Page 402 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

Network Management and Administration 3-193

(NETExplorer/IPExplorer), inventory (NetInv), and performance management (PVSR). On the basis
of these foundations, NETvisor has also built interesting solutions such as the Service Level Assistance
Suite, a multisource SLA management and reporting solution; the ITVSense DVB/IPTV/3Play end-to-
end management system; and ANMS, a platform-independent management framework aimed at access
technologies (e.g., xDSL, Gigabit Passive Optical Network [GPON], WiMAX).
A particularly noteworthy market for these vendors consists of Tier 2/Tier 3 providers both in the
region and in many other parts of the world (e.g., Asia and Africa). In the case of many of these provid-
ers, the complex systems of traditional vendors listed above are moderately useful (their new networks
do not need to be integrated with extensive legacy technology) but prohibitively expensive.

3.7.5 Consolidation of Support Systems
OSS and BSS continue to be consolidated. Usually, best-of-breed products are combined with each other
to offer best-of-suite capabilities. This consolidation can occur in different ways:
• Suppliers extend the scope of their products to meet general and/or customer demand. Examples
include Nakima Systems, Telcordia, BMC, Wily, and NetScout.
• System integrators and solution providers integrate products to meet specific customer demand.
Examples include Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Accenture, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard.
• Mergers and acquisitions lead to product portfolio cleansing, unification, and simplification
of product offerings. Examples include IBM and Micromuse, Hewlett-Packard and Mercury,
Amdocs and Craemer, Subex and Azure, CA and Wily, Telcordia and Granite, EMC and Smarts,
CSG and Telution, Oracle and Siebel, and Metasolve and Portal.
Today, OSSs and BSSs are fragmented into the following functional groupings: service fulfillment,
service assurance, and billing and revenue assurance. Figure 3.7.5 shows near-term consolidation of (1)
network-facing modules with network-related service fulfillment (network planning, discovery, physi-
cal inventory, network element configuration, service activation) and assurance (fault management,
performance management, service-level management) and (2) customer-facing modules with customer-
related service fulfillment (order management, customer relationship management) and billing (rating,
online payment).

Network Facing Modules Customer Facing Modules
Network Business
Planning Discovery Analytics

Physical Service Order
Customer
Inventory Activation Management Relationship
Management
Network Element
Configuration
Services Billing
Portfolio Online
Database
Payment
Performance Service Level
Management Management Rating
Usage
Mediation
Fault
Management

FIGu RE 3.7.5 Near-term OSS consolidation.