A matter of interpretation

For virtually all players in the telecommunications industry, the multivendor infrastructure has become a fact of life. With consortiums forming and reforming to make the most of deregulated markets and new technologies, both wireline and wireless carriers are increasingly relying on the legacy systems and network elements of other partners.

As a result, thousands of elements from multiple vendors comprise the typical carrier network. The situation creates a special need for intelligent network management groups to maintain their proficiency at network operations. In the process, these groups must develop a special, new breed of advanced network management capabilities. These capabilities will be based on intelligent tools that can translate and interpret messages from all the different network elements involved. Without these tools, carriers with multivendor platforms are finding it more and more difficult to compete on service, availability and response times.

Intelligent network management tools have been available for some time. They make it possible to set up "multilingual" network management systems that can quickly interpret alarms and messages from a heterogeneous network and present them in a standard format to users.

Clever carriers take this a step farther. They can bundle other tools - such as Remedy's Action Request System ticketing software and ADC Metrica's Network Performance Reporting software - into their network management solutions. The integration enables their systems to automate whole suites of customer services, provisioning and remedial activities.

On the whole, the industry has been slow to explore the full potential of these tools. This may be partly because these are high-level tools that must win acceptance from the current users of many lower-level, discrete tools supplied by individual element vendors.

However, Scarborough, Ontario-based Clearnet was ideally positioned to take advantage of a multivendor network management platform. The carrier is surrounding its network center staff with an innovative network management platform specifically designed to enhance service and response times, as well as lower the price. Already the company is seeing the benefits: The platform has enabled Clearnet to slash deployment times for new cell sites, seamlessly manage two very different networks and respond quickly to any performance issues.

Seamless management = seamless service

Clearnet was awarded a national PCS license in 1995. Unlike PCS carriers in the United States, Canadian carriers were not required to make enormous license fee investments up front. This gave them the leverage to invest directly in network expansion. In this setting, Clearnet's approach was to win new customers by quickly increasing their comfort levels - offering wireless technology services and greatly simplifying the purchasing process - to expand the network as needed.

National PCS networks typically comprise equipment from several hundred vendors, and several thousand network elements are installed at hundreds of cell s ites and operating centers. Clearnet simultaneously built four mobile switching offices across Canada, housing a total of seven switches.

Clearnet now operates two digital networks. One is Clearnet PCS, based on Lucent Technologies' code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. The second is called Mike and is based on Motorola's Integrated Digital Enhanced Network technology. The iDEN network supports both digital two-way radio and standard digital phone services, offering Canadians instant connectivity and multiple functions in a single handset.

The goal at Clearnet was to create seamless alarm management tools for both its iDEN and CDMA networks and use the tools to manage them from one national network management center. One of the challenges in doing this was to create a consistent view of the two networks for the center's users, despite the fact that each has different naming conventions and different hierarchical network models.

For example, an iDEN network has several Motorola base site controllers (BSCs), each of which controls approximately 20 cell sites, or enhanced base transceiver stations. Meanwhile, a CDMA network relies on the Lucent Executive Cellular Processors to control more than 200 cell sites. Each network vendor also has its own network element manager, all of which report alarms in different formats and through different means. These differences - in conjunction with the naming restrictions placed on each network during its development and installation - place pressure on the higher-level network management systems to create a unified naming convention.

Performance data, typically generated at a sector-by-sector level, can be used to create performance-based alarms. In Clearnet's implementation, these performance alarms are generated by Metrica's NPR platform, which also has its own internal naming conventions and hierarchical network element categories. In contrast to performance data, fault data is typically generated at a cell site level. This difference adds a requirement for the fault management system. This is because when the fault management system performs name translation, the alarms created by one network management system and identified by individual cell site sectors must be mapped to the appropriate parent cell-site in the fault management application.

By using Hewlett-Packard's OpenView Element Management Framework, as well as integrated third-party applications, Clearnet began collecting information and alarms from cell sites in both networks. Initial deployment for the iDEN network occurred during the summer of 1996 and deployment of the PCS network was completed in the fall of 1997. Several upgrades have been made since then.

For the first time, users at the network management center could use software to automatically translate the data into a standard format for the network management center's operating systems. This was achieved by establishing rules within HP's OEMF that could translate and interpret data generated by different naming conventions (Figure 1).

The solution applies to both alarm messages and performance data. For alarms, the solution interprets data from different network elements and network element managers and applies a standard naming convention. Operators can use the data to quickly identify not only the network element affected, but also the network to which the element belongs and its approximate geographic location. For performance, the naming convention used internally by the performance management system is converted into the same, unified name used to display fault data.

The result is one consolidated view of both networks for operations staff. Many carriers expect operations staff to bear the load of multivendor networks, interpreting alarms and messages from multiple network elements that may have little in common. New equipment compounds the situation because the operations staff end up receiving an alarm or message that they do not recognize. This results indelays in identifying a solution and dispatching appropriate staff.

A consolidated view

Clearnet now operates its networks from a single, national network management center in Toronto. Not only does the center's staff have a consolidated view of all alarms, but also through the use of third-party tools such as Remedy's ARS ticketing software, Clearnet streamlined the whole dispatch process. The ticketing system enables the network management center staff to alert appropriate technicians to a cell site or send fault information to one of Clearnet's remote mobile switch offices. Remedy's notification tool is backed up by another third-party solution that provides alphanumeric paging services.

Clearnet's alarm management and resolution process is now substantially streamlined, placing far less emphasis on the network management center operator's familiarity with alarm messages than is often the case with other carriers. The process is now aligned with Clearnet's service delivery chain and meets the company's ultimate goal of automating service delivery, driving down operational costs, using deep and logical technology integration and generating the highest amount of productivity as well as the highest levels of network reliability.

Perhaps the most strategic result, however, is the inherent portability of the network management solution.

Extending a PCS network to a new market can take many months. In a typical metropolitan area, a cellular operator may need to add tens of sites per month to maintain the necessary capacity growth. Additionally, operators need to expand coverage to stay competitive.

With its network management tools, Clearnet can provide fault management for its expanding network relatively easily. By using an object-oriented environment, it is simple to set object properties and rules that enable rapid deployment of the management of new cell sites.

For example, when the company built a new iDEN mobile switching office and began deploying new cell sites in Vancouver this year, it could do so within a matter of days. This portability allows the network management team to focus on integrating new technologies into the fault management system and not on the addition and expansion of existing technologies.