSS / OSS Systems.............................................................16

6.3 Supported Data Formats........................................................................17

6.4 Supported Data Transfer Protocols........................................................17

7 Nexus Telecom Fact Sheet...........................................................................19

NexusMEDIATION 9 | Product Brief | v2.1 | JAN 2013 | NEXUS TELECOM Page 2 of 20


3/20

Target Audience

This document is intended for reading by Nexus Telecom customers and interested parties in theglobal communications service provider community.

1 Executive Summary

Convergence is reality today: with a plethora of access networks available today (like xDSL, GSM,

GPRS, UMTS, LTE, WiMax or CDMA) all are using a core network based on IP protocol. Mediation

Management is the central ability to cope with this increasing upstream complexity in the network

topology i.e. by the introduction of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).

With this promise of convergence becoming more and more reality, mediation has become the central

hub for retrieving network usage data in the form of Chargeable Data Records (CDRs) from network

elements for charging purposes. Further enhanced is the role of mediation due to increasing

importance of the downstream systems (BSS/OSS systems).

Figure 1 - Revenue Assurance Stack

Commercial off-the-shelf (CoTS) mediation solutions need to provide the following key capabilities:

Flexibility and rapid time-to-market for configuration changes

Enhanced support for current and future charging requirements

Full SOX compliance

Highest performance and scalability with minimal hardware footprint to support current and future

subscriber and service usage growth while keeping total cost of ownership (TCO) at a competitive

level



4/20

Real-time processing capability for instantaneous KPI/KQI monitoring

Revenue assurance and reconciliation capabilities

Multi-technology and multi-vendor support is imperative

Full support of open standards, protocols and formats

2 NexusMEDIATION Overview

2.1 System Concept

NexusMEDIATION leverages leading operators ability - like Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile, Telekom

Portugal or Mobilink (Orascom) - to compete successfully in todays high-growth, convergent but

hugely competitive communications market, to generate new revenues and to support rapid service

integration in multi-vendor, multi-service environments.

NexusMEDIATION collects subscriber usage data from switches, servers or any other network

element either file-based or streaming in real-time. The system then transmits this data to the billing

system in an appropriate format, enabling the service provider to bill its customers in a number of

different ways.

Figure 2 - NexusMEDIATION Product Concept

This concept with its highly advanced processing capabilities allows sophisticated



5/20

Filtering

Aggregation of intermediate tickets

Correlation

Validation and auto-repair of corrupted records

Format conversions

Enrichments

Mappings

File & CDR duplicate checking

Rating and Guiding

2.2 Customer BenefitsNexusMEDIATION helps fixed, mobile and convergent operators around the globe to achieve leading

positions in their hugely competitive markets by enabling the transition to next-generation

infrastructure under the imperatives of

More agility

Faster (time-to-market)

Lower costs

NexusMEDIATION mediates the broadest range of voice- and data-centric consumer, enterprise and

carrier services for these operators.

Lowering OPEX for new service introductions

By successfully abstracting network complexity form the downstream systems, new service

introductions can be achieved without changing the BSS/OSS downstream systems. With its flexible

and modular architecture, rule-based modeling of processing logic, rapid configuration changes are

achieved. Hence new services logic and charging requirements the core business rules are quickly

adjusted.

All modifications are executed via a zero-footprint, browser-based User Interface (UI) ensuring

Rapid introduction of new/modified network elements (upstream) or BSS/OSS (downstream)

systems

Fail-safe modeling of mediation flows rather than error-prone configuration or even lengthy and

expensive programming

Flexible adding/amending of mediation flow components at any point in the flow (i.e. filtering before

and after aggregation, validation and conversion etc.)

Quick cloning of existing data sources (network elements and attached data formats) instead of re-

configurations



6/20

Convenient search & retrieval within Lines-of-Business (LoB) elements, data formats, network

elements and mediation flows

Differentiated charging models to leverage revenue opportunities

The NexusMEDIATION Rating Engine module supports a plethora of charging principles:

Voice and data related models (e.g. event-charging, subscription-charging, volume, duration,

MoU etc.)

Flat fee (one-off and recurring)

On-line and batch rating

Quality Indicators (QoS, Trunk etc.)

Revenue Assurance and Data Reconciliation to close critical revenue leaksThe system automatically detects revenue leakages due to systems errors, provisioning mistakes,

corrupted data etc. and hence ensures that all available data can be utilized.

