Operations support system
Encyclopedia
Operations support systems (also called operational support systems or OSS) are computer systems used by telecommunications service providers. The term OSS most frequently describes "network systems" dealing with the telecom network itself, supporting processes such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services
, configuring network components, and managing faults. The complementary term business support systems or BSS is a newer term and typically refers to “business systems” dealing with customers, supporting processes such as taking orders, processing bills, and collecting payments. The two systems together are often abbreviated OSS/BSS, BSS/OSS or simply B/OSS.
Different subdivisions of the BSS/OSS systems are made, depending on whether they follow the TM Forum's
diagrams and terminology, industry research institutions or BSS/OSS vendors own view.
Nevertheless in general, an OSS covers at least the application areas:
s. In the next 5 years or so, the telephone companies
created a number of computer systems (or software applications) which automated much of this activity. This was one of the driving factors for the development of the Unix
operating system and the C programming language. The Bell System
purchased their own product line of PDP 11 computers from Digital Equipment Corporation
for a variety of OSS applications. OSS systems used in the Bell System include AMATPS
, CSOBS
, EADAS
, RMAS, Switching Control Center System
(SCCS), Service Evaluation System
(SES), Trunks Integrated Record Keeping System (TIRKS), and many more. OSS systems from this era are described in the Bell System Technical Journal
, Bell Labs Record
, and Telcordia Technologies
(formerly Bellcore) Special Report SR-2275, Telcordia Notes on the Networks.
Many OSS systems were initially not linked to each other and often required manual intervention. For example, consider the case where a customer wants to order a new telephone service. The ordering system would take the customer's details and details of their order, but would not be able to configure the telephone exchange
directly — this would be done by a switch management system. Details of the new service would need to be transferred from the order handling system to the switch management system — and this would normally be done by a technician re-keying the details from one screen into another — a process often referred to as "swivel chair integration". This was clearly another source of inefficiency, so the focus for the next few years was on creating automated interfaces between the OSS applications — OSS integration. Cheap and simple OSS integration remains a major goal of most telecom companies.
During the 1990s, new OSS architecture definitions were done by the ITU-T in its TMN
model. This established a 4-layer model of TMN applicable within an OSS:
(Note: a fifth level is mentioned at times being the elements themselves, though the standards speak of only four levels)
This was a basis for later work. Network management was further defined by the ISO using the FCAPS
model - Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security. This basis was adopted by the ITU-T TMN standards as the Functional model for the technology base of the TMN standards M.3000 - M.3599 series. Although the FCAPS model was originally conceived and is applicable for an IT enterprise network, it was adopted for use in the public networks run by telecommunication service providers adhering to ITU-T TMN standards.
A big issue of network and service management is the ability to manage and control the network elements of the access
and core networks. Historically, many efforts have been spent in standardization fora (ITU-T, 3GPP) in order to define standard protocol for network management, but with no success and practical results. On the other hand IETF SNMP
protocol (Simple Network Management Protocol) has become the de-facto standard for internet and telco
management, at the EML-NML communication level.
From 2000 and beyond, with the growth of the new broadband and VoIP services, the management of home networks is also entering the scope of OSS and network management. DSL Forum TR-069
specification has defined the CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP), suitable for managing home networks devices and terminals at the EML-NML interface.
By 2005, recent developments in OSS architecture were the results of the TM Forum's New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS)
program, which was established in 2000. This established a set of principles that OSS integration should adopt, along with a set of models that provide standardized approaches.
The components interact through a common communications vehicle (using an information exchange infrastructure; e.g., EAI
, Web Services, EJB).
The behavior can be controlled through the use of process management and/or policy management to orchestrate the functionality provided by the services offered by the components.
. Most recently, the OSS through Java initiative (OSS/J)
http://www.ossj.org/ joined the TMF to provide NGOSS-based BSS/OSS APIs.
styled approach to using model driven development
for specifying the additional implementation stakeholder interface specs (for SOA Web Services, EJB and EAI). These are required to meet the demands of Service Providers operating using the IMS
architectural framework and NGN
communications networks.
