Enhancing Geodata Display for the Enterprise
Our ability to extract meaning from, and make useful decisions in a timely manner has not kept
pace with ever increasing amounts of data. By summarizing, generalizing, and abstracting large
volumes of data, we can create more effective visualizations of data in order to find patterns for
testing theories and hypotheses, and for making critical business decisions.
The solution shown in Figure 1 can help solve both the internal and the external management
issues around Operational Support System (OSS) interconnection. It can bridge the gap between
legacy to legacy connectivity, as well as the additional mix of vendor and homegrown
proprietary solutions.
Core business drivers are the vital forces behind the deployment of such an implementation.
These drivers include:
- The need to make the service provider network more reliable and reactive improving
quality of service.
- Providing customers with services faster than their previous capabilities and their
competitors.
- Enabling the delivery of new and innovative services and service bundles.
- Finding and repairing faults faster ensuring higher reliability of the network.
- Selectively providing wholesale information to Competitive Local Exchange Companies
(CLECs), protecting successful business processes.
Service providers desperately need the this type of solutions now. Issues such as scalability and
extensibility need to be addressed, however The solution must be able to install in small test
markets for CLEC endeavors and scale/grow, as the business is geographically successful.
Incumbent Local Exchange Companies (ILECs) need it to scale with respect to the size of their
large legacy OSS’s and have the capability of scaling down for small remote areas in their
regions. For both ILECs and CLECs, this solution needs to have the capability to incorporate
new advanced services and service bundles with minimal adjustment to the system.
Business Opportunity
Although the business opportunity for the GeoData Display product is discussed here in term of
the telecom industry, there are similar benefits for other utility customers such as electric and gas
distribution companies.
A full featured version of the GeoData Display tool would provide benefits to large number of
users both internal and external to the company. Various types of external data sources can be
supported but in an environment where the heterogeneous aspects are mediated via an
information bus middleware environment. This will minimize the level of expertise needed to
compose the desired views.
The product would provide API "adapters" that perform data mapping and semantic translation
for inbound data items so that the registration, conflation, coordinate transformation, scaling,
symbology, and feature definition functions can happen with much less user intervention than the
intermediate release.
Benefits
Background
Telecommunications today is an industry of dramatically opposing forces struggling to find a
balance. Drastic changes including "re-regulation", business models, and technology are
hampering the ability of service providers to effectively provide products and services to their
customers. Current management systems were created in an era where uniformity of technology
and services was pervasive. Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) was the primary service
provided. Network element provisioning was essentially a manual process. The elements carried
little to no intelligence and did not have the capability of delivering complex services or the
capability to understand their environment. Craft people were dispatched to the elements and
performed mechanical manipulation of the equipment for the purpose of provisioning and the
isolation and repair of faults. The element management systems provided surveillance and
database inventory functions. Connectivity between managers was not always automated, and if
automated, connection management was proprietary.
Following the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs)
further complicated this disjointed approach by adding new and proprietary products to manage
the new advanced network elements. The legacy systems had no capability to provide operations,
administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) services for the new elements, thus
requiring the new vendor to design a proprietary or "homegrown" management systems to be put
into place.
An end-to-end view of the network was virtually impossible. Vendor specific managers became
islands of mechanization throughout the network. Additionally, the Telecom Reform Act of 1996
(TA96) broke down the barriers to preventing new service providers (e.g., competitive local
exchange carriers - CLECs) from gaining entry into the marketplace and enabled incumbent
local exchange carriers (ILECs) to enter new geographic markets by complying with the TA96's
mandates. Considering the lack of connectivity within and between the current ILEC network
and service management infrastructure, the TA96's mandates for allowing CLEC’s to wholesale
purchase segments of the ILEC network (including OSS OAM&P information) is not easily or
economically attainable.
Moreover, complex combinations of POTS services with new data and video overlay networks
will add significantly to the complexity of the OSS dilemma. These new and advanced services
will require a whole new domain of network management protocols and tools, coupled with new-
non-traditional network elements. Routers, bridges and switches for the new data services will be
added to the network. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) will become more ubiquitous,
enabling the mix of voice, data and video services to be effectively delivered to end-users. The
difficulty of creating an end-to-end view of the network is increasing.
The GeoData Display tool can help solve both the internal and the external management issues
around OSS interconnection. This tool in its ultimate implementation can bridge the gap between
legacy to legacy connectivity, as well as the additional mix of vendor and homegrown
proprietary solutions.
End-to-End Views of the Network
Since the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, the telephone network has been continuously evolving
technically and in the business arena. As operational issues dictate, new technologies are
repeatedly introduced to resolve operational issues and to be more cost effective. New services
were not necessarily required as part of the technology improvement. For instance, when
asynchronous copper-based trunk usage was being exhausted, fiber based Synchronous Optical
Network (SONET) technology was introduced to relieve the bandwidth shortage. There was little
pressure to innovate and create. Network management was not end-to-end. To mitigate this
problem the GeoData Display tool can:
- Provide spatial end-to-end views of the network and views of relationships between physical
network elements.
- Provide views of both physical and logical resources of the network.
- Support real-time network wide alarm correlation, fault management, network provisioning,
and new service bundles.
- Support One Call or CBUD operations.
Views Crossing Technology Boundaries
De-regulation and liberalization of the global telecommunications industry has created an
enormous paradigm shift with respect to competition. In North America, the and associated FCC
mandates have changed the competitive environment. Local service competition has become a
reality.
ILEC and CLEC network management integration, requires innovation to provide market
advantages. Access and utilization of databases tied to physical resources will need to be
dynamically connected to logical resources. The GeoData Display tool can support the
integration effort in the following ways:
- Bundled services that cross technology boundaries with spatial relationships can be viewed
and analyzed.
- The connection of cellular, paging, home, and business access by one number (Number
portability) can be visualized.
- Operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) operational support
systems (OSS) data can be accessed, along with the related network elements for switching,
transmission and access in both wired and wireless domains.
- Locations of physical and logical resources can be viewed. As dynamic changes occur, they
can be made available and visible to network managers.
- Routing tables that provide information about logical connections between network elements
can be spatially represented in dynamic views of the network.
- If a fiber is cut, the new route can be easily displayed through this process by combining
logical connections, data and physical resources in a single network view.
- In addition to the physical and logical resources that need to be tracked dynamically, human
resources (location, technical skill sets) can be recognized and understood by linking to a
work force management system.
- Locations of parts, and their details (e.g., version and functions) can also be acknowledged
by linking to materials system.
- All elements (physical, logical, and spatial) can be viewed in order to be targeted for
maintenance and repair of the network.