Revenue assurance counters to detect corrupted data or orphaned intermediate tickets

Dynamic CDR repair based on hash tables to auto-complete missing information and data items

Complete audit trail and reports for 100% transparency of data-IN and data-OUT

Fully configurable file and CDR duplicate management

Fully configurable file and CDR sequence number management

Lowering CAPEX and OPEX by providing a unified mediation hub

The system enables a unified mediation environment enabling significant savings on current and

future OPEX and CAPEX by

providing a consolidated mediation environment for all existing and future mediation needs and

hence avoiding duplication of processes and hardware as well as training staff on various

environments

eliminating the need for further pre-mediation solutions or other legacy systems to be maintained

providing a clear migration path from release to release, backward compatibilities and vendor-

templates

offering add-on components for future technologies already today (i.e. IMS in all-IP architectures)

Mature CoTS mediation solution with best-in-industry TCO

NexusMEDIATION HW is highly mature, carrier-grade, and fully capable of modeling today's and

tomorrow's multi-vendor and multi-technology environments

Significantly shorter introduction and implementation times than tailor-made solutions

Rich interface templates, format and protocol plug-ins to accommodate any permutation of

upstream- and downstream systems (network elements and BSS/OSS systems)



7/20

Independent Software Vendor (ISV) mediation solution guarantees compatibility to a plethora of

in particular - network equipment vendor specific implementations of standards and protocols

Convenient, hassle-free maintenance and cost-effective usage

Leveraging information for Customer Experience Intelligence

A NexusMEDIATION business intelligence add-on component allows for

effective CDR reconciliation from probe-based network monitoring solutions (e.g.

NexusNETVIEW), test systems (e.g. NexusVERIFYER), and for roaming traffic (TAP 2/3)

OLAP-based business intelligence and customer experience to surface gold-nuggets of data in

order to run the business with a critical information and insight advantage

3 NexusMEDIATION System Functionality

3.1 Core Functionality

NexusMEDIATION general feature highlights include:

Parallel processing for leading scalability

Real-time mediation

Scheduled and on-demand mediation flow management (push/pull)

Data Source concept

File and xDR duplication detection

Zero-footprint, browser-based user interface

Advanced process control per mediation flow

Logbook, error handling and SNMP Interface

Standard and Ad-Hoc Reporting, Dashboards and KPI Statistics

Profile-based user roles

Access control and reliability

Open and modular systems architecture

Extensive multi-vendor capability

Customer configurable dashboard when logging on to user interface

3.2 Collection Interfaces

Usage data collection is performed using the following features:

Polling (NexusMEDIATION as initiator, pull interface)

NE notification (push interface)

File-based or streams (e.g. IPDR, XML etc.)



8/20

Data release at network element sites, supported by mediation transport interface

Automatic raw usage data archiving after transmission (optional)

Detection of protocol errors and automatic retries up to a preset limit to enhance collection

resilience

3.3 Core Mediation Flow Modeling

NexusMEDIATION supports extensive business logic modeling capabilities. Mediation flows can easily

be created, modified, cloned and hence effectively managed using an intuitive UI-driven approach.

Powerful flexibility comes conventionally with the price of error-prone configuration hassle. Writing

code is a no-go, given time-to-market requirements and cost focus in todays marketplace. Therefore

a strictly process-orientated modeling approach in the NexusMEDIATION User Interface combines

powerful flexibility with abstraction to hide unnecessary complexity.

Dynamic online rule creation allows on-the-fly changes without disturbing ongoing mediation

operations.

Figure 3 - NexusMEDIATION Mediation Flow Modeling

Freely definable processing steps within a mediation flow include but are not limited to

Data format management for input and output formats of mediation core

Collection

File/Data Sequence Number Handling

Conversion into internal data structure (IDS)

Aggregation according to business rules

Filtering, Merging and Guiding



9/20

Mapping

Enrichment by looking up 3rd party data

Verification

Validation

Output conversion

File/Data Duplicate Handling

Correlation

Rating

Reconciliation

DB Loading (high performance SQL DB loading of CDR data)

Data backup & archiving

NexusMEDIATION supports flexible business rule configuration and deployment to conveniently

accommodate ongoing change.

Figure 4 - Data Enrichment configuration within a mediation flow

Another key capability is to filter out duplicate records across multiple files or streams within specified

time windows. A buffer window allows dynamic modifications of the active window to improve

resilience.

Aggregation allows the BSS/OSS systems to receive only one chargeable data record per actual

service delivery in the network. The system provides:

Aggregation of partial or interim records for long voice calls

Aggregation of partial RADIUS records for calculation of session length and data volumes

Aggregation of records for IP billing (e.g. Cisco Netflow, Huawei)



10/20

3.4 Data Management and Multi-Vendor Support

NexusMEDIATION supports a rich choice of network elements as data sources, as well asdownstream systems. Format templates and plug-ins allow for quick installation and configuration of

custom requirements.

