Multiple personalities

As the industry hurtles toward a future of uncertain standards and unproven technologies, carriers and developers contemplate the many faces of next generation OSSs

Taking the next generation operations support system from PowerPoint to production will require an unprecedented level of cooperation between software and hardware solutions providers and their service provider customers. Alliances, partnerships and the hint of a new spirit of cooperation between incumbent and competitive service providers already have brought us electronic bonding, Web-enabled customer care and converged billing. But don't be fooled: Competition is always the underlying theme. There will be winners and losers, casualties and new alliances. But most important, there will be next gen OSSs worthy of next gen telecom consumers.

What will the next gen OSS look like? A SuperOSS that can get a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) up and running with a single product? A dual-mode OSS that is fluent in both packet- and circuit-switched technologies? A modified legacy system patched with new age servers and software? For some, it simply could be a partitioned application somewhere out on the Internet. For the rest, it could be all of the above and more.

The greatest challenge in building the next gen OSS is trying to create a system so flexible that it can support a next generation network that still is being defined, next generation consumers who are even less predictable and the diverse needs of an expanding value chain.

"It's really like trying to build a bridge to a moving train," says Curtis Begley, president of HarmonyCom, a provider of broadband service management solutions. "It's a non-static environment."

And it's schizophrenic. Service providers' needs and priorities are all over the map, and many are uncertain of their long-term needs. "When we identified our partners, we wanted to know who could spin on a dime and be flexible and adaptable to the way we need to change as our business evolves because we don't know what it's going to look like in 12 months," says Jerry Sklar, senior vice president of OSS for Allegiance Telecom, a competitive carrier that targets small and medium-sized businesses.

Regardless of the turmoil and incertitude, there is a pressing need for real working solutions. The spirit of cooperation that has brought the industry to its current state must continue in order to provide these solutions. That spirit has created a best-of-breed approach where, ideally, the specialized solutions of individual vendors using the most proven technologies are integrated into a single, end-to-end solution. Necessity dictates that this philosophy will dominate for now asthe most reliable means of providing the next gen OSS.

The money is on software

Of all the obstacles and challenges surrounding the building of the next gen OSS, money should not be one of them, at least not in the short term.

The OSS market was estimated to be $10.5 billion in 1999. It is expected to increase by 15% per year over the next five years (Figure 1). To get an idea of what can be accomplished with that kind of money, NASA's yearly budget in 1996 was $13.8 billion. The Space Shuttle program was only $3.1 billion.

And software vendors certainly don't seem to lack the necessary capital. Companies such as MetaSolv Software recently went public, and many start-up vendors in this space are hoping to do the same soon. Eftia OSS Solutions, which closed 1999 by securing $30 million in new financing, is just one example of the money being invested in telecom solutions companies.

While companies vie for the attention of venture capital firms, the investors are looking at some segments of the OSS market more than others. Provisioning and order management comprised 45% of all OSS spending in 1998, according to a report from Legg Mason Wood Walker (Figure 2). Network operations spending accounted for 28% while service providers spent the remaining 27% on billing and customer care. According to the report, spending for provisioning and order management solutions are expected to grow through 2001 before tapering off. Billing and customer care spending will wane through 2004 and level off at around 10%. Investment in network operations will remain constant (Figure 3).

Whether these projections hold true remains to be seen. The dollars likely will be available, but their allocation could change. As we look at the priorities of service providers and the projections of solutions providers, we see that requirements already are changing. A strong emphasis on service assurance, improving business processes, service level agreements (SLAs) and cross-technology functionality will play havoc with OSS spending projections.

The incumbent view on OSSs

Overall, service providers agree on the key ingredients of the next gen OSS. But to them, it's not an industry issue, it's a personal issue. Large and small service providers are focused on what they must do to improve and maintain quality of service, speed their time to market, reduce operating costs and form a tighter bond between themselves and their customers. The needs are many (Table 1). Some are filled easily, others are more challenging.

"Depending on where the service providers' vulnerability is determines the best match for a vendor," Begley says.

For incumbent carrier Bell Atlantic, the best-of-breed approach takes on a different look. "We call it the best of practices philosophy," says Celia Engman, director of OSS strategic planning for Bell Atlantic. The approach is a result of the experience gained as Bell Atlantic worked through its merger with Nynex and will be applied as it deals with the same types of issues with GTE. "We took a number of so-called best practices from both companies and ... chose whatever worked best to serve the customer," Engman says.

"I don't know if there is an ideal, singular OSS," says Bill DeYoung, director of operations interface and technical planning casfor Bell Atlantic. "An enterprise as large as Bell Atlantic will always have multiple disciplines covering the full range of [services]. I don't think we expect one miracle system to cure all ills any time in the near future."

Bell Atlantic is active in the TeleManagement Forum, working on SLA management, the forum's component team and its Sonet information-modeling group. But in 2000, the incumbent carrier's primary focus is going to be DSL service.

