IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & THE FUTURE OF OSS

no 1/2015[20]

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SDN Controller

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & THE FUTURE OF OSS SDN Control Plane Virtualization: Reinventing Internet Protocols?

Mobile Backhaul Automation: a Step by-Step Approach: Proof of Concept and an SDN Use Case

Tactical Planning for network mergers- How to save time and money

Turning real-time data mininginto actionable analytics

The Magazine of ComarchTelecommunicationsBusiness Unit

STRATEGY,INFRASTRUCTURE &

PRODUCT

CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT EXTERNAL MOBILE SALES APP

CRM FOR TELECOMS

COMMISSION & INCENTIVE

SELF CARE

CONVERGENT BILLINGSYSTEM

CONVERGENT BILLINGSYSTEM

NETWORK PLANNING &DESIGN

CORPORATE SELF CARE

OSS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

SERVICE ORDER MANAGEMENTSERVICE CATALOG

SERVICE FULFILLMENTSERVICE INVENTORY

MANAGEMENT SERVICE ACTIVATION

BSS MEDIATION

NETWORK INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

AUTO-DISCOVERY& RECONCILIATION

CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT

OSS MEDIATION

SERVICE CONTROLLER MODULE

SLA MONITORING

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEMANAGEMENT

SERVICEQUALITY

MANAGEMENT

SERVICEMONITORING

PERFORMANCEMANAGEMENT

FAULTMANAGEMENT

VOUCHER & TOP-UP MGMT

CONVERGENT BILLING SYSTEM

DATA ANALYTICS &MONETIZATION

CRM FOR TELECOMS

CUSTOMER LOYALTY MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER ORDERMANAGEMENT

INTERPARTNER BILLING

OPERATIONS SUPPORT &READINESS

FULFILLMENT ASSURANCE BILLING

MARKET / SALES MANAGEMENT

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT

SERVICE MANAGEMENT

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

SUPPLIER/PARTNER

LOGISTICS MANAGEMENTCOMMONSDATA ANALYTICS &MONETIZATION

ENTERPRISE

APPLICATIONINTEGRATION

INFRASTRUCTURE

APPLICATION INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK

PRODUCT CATALOG

COMARCH BSS/OSS PRODUCTS MAPPED ON TM FORUM

APPLICATIONS FRAMEWORK (TAM)

MAŁGORZATA SIWIEC Marketing Director Telecommunications Business Unit

W hat do SDN/NFV, data analytics, and field workforce automation have in common?

The answer is – they all bring you closer to your customers. Closer in terms of delivering the expected quality of networks and services, launching the ordered services as fast as possible, and last but not least – obtaining thorough knowledge about who your customers are, what they need and – as a result – how to keep them happy and loyal.

And this is what this issue of Comarch Technology Review Magazine is about – being closer to your customers. In our search for the best ways telecoms should approach this area one word keeps coming up – intelligence. You need intelligent networks, intelligent insights into your customer data and intelligent ways to use that data for the benefit of your business, in order to understand your customers and respond properly.

The focus of this issue is SDN/NFV – the network technology of tomorrow that carries the promise of exactly that – making sure that networks and applications are as close to the customer as possible. Lukasz Mendyk discusses how to approach the implementation of SDN/NFV in a step-by-step manner, using the mobile backhaul automation use case. In his second article, he also wonders, whether it makes sense to reinvent control functions, rather than migrating them from hardware to software.

As exciting as it is to discuss networks of tomorrow – what about the networks of today? In an article about tactical planning for network mergers, Bernd Kreiling sheds some light on the most cost-effective approach to network consolidation, a trend that has become visible among many CSPs, especially in Europe. Pawel Plaszczyca, on the other hand, looks at the network planning process from another perspective and elaborates on why operators should not forget about optimized planning of their transport networks.

But being closer to the customer goes way beyond the network. Right now Big Data is all the hype. Data from networks, devices, customer touchpoints – all that information helps CSPs better understand their customers. And in turn – better address their needs with new enticing offers that are tailored to the customer preferences and behaviors. This is what Dariusz Jedraszek talks about in his article on real-time data mining and actionable analytics.