Figure 5 - Configuration of a new data format mapping

3.5 Distribution Interfaces

The usage data in the IDS is converted for distribution into the expected input format of the associated

downstream system. Hence the upstream system complexity is abstracted away from the BSS/OSSsystem and it receives understandable information in a stable interface format and protocol.

NexusMEDIATION maintains a rich suite of

interface templates for 3rd party BSS/OSS downstream platforms and vendors

standard and proprietary data format Plug-In and protocols to distribute data.

3.6 Performance, Scalability, and Reliability

NexusMEDIATION has been proven to effectively mediate up to several billion CDRs per day, as is

within near-term reach of many operators offering a rich product portfolio on their respective markets.

This scalability is achieved by the following concepts:

In-Memory Data Base (IMDB) technology is used to greatly enhance throughput in time-critical

processing steps like aggregation and conversion

Code is partly written in fast-executing C programming language to leverage performance niches

as compared to certain Java implementations

Parallel processing allows for scaling throughput as workload is unevenly distributed over time



11/20

4 Operations and Maintenance

4.1 Security

NexusMEDIATION includes a rich set of security features to ensure compliance with customer and

industry needs as well as current authoritative and legal regulations (e.g. SOX compliance):

Configurable passwords and role-based user profiles

Full audit trail on all activities and modifications

Https for the UI and Secure-FTP for collection and distribution ensuring integrity of user interactions

and data collection

Database security measures to avoid system manipulation directly on the DB, bypassing the UI

The underlying JBOSS supports safe fail-over and automatic load distribution

4.2 Auditing Capabilities

NexusMEDIATION allows complete transparency on all user activities. All configuration tasks are

conveniently executed using the configuration UI.

Figure 6 - User Activity Auditing



12/20

4.3 Systems Management

NexusMEDIATION supports fully UI-driven global systems management configuration and baselinesetup:

Global variables are easily configured in a central location to define cross-platform behavior of the

system (e.g. retry attempts for collection, scheduling clean-up, and systems maintenance tasks)

Central repository of all network elements, formats, protocols, mediation flows and associated

business rules, structured in Line-of-Business containers (e.g. Fixed Line, Mobile, ISP and IPV

quadruple play structures)

Central management of locations, directories, IP addresses and domains is fully user profile-driven

and password-protected

4.4 Monitoring

The System Monitoring is performed using the following features:

UI-based monitoring dashboard and RAG coding for high-level overview

Drill-Up and Drill-Down for individual process step analysis

Host load monitoring

Infocodes and Revenue Assurance Counters

Figure 7 - Configurable User Logon Dashboard



13/20

4.5 Alarming

NexusMEDIATION supports

Fully configurable Alarm Aging

Alarming integration into NMC/NOC (e.g. umbrella network management systems) via SNMP

interface

NexusMEDIATION supports alarm aging in order to facilitate structured alarm management rather

than swamping the operator with alarms if thresholds are too low, or not receiving any alarms at all if

thresholds are set too high.

Figure 8 - Alarm Aging and Clean-Up Configuration

4.6 LoggingLog-Book entries are kept for all

user activity

systems modifications

incidence log entries

normal and pathologic (mal-) functioning

to ensure a complete audit trail and SOX compliance. The user with appropriate operations rights can

configure various severity levels, healthy and pathologic transaction log entries, and acknowledge

warnings (dead-man acknowledge).



14/20

The system additionally supports:

Trace Interface

Heartbeat functionality to avoid process starvation or deadlock during system health logging.

All configuration activities are easily managed via the user interface.

Figure 9 - Global Systems Configuration

4.7 Management of Rejected CDRs / Record Repair

Collected data from upstream systems can easily be parsed for syntactical correctness and content-

wise completeness as part of the mediation flow. All rejected records are stored in pre-configured

containers. A processing logic can be configured for all storages (e.g. clean-up, delete, re-process

etc.). Corrupted records can be repaired using CDR correction rules; missing fields can partially be(auto-)completed by dynamically building up lookup tables from the incoming data stream, or by

accessing 3rd-party systems for lookup and data validation. Any CDR lost means lost revenue.

