COMANAGE, CRAMER, GRANITE SHOW SOME OSS INTEGRITY

Feb 4, 2002 12:00 PM, Tim McElligott

New solutions at TeleStrategies show aimed at reconciling data

Three of the independent software vendors introducing new products this week at TeleStrategies OSS 2002 in San Diego will attempt to show carriers that the road to network integrity goes through inventory.

Combining network integrity with product integrity, Cramer Systems will launch its ROI Tool Kit, which promises to improve operational efficiency while offering proof of return on investment (ROI). Through a self-guided evaluation, the tool kit helps carriers build business cases for OSS investment by demonstrating Cramer's ability to improve on any combination of eight key drivers of EBITDA (see chart below).

“Last year, carriers were buying software based on its functionality and technical capability,” said Kimber Lewis, president of Cramer's North American operations. “Now it's [more] about the business value that implementing that software brings to a carrier.”

Cramer also will provide value-based pricing for customers, allowing them to pay according to the ROI.

Network inventory is acknowledged to be at the forefront of controlling network costs. “It's one of the core benefits of inventory products and resource management products,” said Peter Giglio, research analyst for GMK.

However, the benefits of operational efficiency are not immediately apparent.

“Ultimately, better inventory control is expected to lead to a better utilization of your resources,” Giglio said.

To help maintain control over inventory, Granite Systems took its software directly to equipment manufacturers. The company's new Xpercom Engine is an add-on module that manufacturers can bundle with their existing element management systems (EMSs) to create a single database for network operators.

“Equipment guys have their own element management systems — often, a whole pile of them — and they have trouble pulling them all together,” said Mark Mortensen, chief marketing officer for Granite. “This way, they can have a single repository of information.”

The Xpercom Engine synchronizes the inventory database with that of the EMSs through an embedded gateway. Extending the software capabilities to the network elements allows synchronization to occur as the equipment is being configured.

As for providing some sort of ROI tool kit, Mortensen said he prefers to let carriers talk with each other. “We have sets of numbers from other customers that are willing to talk to other prospects about how they saved money,” he said. “Tool kits are nice, but reality is better.”

But the reality, as CoManage sees it, is that — at best — data within an OSS is 15% inaccurate. The company, in limbo after selling the Integrated Service Manager product it launched with two years ago, will introduce a new flagship product called TrueSource that is focused on data integrity.

TrueSource uses a process called parallel discovery to identify both network equipment and the logical service connections associated with it. Although most inventory systems have some level of discovery, TrueSource takes the process one step further by reconciling discrepancies between the network and various OSSs.

“There are a lot of stranded resources in the network,” said Dave Nelsen, CEO and co-founder of CoManage. “If you can differentiate between valid and invalid connections, there is a lot of capacity to be recovered.”