So it seems like customer experience is all about virtualization and automation? In the last section of our magazine, we touch the subject of optimizing the work of field sales and engineers. Robert Skrok shortly presents Comarch’s new tool for field sales automation, while Szymon Uczciwek talks to one of our customers, ViaSat, about multi-partner field service delivery and its positive influence on customer experience. After all, we can’t forget that great customer experience needs some human touch!

Enjoy the magazine

Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by Comarch experts and specialists. It is created to assist our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth information about market trends and developments, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues. Editor-in-Chief: Małgorzata Siwiec

[email protected] designer: Andrzej SalawaLayout & DTP: Adam DąbrowskiPhotos: www.fotolia.com

Publisher: Comarch SAAl. Jana Pawła II 39a, 31-864 KrakówTel. +48 12 64 61 000, Fax: +48 12 64 61 100www.comarch.com Print: 101 Studio Sp. z o.o. DTP Tomasz Tęgi

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HOT TOPIC: Getting closer to your customers

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the Future of OSS

Mobile Backhaul Automation: a Step by-Step Approach: Proof of Concept and an SDN Use Case

There’s recently been a lot of hype surrounding Software Defined Networking (SDN) and its ‘sibling’ - Network Function Virtualization (NFV). When considering adoption of new technologies, especially potentially disruptive ones, a step-by step approach, based on it-erative Proof of Concepts, seems like the way to go.

SDN – a step into an unknown land

Working in an IT company’s R&D department means constantly making decisions to meet clients’ ever-growing expectations and demands, related to both software features and non-functional requirements, such as performance and high availability. Staying in the comfort zone seems very tempting, but in-depth analysis and staying focused on your goals both help you make the right decision, even if you have to step into unknown land.

How to efficiently plan your transport network

The availability of any service at any time and in any location es-caped the realm of dreams very quickly and has now become one of the most basic customer demands. High-capacity services, as well as those requiring low latency and ultra-low latency give head-aches to mobile network operators (MNOs) who not only need to adapt their radio access networks (RAN), but also to invest in their transport networks.

Supporting smart metering programs with innovative OSS toolsIn 2010, the UK government established its Smart Metering program. Two ISPs were chosen to make this happen in the UK – Telefónica O2, which covers the entire UK with its mobile network technologies and Arqiva, which decided to build a new long range radio (LRR) network which will be able to provide the service in places such as underground pits beneath cast iron lids. The article discusses how Comarch OSS tools can support telecoms in similar initiatives.

Turning data mining into real-time actionable analytics

As predicted by Gartner, 2015 seems to be a critical year in terms of a growing need for data analytics platforms to scale and perform for larger amounts of diverse data. The challenge for these solutions is to efficiently combine the technical aspects of data analytics with consumer and busi-ness needs. A modern data analytics platform should ingest source data automatically in streaming mode, process it and make intelligent decisions in real time. It should also auto-matically trigger actions, based on analytic insights, and im-plement consistent precisely-timed integrations to different execution engines.

Customer Experience & Multi-Partner Field Service Delivery Model: Interview with Brian Crouthers and Robert Hess from ViaSat Communications, Colorado, USA"From my perspective as a director who manages the field service department, the main focus is to serve each customer in a way that is most convenient for him / her. Most of our field services are related to installations and service calls. In both of these cases, set-ting an appointment and performing a quick installation or fixing a problem are crucial to achieve full satisfaction at the service end point."

Arming your sales reps with innovative mobile tools for an optimized customer experienceSome CSPs believe that nothing can substitute direct sales, so they send their sales representatives to reach their customers in their homes, out on the streets or in public spaces. Speaking face-to-face with your potential customers is a surefire way to inform them about your services and current special offers. But a conversation with the customer is only the starting point of a sales process. You need the tools that help you optimize it and make it more efficient.

SDN Control Plane Virtualization: Reinventing Internet Protocols?

As SDN controller applications are placed centrally and thus ca-pable of controlling entire networks (or subnetworks), not just individual devices, this opens the way for re-inventing traditional device control functions rather than simply migrating the con-trol function logic from hardware to software. But does it make sense to reinvent control functions and internet protocols?

Tactical Planning for Network Mergers:How to Save Time and MoneyOne of the main goals of any merger and acquisition project is to create visible cost savings. However, in order to make that happen, it is essential to execute the network consolidation project within a very tough and challenging time schedule. The shorter the consolidation project lasts, the more savings your company will be able to make.

