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Case Study

OSS/J-facilitated Trouble Ticketing at Vodafone

OSS/J-facilitated TroubleTicketing at Vodafone

Summary

Initial Situation

-

Increasing complexity of OSSarchitecture

-

Necessity to integrate severaldifferent TT Systems aroundEurope

Solution

-

OSS/J

as the integration layer

Conclusion

-

OSS/J

TT API is efficient andworks in real-world applications

-

OSS/J

reduces integration costs

Initial Situation

Mobile operators are constantlyfaced with the challenge of in-creasingly complex products andrapidly decreasing prices on theone hand and the need for newhigh-quality services which have tobe delivered in ever shorter de-ployment periods on the other.More and more systems which arealready complex in their own righthave to communicate with eachother and be integrated so thateach system can offer the bestpossible service at the best possibleprice.This has led to increasingly loudcalls for easier integrability of thevarious systems, notably from theOperations Support Systems (OSS)sections of service providers. Whilethe usual practice to date has beento link very different systems suchas Fault Management, ChangeManagement and Trouble Ticketingpoint to point, it has now becomeimperative to find solutions whereall the systems communicate, e.g.through middleware, in order tooptimize the cost and maintainabil-ity of the complete system.In 2003, the Network ManagementDepartment of

Vodafone D2

had totake a decision on the future inte-gration of extremely different sys-tems. The question was whether tochoose a classic EAI approach or torely on

OSS/J through Java Initia-tive (OSS/J)

standards.The

OSS/J Initiative

set itself theaim of developing APIs based on

the Java 2 Enterprise Edition

Plat-form (

J2EE

). These APIs facilitateand reduce the cost of interactionbetween very different services. Itshould be pointed out that it is thusnot merely a question of “paper standards” here, but that ReferenceImplementations (RI) and Technol-ogy Compatibility Kits (TCK) arealso actually delivered alongsideAPI specifications.

Solution

First, the

Vodafone D2

NetworkManagement Department commis-sioned a small German vendor toundertake a feasibility study on

OSS/J

. As the results were verypromising, it was decided to carryout a Proof of ConceptThe Service Management SystemSMoS, which is based

on Agilent´s

NETeXPERT

, and the TroubleTicketing System TTWOS, which isbased on

BMC Remedy ARS

andwas delivered by

Ascom Systems &Solutions

, were to be linked throughan

OSS/J

server on

SUN

Serversand corresponding

OSS/J

clients aspart of

Vodafone’s

“ServiceManagement IntegrationArchitecture” (SeMIA).The basis for the link was

OSS/J

Trouble Ticketing API (JSR91).Various other companies apart from

Ascom

also took part in this PoC.

Case Study

OSS/J-facilitated Trouble Ticketing at Vodafone

Tours

ServiceInventorySystem

TTWOS

D2 TroubleTicketingSystem

TeMIP

FaultManagementSystem

SMOS

ServiceMonitoringSystem

ChaMPS

ChangeManagementSystem

SeMIA

Tours

ServiceInventorySystem

TTWOS

D2 TroubleTicketingSystem

TTWOS

D2 TroubleTicketingSystem

TeMIP

FaultManagementSystem

TeMIP

FaultManagementSystem

SMOS

ServiceMonitoringSystem

SMOS

ServiceMonitoringSystem

ChaMPS

ChangeManagementSystem

ChaMPS

ChangeManagementSystem

SeMIA

After the successful conclusion of the PoC, a decision was taken toput this initial and as yet very simpleinterfacing of systems into produc-tive operation.Andreas Buschmann (

VodafoneD2

) notes: “The PoC finally con-vinced us that

OSS/J

was ripe for real-life applications and that

OSS/J

was the correct approach for mov-ing away from traditional point-to-point links”.In the ensuing period, the first sim-ple system based on

OSS/J

wasreplaced by a system offering con-siderably more possibilities andinterfaces. The Systems & Solu-tions business unit of AscomDeutschland GmbH was responsi-ble for much of the implementationprocess here.

Vodafone

chose

Ascom’s

product

ARS over OSS/J

as the integrationcomponent

. ARS over OSS/J

con-sists of a complete

OSS/J

TT server based on

OSS/J

TT API and corre-sponding clients for

Remedy

-basedTrouble Ticketing Systems.