"We continue to do OSS work to support a growing number of customers buying [asymmetrical] DSL service from us," DeYoung says. Bell Atlantic has changed its approach to competition and now sees it as an evolving wholesale business. Consequently, that is where its OSS focus lies.

"We're focusing on systems in a wholesale domain right now, really setting our network services organization up as a premier wholesale industry," DeYoung says.

Bell Atlantic also is targeting voice over IP, ATM and next generation transports such as OC-192 and wave division multiplexing. This focus, combined with its recent Section 271 approval, has the RBOC concentrating on metrics.

"Anything you can think of from a qualitative perspective that describes how well we're servicing our customers and running our business falls into that category," Engman says. Bell Atlantic was required to report more than 6000 metrics per month dealing with quality, timely repair and timely provisioning in support of its Section 271 application for long-distance. Now that the application has been approved, the metrics will be used to enforce compliance.

>From a telecommunications management network (TMN) perspective, and for a >solutions provider trying to gauge where its customers are headed, the >capture of such performance data falls squarely in the service management >layer.

>From the competitive camp

Level 3 Communications could be a poster child for the challenge of developing an OSS for a next generation network that still has elements in the development stage. "We can't wed ourselves to any particular technology," says Van Macatee, vice president of network operations for Level 3. "We must be able to introduce, adapt and leverage new technology as soon as possible."

Macatee's ideal OSS is what he calls "supply elastic." It must be compatible with multidomain network elements and focus on integration at the network management layer. "It must be efficient in ways we've never experienced," Macatee says.

One irony of the telecom world comes from Macatee's tongue-in-cheek opinion of the much-maligned legacy systems being used by the RBOCs today. "I fantasize about legacy systems," Macatee says. "I wish I had one." Legacy is not synonymous with inadequate. Most legacy systems in place today are taking care of business and making their owners money, which is more than can be said for some new systems.

Allegiance decided to go with the best-of-breed approach for building its next gen OSS. It also has taken an approach traditional telcos would never dream of: in-network experimentation. Most RBOCs' strict adherence to standards of method and procedure and their well-earned reluctance to try unproven technologies in a production environment precludes such experimentation, for better or worse.

"We look at ourselves as a research and development shop," says Sklar of Allegiance. "The MetaSolvs, the DSETs and the Clarifys are integral and embedded in my organization. I think their best education and experience is found by spending time in my shop."

Allegiance's best-of-breed R&D approach helped it get as far as it did as fast as it did, Sklar says. "That's a more fundamentally sound approach than sending the product development folks into the caves trying to figure out what the CLECs and [data CLECs] really need."

What Allegiance wants most out of its next gen OSS is electronic bonding for trouble administration, pre-ordering the customer service record and flow-through switch translations. Unlike Bell Atlantic and other carriers, Allegiance customers are not beating down the doors for SLAs. Instead, they want the basics: a customer service department that answers the phones, escalates the issues and solves them in a reasonable time frame and a knowledgeable staff, Sklar says.

Then there are wireless vendors such as Nokia, which have their own OSS development priorities (see sidebar). These samples are small, but they show the wide range of priorities and diverse needs to which software and equipment vendors must aim to develop the next gen OSS.

Vendors aiming to please

Given the current level of uncertainty, software vendors are left to predict the future. Smaller start-up solutions providers will bank their futures on finding a strong niche and well-chosen partners. More established players will secure their positions by acquiring smaller, more specialized companies.

"No one OSS provider has it all today, but are they positioned to provide it? That will determine success," says Sanjiv Ahuja, president and chief operating officer at Telcordia Technologies.

Software vendors' views of the next gen OSS also can be unique depending on the niche they hope to serve. IP-based telecom networks are arguably still a niche, and as promising as IP is to this industry, it still has to grow up a bit to measure up to traditional circuit-switched networks.

"In the IP world, we tend to think about connectivity, not necessarily about revenue," says Rob Cook, president and CEO at Astracon, a provider of connection management software for IP-based networks. "We can test IP; everybody knows how to test IP. But the question is, how do you test services?"

Service management is a primary focus of many OSS solutions providers. It is particularly important to IP-based providers. "It's easy to measure service quality across a router connection, but we must be able to scale for a large number of [virtual private networks]," Cook says. "We have to be able to supply and measure differentiated services according to user, application, supplier and location and provide feedback on SLA performance and real-time service repair."

"The OSS should embody the IP address allocation plan, track IP address inventories and support domain name services," says Christopher Dean, Eftia's chief technology officer.

Next generation OSSs are not without precedent, and Dean properly encompasses one tried-and-true, old-world OSS capability into the next generation IP-based model. "Proper provisioning is key to testing service and trouble resolution," he says. "If records are managed correctly, all else is easier to troubleshoot. And IP provisioning is difficult when you don't know the routing in the IP backbone."

