Operational support system

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An operation support system (. English Operations Support System - OSS) is a term used in telecommunications , which is a network management , describes system which automated service processes ( Service Management supported). In the telecommunications sector, these are summarized under FCAPS - FCAPS stands for Fault Management, Configuration Management, Accounting, Performance Management and Security.

history

The number of services to be supported by telecommunications companies, as well as their requirements and deployments, are constantly increasing. In addition, telecommunications companies are constantly marketing new offers. In addition, the IP networks, which form the basis for various IP-based services (for example IPTV , VoIP , triple-play or IP-VPN ), require complete end-to-end provision with a defined quality of service .

As a result, the service processes at telecommunications companies have become more and more complex. In the past, the individual areas of the service processes that are important for telecommunications companies, fault management, configuration management, accounting, performance management and security, were mostly supported by separate systems for the various tasks. Nowadays, however, efforts are being made to create a cross-organizational platform that employees from different areas such as network and system planning, service management and corporate management can access. Such operational support systems thus form the basis for the management of telecommunications networks and services.

An operational support system should bring together all the processes, systems and departments involved in such a way that a smoothly functioning unit is created that can react more efficiently and quickly to new customer requests. In such a system, the entire development process for a service, from planning through implementation to provision, should be implemented on a single platform. After provisioning, the services can be monitored and managed on the OSS platform.

Components

The component library with which the service components are developed forms the basis of an operational support system. The service elements for the individual services are designed on the OSS platform, stored in the component library after the test and can be called up and dynamically updated at any time.

This allows employees (operators) to set up or align customer or connection data on network nodes via remote maintenance . With more complex network technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), such systems also take on rerouting and traffic classification tasks (e.g. voice, data, video).

Fault management systems are used to monitor the networks and the services implemented with them. These receive a message from the network nodes in the event of a fault and present this to the operator in an understandable form (visualized, geodifferent). Furthermore, the fault and performance management systems ask the network nodes at regular intervals about the status and possible performance parameters ( Throughput, utilization, switching capacity, etc.) and also display them. Sophisticated systems correlate combinations of individual errors and thus convey the actual cause of error (root cause analysis) and the effect on the service provider's service business to the operator quickly and in a concentrated manner.

Similar systems also collect call detail records (CDR) and Usage Data Records (UDR) and make this vast billing systems available.

OSS - BSS

Business support systems are supplemented by so-called Business Support Systems (BSS). Business support systems is a more recent term and usually refers to "business systems for customer contacts", such as order processing, invoicing or customer payment transactions. Both systems together are usually abbreviated together as BSS / OSS or B / OSS. B / OSS play a critical role for telecommunications companies.

TeleManagement Forum

The TeleManagement Forum (TMForum) has established itself as a specialist platform, which with the TOM-GB910 recommendation ( Enhanced Telecom Operations Map ) has developed a standard that is used by several telecommunications service providers as the basis for harmonizing and further developing their own legacy systems .

The Telecom Operations Map is the first blueprint that records and describes process directions and roots and thus provides interfaces for service level agreements , operational level agreements and underpinning contracts. This recommendation is used by OSS manufacturers as well as service providers and is often cited as a reference in tenders for OSS.