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...
, configuring network components, and managing faults. The complementary term business support systems or BSS is a newer term and typically refers to “business systems” dealing with customers, supporting processes such as taking orders, processing bills, and collecting payments. The two systems together are often abbreviated OSS/BSS, BSS/OSS or simply B/OSS.
Different subdivisions of the BSS/OSS systems are made, depending on whether they follow the TM Forum's
TM Forum
The TeleManagement Forum formerly the Network Management Forum, is an international non-profit industry association, for service providers and their suppliers in the information industry, the telecommunications industry and the entertainment industry.Members include telephone companies, cable...
diagrams and terminology, industry research institutions or BSS/OSS vendors own view.
Nevertheless in general, an OSS covers at least the application areas:
- Network management systemsNetwork elementA network element is usually defined as a manageable logical entity uniting one or more physical devices. This allows distributed devices to be managed in a unified way using one management system....
- Service deliveryService Delivery PlatformIn telecommunications, the term Service Delivery Platform usually refers to a set of components that provide a services delivery architecture for a type of service...
- Service fulfillmentService fulfillmentFulfillment of telecommunications services involves a series of supply chain activities responsible for assembling and making services available to subscribers...
, including the network inventory, activation and provisioningProvisioningIn telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a... - Service assuranceService assuranceService assurance, in telecommunications, is the application of policies and processes by a Communications Service Provider to ensure that services offered over networks meet a pre-defined service quality level for an optimal subscriber experience....
- Customer careCustomer serviceCustomer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
History and development of OSS
Before about 1970, many OSS activities were performed by manual administrative processes. However, it became obvious that much of this activity could be replaced by computerComputer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s. In the next 5 years or so, the telephone companies
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
created a number of computer systems (or software applications) which automated much of this activity. This was one of the driving factors for the development of the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating system and the C programming language. The Bell System
Bell System
The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...
purchased their own product line of PDP 11 computers from Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
for a variety of OSS applications. OSS systems used in the Bell System include AMATPS
AMATPS
AMATPS is an Operations Support System developed during the early 1980s by the Bell System and Bell Communications Research. AMATPS is an acronym that stands for Automatic Message Accounting Tele-Processing System...
, CSOBS
CSOBS
CSOBS is an acronym for Centralized Service Order Bureau System developed by Bell Laboratories during the early 1970s. CSOBS is an Operations Support System created for use in Bell System business offices for customer service representatives to take orders for telephone service from customers. ...
, EADAS
EADAS
EADAS is an acronym for Engineering and Administrative Data Acquisition System created at Bell Laboratories in Columbus, Ohio and used in the Bell System during the 1970s...
, RMAS, Switching Control Center System
Switching Control Center System
The Switching Control Center System was an Operations Support System developed by Bell Laboratories and deployed during the early 1970s. This computer system was first based on the PDP-11 product line from Digital Equipment Corporation and used the CB Unix operating system and custom application...
(SCCS), Service Evaluation System
Service Evaluation System
The Service Evaluation System was an Operations Support System developed by Bell Laboratories and used by telephone companies beginning in the late 1960s. Many local, long distance, and operator circuit-switching systems provided special dedicated circuits to the SES to monitor the quality of...
(SES), Trunks Integrated Record Keeping System (TIRKS), and many more. OSS systems from this era are described in the Bell System Technical Journal
Bell System Technical Journal
The Bell System Technical Journal was the in-house scientific journal of Bell Labs that was published from 1922 to 1983.- Notable papers :...
, Bell Labs Record
Bell Labs Record
The Bell Labs Record was published by the Bell System for many decades beginning in the early 1900s. This journal included descriptions of technologies created at many Bell Laboratories locations for basic research, devices, technologies, systems, and operations research relevant to telephone...
, and Telcordia Technologies
Telcordia Technologies
Telcordia Technologies, formerly Bell Communications Research, Inc. or Bellcore, is a telecommunications research and development company based in the United States created as part of the 1982 Modification of Final Judgment that broke up American Telephone & Telegraph...