As more service migrates to broadband IP networks, the world will become more Web-centric, says Venkates Swaminathan, NightFire Software's executive vice president and chief OSS strategist. NightFire plays in the interconnection space where Swaminathan sees the Web-centric shift driving more users towards self-service. "Not just a Web front-end but one focused on enabling automation over both the Internet and intranets," Swaminathan says. "From a feature and functions basis, the key feature of a next gen OSS will be that it is a product, a true, out-of-the-box product that's configurable and customizable, but doesn't require a custom installation every time."

Sixty-seven percent of CLECs are looking to purchase OSS applications and will spend an average of 14% of their revenue on them, says Deryl Rasquinha, vice president of product strategy and management for Eftia. But a CLEC's needs are in a constant state of flux.

"As start-ups, they need to get up and running quickly. As they grow, their priorities change. Some CLECs evolve from reseller to facilities-based provider," Rasquinha says.

Eftia is betting that much will be spent in the service management arena. "The telecom market is hot. The CLEC market is hot. The OSS market is hot, and the service management layer is the hottest," Rasquinha says.

What's hot and what's not is relative according to the niche one has decided to fill or the needs one must address. Understandably, OSS solutions providers must stay a turn ahead on the technology curve, but many service providers are focused on more immediate needs. The interconnection question has not been answered. Convergence is not yet an art. The issues are many, and the answers complex - too complex for any one provider. As the best of the breed demonstrated in recent catalyst projects sponsored by the TMF, they can make their systems work together. They must continue to cooperate and partner and pursue the next gen OSS - whatever that may be.

As a provider of systems and infrastructure for wireless networks, Nokia's vulnerability obviously is different from carriers such as Bell Atlantic, Allegiance Telecom or Level 3 Communications. Service creation is important but in a different way.

"People want complete freedom of time and space. The focus won't be on new services, it will be on the same services we provide today but on a mobile basis," says Kalle Tarpila, head of product development for Nokia. Tarpila anticipates the implementation of large-scale operations support systems (OSSs) that "will support any combination of technologies and finally have end-to-end process automation."

Confirming the growing influence of non-traditional telecom players, Tarpila says the next generation OSS does not have to be telecom specific. "It's a question of connecting IT systems together," he says.

A successful OSS needs to hide network complexity from the end user and maintain a separation of end-user applications from new technology adaptations, Tarpila says. That means any changes to systems that work below the IP layer, such as network and element management systems, should not affect the operations of those systems above the IP layer, such as service, customer and content management. This would facilitate an "evolution, not revolution when migrating to new technologies," Tarpila says. "It can't be done by patching legacy systems."

You know the saying. In our enlightened times, the gender obviously could be reversed but the premise remains: Behind every great someone stands a foundation of some sort. In this industry, particularly in the arena of operations support systems, the buzz is all about technology, but the business is ultimately about people - people building and maintaining systems to help people communicate and do business with others.

That notion is easily lost in the marketization of high-tech solutions. It's hard to market a quick-thinking engineer or a whiz-bang programmer. You can't advertise a motivated middle manager or an enthusiastic customer service rep, a conscientious central office technician or visionary VP.

Some companies can't even find them. And even when they do, the organizational structure of a business can sometimes hinder the contribution of even the best and most well-intentioned people.

In large organizations, the systems that make up an OSS often are the responsibility of different directors who have their own goals, agendas and objectives. Departments are not necessarily aligned with the flow-through process everyone is striving for. So while technology has progressed in making the disparate systems of an OSS communicate, it is people who must talk to one another.

"The biggest challenge we have today at Allegiance [Telecom] is getting qualified people," says Royce Holland, president and CEO of Allegiance.

Van Macatee, vice president of network operations for Level 3 Communications, echoes Holland's predicament and adds a twist: "What's needed to run a worldwide full-service IP network is qualified personnel at each layer."

One of those layers developed from a growing awareness of a technology competence gap driven by convergence. "Bell heads and net heads have different skills, and you need them both," Macatee says. "There are not enough qualified or skilled IP personnel. We face an unprecedented need to train and automate."

Bell Atlantic has similar concerns. "We have a challenge in maintaining an up-to-date staff with an up-to-date understanding of things. We are always on the lookout for yet another good person," says Bill DeYoung, director of operations interface and technical planning for Bell Atlantic.

Provided you can find the right people, you need a structure under which they can flourish. The leadership at Allegiance saw this as an opportunity for differentiation. "What separates Allegiance from the competition? No. 1 is execution," Holland says.

Jerry Sklar, senior vice president of OSS for Allegiance, has drawn the task of driving that execution for his company. "We started off looking like a more traditional organization with all your vertical operational groups and then realized we were creating a whole bunch of silos," Sklar says. "It was very difficult to reap the benefits that OSSs would bring by running the business that way, so we created the OSS organization, which is a horizontal overlay to all the other operational groups." (See figure on page 42.)

Allegiance created both a project management team and a process management team, which provide a horizontal look into the company. "When groups choose to solve their own business problems, they can negatively impact someone else up or down stream," Sklar says. "When they implement those solutions horizontally, everyone from the operational groups are buying into it consciously and understanding the impact to other groups."