Ascom’s Remedy

-based TroubleTicketing System TTWOS and

Ascom’s

likewise

Remedy

-basedChange Management SystemChaMPS were integrated by meansof

ARS over OSS/J

.In addition,

HP’s TeMIP

Fault Man-agement System, the Service In-ventory System Tours based on

HP Servicedesk

and the Service Moni-toring System SMoS based on

Agilent’s NETeXPERT

were inte-grated.Andreas Buschmann (

VodafoneD2

) assesses the success of theSeMIA Project as follows: “Theapplication of

OSS/J

technologies inour SeMIA Project has resulted insignificant savings, encouraging usto use

OSS/J

in other areas in thefuture.”The current active structure of theSeMIA Project is illustrated in thefollowing diagram.The ongoing internationalization of the

Vodafone

affiliated Group, theincreasing level of collaborationbetween the various international

Vodafone

companies necessitatedby this and the corresponding needfor a standardized solution,prompted

Vodafone

to launch anew

OSS/J

Project, the Interna-tional Trouble Ticketing System(ITTS).The aim here was to facilitate theexchange of Trouble Tickets be-tween

Vodafone

companies indifferent countries. Considerationhad to be given to the fact thatdiffering Trouble Ticket Systemswere in operation in the differentcountries and furthermore that itwas intended that these shouldcommunicate with each other with-out having to make major changesto the individual TT systems.Several of the TT systems in thedifferent countries were based onthe

BMC Remedy AR System

.

Ascom Systems & Solutions

playeda leading role in the implementationof the ITTS Project.

Ascom’s

contri-butions here included

ARS over OSS/J

, a product which makes itpossible to send and receive

OSS/J

-conform Trouble Ticketsfrom

BMC Remedy ARS

.

ARS over OSS/J

provided both an

OSS/J

Server and a client here.

ARS over OSS/J

makes it easier for

Vodafone

to link various companiesin different countries into the ITTSProject within a relatively short timedespite their very different localsystems.The application of

OSS/J

technolo-gies enables global Trouble Ticket-ing to operate independently of local systems. The local systemsprovide both

OSS/J

TT clients and

OSS/J

TT servers.In global terms, the number of pointto point links can thus be dramati-cally reduced and a company-widestandard can be set, as it were, by

OSS/J

TT.

Vodafone

now even provides acentral

J2EE

hosting which is oper-ated by

Ascom

and which enablesthe individual companies in different

Case Study

OSS/J-facilitated Trouble Ticketing at Vodafone

ITTS/VINEVF DEVF ESVF ITVF PTVF UK......VF XXVF GSP

ARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JOwnTT impl.AnyOSS/J TT impl.ARS overOSS/J

ITTS/VINEVF DEVF ESVF ITVF PTVF UK......VF XXVF GSP

ARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JARS overOSS/JOwnTT impl.AnyOSS/J TT impl.ARS overOSS/J

countries to participate in the ITTSProject without having

J2EE

serversof their own. This central hostingonce again results in significantsavings for the individualcompanies in different countries.At present, six

Vodafone

companiesand global institutions are takingpart in the ITTS Project and four arealready connected through ITTS -

Vodafone

Germany,

Vodafone

Italy,

Vodafone

Spain and

Vodafone

Global Services Platforms.The following diagram illustrates thearchitecture.

Conclusion

With the help of its integrators andsuppliers,

Vodafone

has shown thatthe application of

OSS/J

technolo-gies simplifies the integration of very different systems and that thisalso leads to savings in the longterm. Point to point links can for themost part be replaced by point tomultipoint links.Andreas Buschmann (

VodafoneD2

) states. “

OSS/J

sets long-termstandards and the provision of APIs und Reference Implementa-tions through

OSS/J

simplifies theapplication of these standards byservice providers.

TM Forum’sProsspero Program

in particular should be mentioned in this regard.Its aim is to provide service provid-ers with solution possibilities basedon

TM Forum

standards, cookbooksand a complete eco-system for dedicated integration scenarios. It isthus unnecessary to invent thewheel yet again. We are verypleased that our

OSS/J

TT Case ispart of the first

Prosspero

SolutionPackage.”Gerd Höckelmann, Head of Re-search and Development at

AscomSystems & Solutions

states:“Through the use of our

OSS/J

-compliant certified product

ARS over OSS/J

, we have succeeded inlinking the different Trouble Ticket-ing Systems in the

Vodafone

Groupin a standardized way, therebyminimizing the expenditure andeffort required for integration.The approach taken by the

OSS/J

Initiative – the provision of Refer-ence Implementations and Tech-nology Compatibility Kits alongsidepaper standards - has proven to bethe right path towards a standard-ized OSS future.This will now be strengthened evenfurther by

the TM Forum ProssperoProgram

, which gives service pro-viders in particular an outstandingtool to orient themselves on theOSS solutions market and to im-plement new solutions speedily.We are proud to be part of the first

Prosspero

Solution Package withour solutions.”

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