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5 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Mobile Backhaul Automation: a Step by-Step Approach Proof of Concept and an SDN Use Case

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS6

Comarch Technology Review 01/2015

ŁUKASZ MENDYK OSS Product Manager,

Telecommunications Business Unit

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS 7


T here's recently been a lot of hype surrounding Software Defined Networking (SDN) and its ‘sibling’

– Network Function Virtualization (NFV). These technologies carry the promise of reducing the cost of network management and maintenance, as well as increasing service capabilities and agility. On the downside, they entail the risk of being disruptive, as they require CSPs to shift towards their IT competencies.

When considering adoption of new technologies, es-pecially potentially disruptive ones, a step-by step ap-proach, based on iterative Proof of Concepts, seems like the way to go. This means that the starting point is to demonstrate convincing use cases, which focus less on the technology itself, and more on the benefits it provides and enables. At the end of the day, adopting a new technology is not a goal in itself, but rather a meth-od for achieving some higher-level business goals.

Why Mobile Backhaul Automation? We've chosen mobile backhaul automation for a use case demonstration. We made it generic enough to test the automation aspect of a transport network, while also verifying energy saving aspects related to radio line management.

Including radio line management enables to test ad-ditional benefits of managing an SDN network domain (OpenFlow switches) and a non-SDN domain (radio lines with traditional EMS/NMS interfaces). This way we can test the rollout of the new technology in a step-by-step manner – by combining traditional network manage-ment together with SDN/NFV-based management, which is an important aspect in any SDN-related proof of concept.

The Use Case Scenario

In our scenario eNodeB is connected via an active radio line. A second radio line is in standby mode to save energy. In case of weather condition deterioration, the radio line Self-Organizing Network function changes the radio modula-tion to one which is less weather-sensitive but has a lower bandwidth.

The proof of concept goal is to demonstrate that the solu-tion can automatically turn on the additional radio line and reconfigure the mobile backhaul to leverage that radio line to convey traffic from eNodeB to the SGW (Serving Gate-way) The effects of adverse weather conditions should be mitigated for mobile users to experience as little bandwidth reduction as possible.

Once weather conditions return to normal, the additional radio line switches back to standby mode and the transport layer should be re-configured accordingly. The end result is reduced energy consumption.

Distilled SDN and Non-SDN DomainsHaving defined the use case from a business perspective (energy savings, automated mitigation of bad weather condi-tions, so that mobile customer service is unaffected), the next step is to break it down to see where the SDN technol-ogy can be applied.

The aim is to have L2 and L3 transport layers implemented by OpenFlow switches. The radio lines should be treated as non-SDN devices, which are perceived via switch ports from the perspective of OpenFlow switches. An active radio line means that one of the switch ports is active. Turning on the additional radio line means that another SDN switch port can be employed for routing traffic.

Central Controller – the Concept of an OSS system as Plug-ins To conduct re-routing, OpenFlow switches must be con-trolled by an application hosted on the SDN Controller. OpenDaylight was chosen as an open-source solution. The SDN concept assumes that controlling switches from a cen-tral controller should enable smarter decisions. The starting point was to demonstrate data plane forwarding rule con-figuration coordination in order to lead traffic from eNodeB to SGW via a path based on OpenFlow switches.

For this purpose, Comarch decided to test the concept of OSS systems as SDN Controller plug-ins. Comarch Network Inventory was used to manage the end-to-end view of the

mobile backhaul. The system contained the S1-U link defini-tion spanning the L3 (IP) and then L2 links defined between OpenFlow switches. Moreover, Comarch Network Inventory managed the detailed configuration of OpenFlow switches with the definition of flow table entries in particular. Manag-ing flow table entries by network inventory assured that switch flow table entries match the definitions of S1-U, L3 and L2 topology.

The concept of plug-ins meant that when OpenFlow switches connected, their flow table entries were populated based on Comarch Network Inventory data via the OpenDaylight framework.

Completing the First Stage

The first stage of the use case realization was achieved by conducting a simulated shut-down of one of the ports due to weather conditions. This was managed by an event mecha-nism propagated by OpenDaylight to Comarch’s application, which used inventory data to find the alternative path by re-routing traffic via different ports. Finally, the OpenFlow switches were re-configured and traffic was conveyed from eNodeB to SGW.

