Accelerating Digital Transformation with Unified Resource Management
Telco Active Inventory Management
The centralized management of all network and service resources is essential to provide relevant resource information for planning and engineering, service fulfillment, and service assurance processes. Such a solution supports all types of transport network technologies and provides seamless navigation throughout all hierarchical layers. Having a central database for all resource-related data ensures that all activities carried out by various people with various roles within the organization are based on a shared master data source.
Cable and Outside Plant Management
Proper documentation of inside- and outside-plant cable infrastructure can provide full transparency across the network and enable the efficient operation, planning, and management of complex passive network infrastructures. The ideal solution should cover all physical end-to-end connections within a central repository. To plan new connections, auto-routing capabilities should enable routing of new connections end-to-end across the passive infrastructure. From a planning perspective, it ensures changes are based on accurate as-built documentation and that all changes are reflected in a centralized management system. From a service assurance perspective, this is the best defense against service interruption.
Mobile RAN Management
Implementing a mobile RAN management solution can simplify the documentation, planning and rollout of new sites, network extensions, and modifications to existing sites. As these activities require precise knowledge of all active and passive components and configuration data within the mobile network, it’s important to use a mobile RAN management solution that keeps network planners up to date on available resources based on accurate as-is documentation.
Hybrid Resource Management
As virtualization advances, more and more networks have many VNFs, from multiple suppliers, that are executed on different NFVI platforms. To master virtualization challenges, service providers must document all virtual resources in one place, across supplier silos. From a resource and capacity perspective, all relevant information must be available for both operation and planning. A hybrid resource management solution can deliver the holistic, vendor-agnostic, technology-neutral information repository operators need to simplify planning and managing the growing virtualized environment.
Overall, how communication service providers, mobile network operators, and Internet service providers respond to the challenges of the rapidly changing business environment will determine their ability to remain competitive in a digital world. Operators must master today’s change drivers to give customers the competitive speeds and advanced digital services they want and to provide stakeholders with the profitability they expect.
Meeting these customer needs while generating revenue and increasing productivity in a digitally transforming world requires a modern and future-proof ICT infrastructure. Upgrading network infrastructure is the key to deploying the new technologies required for the digital future. Legacy OSS/BSS simply cannot handle these requirements.
While networks undergo this transformation in technology and architecture to keep pace with market trends, normal business operations must be maintained and high-quality services must continue to be delivered. Reliable service assurance, planning and engineering, and service fulfillment processes are essential for delivering services that meet SLA requirements and keeping OPEX under control. All of these processes are reliant on up-to-date resource information.
Unified resource management can help CSPs, MNOs, and ISPs convert opportunities into revenue by not only supporting existing networks but also networks of the future. Documenting the enormous amount of asset information throughout networks within a central repository is the key to gaining a clear understanding of utilization, capacities, and statuses for more efficient planning, service assurance, and fulfillment processes. With a holistic view of assets and an accurate, up-to-date inventory of all physical, logical, and virtual network resources, providers will be able to make confident decisions for planning, building, and deploying new services and capitalizing on new business opportunities.