(formerly Bellcore) Special Report SR-2275, Telcordia Notes on the Networks.
Many OSS systems were initially not linked to each other and often required manual intervention. For example, consider the case where a customer wants to order a new telephone service. The ordering system would take the customer's details and details of their order, but would not be able to configure the telephone exchange
Telephone exchange
In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...
directly — this would be done by a switch management system. Details of the new service would need to be transferred from the order handling system to the switch management system — and this would normally be done by a technician re-keying the details from one screen into another — a process often referred to as "swivel chair integration". This was clearly another source of inefficiency, so the focus for the next few years was on creating automated interfaces between the OSS applications — OSS integration. Cheap and simple OSS integration remains a major goal of most telecom companies.
A brief history of OSS architecture
A lot of the work on OSS has been centered on defining its architecture. Put simply, there are four key elements of OSS:- Processes
- the sequence of events
- Data
- the information that is acted upon
- Applications
- the components that implement processes to manage data
- Technology
- how we implement the applications
During the 1990s, new OSS architecture definitions were done by the ITU-T in its TMN
Telecommunications Management Network
The Telecommunications Management Network is a protocol model defined by ITU-T for managing open systems in a communications network. It is part of the ITU-T Recommendation series M.3000 and is based on the OSI management specifications in ITU-T Recommendation series X.700.TMN provides a framework...
model. This established a 4-layer model of TMN applicable within an OSS:
- Business Management Level (BML)
- Service Management Level (SML)
- Network Management Level (NML)
- Element Management Level (EML)
(Note: a fifth level is mentioned at times being the elements themselves, though the standards speak of only four levels)
This was a basis for later work. Network management was further defined by the ISO using the FCAPS
FCAPS
FCAPS is the ISO Telecommunications Management Network model and framework for network management. FCAPS is an acronym for fault, configuration, accounting, performance, security, the management categories into which the ISO model defines network management tasks...
model - Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security. This basis was adopted by the ITU-T TMN standards as the Functional model for the technology base of the TMN standards M.3000 - M.3599 series. Although the FCAPS model was originally conceived and is applicable for an IT enterprise network, it was adopted for use in the public networks run by telecommunication service providers adhering to ITU-T TMN standards.
A big issue of network and service management is the ability to manage and control the network elements of the access
Access network
An access network is that part of a telecommunications network which connects subscribers to their immediate service provider. It is contrasted with the core network, which connects local providers to each other...
and core networks. Historically, many efforts have been spent in standardization fora (ITU-T, 3GPP) in order to define standard protocol for network management, but with no success and practical results. On the other hand IETF SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol is an "Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks, and more." It is used mostly in network management systems to monitor...
protocol (Simple Network Management Protocol) has become the de-facto standard for internet and telco
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
management, at the EML-NML communication level.
From 2000 and beyond, with the growth of the new broadband and VoIP services, the management of home networks is also entering the scope of OSS and network management. DSL Forum TR-069
TR-069
TR-069 is a DSL Forum technical specification entitled CPE WAN Management Protocol...
specification has defined the CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP), suitable for managing home networks devices and terminals at the EML-NML interface.
TM Forum (formerly the TeleManagement Forum)
TM Forum is an international membership organization of communications service providers and suppliers to the communications industry. While OSS is generally dominated by proprietary and custom technologies, TM Forum is regarded as the most authoritative source for standards and frameworks in OSS. TM Forum has been active in proving a framework and discussion forum for advancements in OSS and BSS.By 2005, recent developments in OSS architecture were the results of the TM Forum's New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS)
NGOSS
Frameworx, formerly known as NGOSS or "New Generation Operations Systems and Software" is the TeleManagement Forum’s programme to provide ways to help Communication Service Providers to manage their business...
program, which was established in 2000. This established a set of principles that OSS integration should adopt, along with a set of models that provide standardized approaches.
NGOSS models
- An information modelInformation modelAn information model in software engineering is a representation of concepts, relationships, constraints, rules, and operations to specify data semantics for a chosen domain of discourse...