The next stage of the proof of concept realization assumes that instead of a “port-down” event, the system would be able to react both to a radio line event and an SDN switch statistic, indicating that bandwidth via original port had been reduced. Compared to the first stage, the second port path would be used once the second radio line was instructed to go up instead of completely re-routing traffic.

OSS Products as SDN Plug-ins – a Multi-Domain Management SystemThe idea of using OSS products (like Network Inventory) as plug-ins has two main benefits. The first is the SDN concept of centralizing the control function when you need an end-to-end view of the network. The network Inventory is perfect for that task as it does not involve “reinventing the wheel”.

The second benefit concerns both the SDN domain and non-SDN networks (in our case radio lines, eNodeB, SGW) – you need an “umbrella” solution to manage both. This capability has always been the domain of OSS systems and Comarch follows this approach in developing all its OSS tools.

The next proof of concept step for the plug-ins is to employ OSS Fault Management (and service assurance) with PM/SQM modules to manage any faults both in the SDN and non-SDN domain. We are excited to see where the future takes us!



SDN Control Plane Virtualization: Reinventing Internet Protocols?



S oftware Defined Networking (SDN) is frequently mentioned alongside Network Function Virtualization (NFV). But, although these technologies are complementary, they differ from one another.

The motivation behind SDN is separating the data plane from the control plane and introducing network program-mability by creating central controller applications. On the other hand, the main motivation behind NFV is separating network function implementation from dedicated hard-ware and making network functions software-based. The aim of this process is to mimic IT phenomena visualization, where software can be easily scaled by allocating virtual machines run on commodity hardware, rather than being limited by traditional, expensive, dedicated network hard-ware. The benefits of these two technologies are reduced costs and shorter time to market for new services for end-customers.

Although by definition SDN does not directly refer to virtual-ization, separation of the control plane from the data plane can be perceived as control function virtualization. For exam-ple, it may mean visualizing the routing function by extracting the control function from the traditional router and imple-menting it as software run in the SDN controller platform. As SDN controller applications are placed centrally and thus capable of controlling entire networks (or subnetworks), not just individual devices, this opens the way for re-inventing traditional device control functions rather than simply mi-grating the control function logic from hardware to software. But does it make sense to reinvent control functions and internet protocols?

The roles of the OpenFlow Switch and the SDN Controller SDN is not limited to the OpenFlow Protocol and it is open to interpretation (in most cases), but the fact is that the Open-Flow Switch Specification defined by the Open Networking Foundation is the most simple and straightforward.

It defines the OpenFlow switch, its functionality and a con-tract between the switch and the controller, based on the OpenFlow Protocol. The functionality of the OpenFlow switch is reduced to a pure data plane function, which basically means the capability to forward incoming packets either to other ports or to the controller. Packet forwarding (or packet dropping) is based on Flow Table entries which consist of two things: the matching criteria for incoming packets and the forwarding actions, which meet those criteria. Flow Table entries can be manipulated by SDN controller applications, which influence the behavior of the switch. In addition, when the OpenFlow switch forwards packets to the SDN Controller (which is also driven by Flow Table entries), the SDN control-ler can make more sophisticated decisions on what to do with the packet. The ability of an SDN controller to manipu-late switch Flow Table entries, as well as to make the deci-sions related to packet processing, separates the roles of the SDN Controller and of the OpenFlow Switch data plane.

OpenFlow Switch – an Ethernet switch, an MPLS switch or an IP Router?What is the traditional device equivalent of the OpenFlow switch? Is it an Ethernet switch, an MPLS switch, or maybe an IP Router? The answer is not simple – the OpenFlow switch is none of the above, although it can substitute them all.

Saying that the OpenFlow switch is none of the above simply means that a pure OpenFlow Switch does not implement any functionality without Flow Table entries defined – in such a case it can’t even forward any packets, so it’s not even a sim-ple Ethernet switch. But once there’s a controller application in place, which defines flow entries, the OpenFlow switch can play any role. If an OpenFlow switch is populated with flow entries operating with a L2 header, it can act like an Ethernet switch. An OpenFlow switch with flow entries defined operat-ing on a L3 layer acts as an Router. Moreover, the role of the OpenFlow switch can be dynamically changed depending on the controller application software.