4.8 Additional Functionality

NexusMEDIATION sports the following additional modules:

User Administration: Different rights and permissions for different user roles are supported. A user

can log onto the system as either administrator, user, or customizer. The administrator has the

following priviledges: Network element and data format managemen; BSS/OSS management;



15/20

mediation flow management; scheduling; user management, auditing, as well as report and

dashboard management.

Figure 10 - User Administration

Ad-hoc Data Analysis: Offers the option to search, analyze, and check CDRs in output or error

storage

Reporting: Integrated as standard functionality (not subject to separate licensing) to satisfy all

standard and ad-hoc reporting needs. The system features a rich set of standard reports that can

easily further be customized

Dashboards: Dynamic modification and creation of dashboards by simple drag & drop

Archiving and Backup / Restore: Full support of archiving of data records from collection to

distribution at every processing step of the mediation flow

5 Supported Hardware, OS, and DB Systems

5.1 Hardware Architecture

The NexusMEDIATION Billing Mediation Solution supports the following hardware platforms:

OS: Oracle Solaris, HP Unix, Linux

RDBMS: Oracle 10g / 11g

JBOSS, Tomcat

Sun FTAM (if applicable)



16/20

MS Explorer, Mozilla Firefox

6 Supported Technologies

6.1 Supported Network Element Types

PSTN switches

PSTN IN platforms

Multiservice / Multiprotocol Switches

Routers

Metro Ethernet (Routing) Switches

Optical Transport Platforms

MSC for GSM, CDMA, TDMA networks

Mobile Prepaid Platforms (IN)

Voice Mail Systems

Short Message Service Centers (SMSC)

Multi-Media Message Centers (MMSC)

GPRS/UMTS Charging Gateways

GPRS Network Elements (GGSN, SGSN)

IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS)

WAP Gateways

SMS Routers and Gateways

Location-based Services Platforms

Terminal Management Servers (OTA)

Session Border Controllers (SBC)

VoIP Network Elements (Soft Switches)

Digital TV Platforms

Radius AAA Servers

Signaling Monitoring Systems

6.2 Supported BSS / OSS Systems

Retail Billing Systems

IC Billing Systems

Data Warehouse Systems

Fraud Management Systems

Umbrella Monitoring Systems



17/20

Revenue Assurance Systems

MVNO Gateways

ERP Systems

CRM Systems

CEM Systems

6.3 Supported Data Formats

ASCII

CSV (Comma-separated)

Any Delimited

XML Positional

NRTRDE

Binary

Various AMA, incl. IACAMA, IACHASTA

ASN.1 BER

BCD (straight, swapped, reversed, and telephony)

Blocked

IPDR

Positional

Structured

TAP 2/3

TLV, XDR

6.4 Supported Data Transfer Protocols

CORBA

DDP

DIAMETER

Ericsson MTP

FTAM

FTP

sFTP

FTPS

GTP

HTTP / HTTPS

LDAP

Nortel AFT



18/20

Nortel XFER

RADIUS

SCP

SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, SNMPv3

SOAP

SQL

TCP/IP

UDP

Additional vendor-proprietary Protocols



19/20

7 Nexus Telecom Fact Sheet

Nexus Telecom founded in 1994 - is a privately held company headquartered in Switzerland.

Regional full-service offices allow customer intimacy and flexible collaboration worldwide.

An innovation-driven company, Nexus Telecom re-invests more than 25% of revenues into R&D.

Product innovation is completely held in-house at the various locations and is considered a core

competency of the company.

NOTE: Additional information is available atwww.nexustelecom.com. Portfolio and Key References.

Nexus Telecom operates under strict non-disclosure agreements with each and every

customer. Reference information will be provided upon request and mutual consent on

purpose and scope to respect and maintain integrity of mutual cooperation and collaboration

within the industry and geographic markets on an ongoing basis.

http://www.nexustelecom.com/http://www.nexustelecom.com/


20/20

Notice

Every effort was made to ensure that the information in this document was accurate at the time of

printing. However, information is subject to change without notice, and NEXUS TELECOM reserves

the right to provide an addendum to this document with information not available at the time that this

document was created.

Copyright

Copyright 2013 NEXUS TELECOM. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be

reproduced or transmitted electronically or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

Trademarks

NEXUS TELECOM and its logo are trademarks of NEXUS TELECOM AG. All other trademarks and

registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Revision History

Version Date Author

1.0 MAR 2011 Stefan Crome

1.1 APR 2011 Stefan Crome

2.0 JUN 2012 Gino Barille

2.1 JAN 2013 Gino Barille

NexusMEDIATION 9 Product Brief 130111

Documents

Transcript of NexusMEDIATION 9 Product Brief 130111