(the Shared Information/Data model, or SID) - now more commonly referred to as the Information Framework, - A process model (the enhanced Telecom Operation Map, or eTOMETOMThe eTOM , published by the TM Forum, is a guidebook that defines the most widely used and accepted standard for business processes in the telecommunications industry...
) - now more commonly known as the Business Process Framework, - An application model (the Telecom Applications Map) - now known as the Application Framework, an architecture (the Technology Neutral Architecture) and a lifecycle model.
NGOSS architectural standards
The TM Forum describes NGOSS as an architecture that is:- "loosely coupledLoose couplingIn computing and systems design a loosely coupled system is one where each of its components has, or makes use of, little or no knowledge of the definitions of other separate components. The notion was introduced into organizational studies by Karl Weick...
" - distributed
- component based
The components interact through a common communications vehicle (using an information exchange infrastructure; e.g., EAI
Enterprise application integration
Enterprise Application Integration is defined as the use of software and computer systems architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.- Overview :...
, Web Services, EJB).
The behavior can be controlled through the use of process management and/or policy management to orchestrate the functionality provided by the services offered by the components.
History
The early focus of the TM Forum's NGOSS work was on building reference models to support a business stakeholder view on process, information and application interaction. Running in parallel were activities that supported an implementation stakeholder view on interface specifications to provide access to OSS capability (primarily MTNM). The MTNM work evolved into a set of Web Services providing Multi-Technology Operations System Interfaces MTOSIMTOSI
In telecommunications, Multi-Technology Operations System Interface is a standard for implementing interfaces between OSSs. Service providers use multiple Operational Support Systems to manage complex networks. Since the various parts of the network must interact, so must the OSSs. It is...
. Most recently, the OSS through Java initiative (OSS/J)
OSS through Java
OSS/J is a technical program whose primary goal is to develop open interface standards for the integration of Business Support Systems & Operations Support System ....
http://www.ossj.org/ joined the TMF to provide NGOSS-based BSS/OSS APIs.
Future work
Considerable work remains, primarily in building out the system stakeholder reference models, which are needed to support a business process driven and SOAService-oriented architecture
In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
styled approach to using model driven development
Model-driven engineering
Model-driven engineering is a software development methodology which focuses on creating and exploiting domain models , rather than on the computing concepts...
for specifying the additional implementation stakeholder interface specs (for SOA Web Services, EJB and EAI). These are required to meet the demands of Service Providers operating using the IMS
IP Multimedia Subsystem
The IP Multimedia Subsystem or IP Multimedia Core Network Subsystem is an architectural framework for delivering Internet Protocol multimedia services. It was originally designed by the wireless standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project , as a part of the vision for evolving mobile...
architectural framework and NGN
Next Generation Networking
Next-generation network is a broad term used to describe key architectural evolutions in telecommunication core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services by encapsulating these into packets, similar to those used on the...
communications networks.
See also
- OA&MOA&MOperations, administration and management or operations, administration and maintenance is a general term used to describe the processes, activities, tools, standards, etc involved with operating, administering, managing and maintaining any system...
- COSMOS (Telecommunications)COSMOS (Telecommunications)COSMOS was a record-keeping system for Main Distribution Frames in the Bell System. COSMOS was introduced in the 1970s after MDFs were found to be congested in large urban telephone exchanges. It assigns terminals so jumpers need not be so long, thus leaving more space on the shelves...
- Loop Maintenance Operations SystemLoop Maintenance Operations SystemThe Loop Maintenance Operations System is a telephone company trouble ticketing system that plays an essential part in the act of repairing local loops...
- Service Evaluation SystemService Evaluation SystemThe Service Evaluation System was an Operations Support System developed by Bell Laboratories and used by telephone companies beginning in the late 1960s. Many local, long distance, and operator circuit-switching systems provided special dedicated circuits to the SES to monitor the quality of...
- Switching Control Center SystemSwitching Control Center SystemThe Switching Control Center System was an Operations Support System developed by Bell Laboratories and deployed during the early 1970s. This computer system was first based on the PDP-11 product line from Digital Equipment Corporation and used the CB Unix operating system and custom application...