Page 466 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

Network Management and Administration 3-257

With the IT world growing up and with more and more telecom services relying on traditional IT infra-
structure, this is no longer the best approach.
However, just moving to standard IT applications will also not work. That is because there are some
unique aspects that need to be provided by an OSS. First, telecom companies have types of equipment
that they need to manage that are not generally seen by enterprises and regular IT software. For example,
very few enterprises have a need to manage their own SDH network. Yet a facilities-based service pro-
vider with an SDH network will need to manage all aspects the network, something not doable through
standard IT management software. Second, enterprises do not have a strong distinction between service
offer and service subscription, nor between different customers. Because of this, regular IT management
software generally is missing the functionality that can deal with these concepts. Finally, the scale that
a telecom needs to manage is, in almost all aspects, much larger than the sale in an enterprise. While
there are some very large enterprises, most regular IT management software has different scalability
characteristics than that needed by a large telecom company.
HP NGOSS includes both telecom-specific and general IT software. Where the HP Business
Technology Optimization (BTO) software meets the telecom requirements, it is used. Sometimes, the
HP BTO software core meets the requirements, but it needs telecom-specific configurations, such as
using an SID-based data model. In those cases, HP NGOSS augments the HP BTO application with
telecom-specific configurations and customizations. Where the functionality or scalability require-
ments of the telecom industry go beyond what is needed for enterprises, HP NGOSS uses HP software
specialized for the industry or it partners with other companies.

3.10.5.2.2 Integrated Monolith vs. Point Products
Another set of extremes to avoid is between a single monolithic application and multiple point products.
A single monolithic application may work for managing a limited set of environments, but it introduces
two main business problems. First, if there are any existing legacy applications (and this will be the case
in most places, at least during some of the transformation phases), the monolithic application will have
a harder time working with the legacy systems. Second, a single monolithic application will be less flex-
ible. Future new services or infrastructure may require functionality not supported by the monolithic
application vendor.
The opposite extreme is building the OSS from multiple different point products, all selected inde-
pendently. The value here is that no company has all the required software functionality. The problem is
that, if each application comes from a different vendor, this will increase costs.
HP NGOSS brings a whole portfolio of HP and partner applications that can act together as a unified
system, but allows any application to be replaced. That allows legacy applications to easily fill in where
they provide the necessary functionality and retain business value. This avoids the monolithic appli-
cation problem. Because HP has a broad set of applications, bringing in and pre-integrating partners
where necessary, this avoids the problems with multiple point products.

3.10.6 Final Words
We have looked at the four major views of the HP NGOSS: business, functional, technical, and imple-
mentation. These are not the full architectural views, nor are they exactly applicable to any one com-
pany. Rather, they are sketches of the solution that can be adjusted and filled in to meet the specific
business requirements of any service provider. The focus of HP NGOSS is to support service providers
as they offer new convergent services that rely on a combination of traditional telecom service elements
together with new service elements provided through traditional IT systems. The approach is equally
valuable to service providers that are remaining with just providing traditional telecom services, as well
as new types of service providers that are only relying on IT systems for their services.
Several years ago, a CEO of a national telecommunications company asked the vice president in
charge of networks, “I am already building you an NGN, why do you also want an NGOSS?” It is hoped
that with this paper, that question will be unnecessary.