Stating that the OpenFlow switch can act as an Ethernet Switch or IP Router does not mean it’s merely the equivalent of traditional devices. When the OpenFlow switch acts as an Ethernet switch, it means that an Ethernet switch data plane is implemented inside the switch (by appropriate Flow Table entries). But at the same time the control function is implemented by software in the SDN Controller, which is hosted on a device physically different from the OpenFlow switch. The case is similar with other functions, e.g. that of an IP Router.

It’s worth noticing that traditional Ethernet switch or IP Rout-er modeling require dividing these logical devices into data plane and control plane components, which in case of SDN implementation are hosted on different physical devices.

Re-inventing the Internet?

The approach to implementing the controller function can be either conservative or innovative. The conservative approach may simply mean attempting to replicate algorithms used in traditional Ethernet Switch or IP Routers. For example, when implementing the Ethernet Switch control function, realizing the learning switch algorithm and spanning tree algorithms to prevent an L2 endless broadcast loop may try to re-use the well-known, tested implementation. This approach may result in missing an opportunity to innovate.

It seems that innovation should try to leverage the fact that control functions are hosted in a centralized SDN controller, which means that an SDN controller should benefit from having an end-to-end view of the network. So rather than

ŁUKASZ MENDYK OSS Product Manager,


IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS


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What is the

traditional device

equivalent of the

OpenFlow switch? Is

it an Ethernet switch,

an MPLS switch,

or maybe an IP

Router? The answer

is not simple – the

OpenFlow switch is

none of the above,

although it can

substitute them all.

replicating algorithms from traditional devices (which were based on individual device attempts to discover neighboring devices by using secondary protocols), the central control function should use the help of a network topology / inven-tory system to get a view of the whole network, which is a prerequisite to executing controller functions. This means the Ethernet switch or IP Router control functions imple-mented in the SDN controller may delegate functions of maintaining the view of the network to a topology / inventory system, which in this way becomes part of the SDN Control-ler framework.

Another example of an innovative approach is when an IP Router attempts to send an IP packet to the next hop Router – in such a case there may be no need for using the ARP pro-tocol to discover the MAC address of the next hop Router. Instead, the IP Router SDN control function may try to use the inventory system to make the translation of the next hop IP Router address to the MAC address of this interface and avoid sending packets in the data plane.

When striving for innovation, we always risk “re-inventing the wheel”: instead of creating valuable improvements, we end-up re-implementing something that already works and doesn’t require refinement. This is a general problem of innovation. It’s certain that central control functions must prove their superiority over individual device plane control functions, although they require a non-conservative ap-proach to control function implementation in SDN Control-lers.



Tactical planning for network mergers– how to save time and money

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS 13


O ver the last few years we have observed many different outsourcing projects and models in the European telecom market, always aimed at helping CSPs decrease net-work-related costs. At present, it seems that potential savings stemming from out-

sourced network operations are running out. The logical next step is to complete network consolidations through mergers and acquisitions between various CSPs, which have been taking place recently e.g. in German, Polish and British markets.

Comarch developed an exceptional product for supporting network planning and consolidation processes and has al-ready been chosen as a partner for some of these European merger & acquisition projects.

One of the main goals of any merger and acquisition project is to create visible cost savings. However, in order to make that happen, it is essential to execute the network consolida-tion project within a very tough and challenging time sched-ule. The shorter the consolidation project lasts, the more savings your company will be able to make.

Comarch’s solution for tactical network planning allows you to start implementing network consolidation right after the merger / acquisition deal is finalized, without the need to first consolidate internal IT / OSS between your company and other parties involved in the project.

Legal framework

During the due diligence phase of any merger or acquisition deal, direct communication between the companies involved is typically legally restricted, so the exchange of network-related and technical information is very limited.

In this environment Comarch assumes the role of an inde-pendent solution provider, a trusted third party supporting the merger / acquisition project with ready-made, estab-lished solutions and with business and technical consulting. The solution itself is typically commissioned by the leading operator (buyer), but in order to deal with legal requirements during the due diligence phase, Comarch signs specific NDAs with both operators. This way your company can be sure that all legal restrictions regarding the exchange of informa-tion between the parties will be adhered to throughout the process.

BERND KREILING Head of Professional

Services Telecommunications Business Unit

Operator A(”Buyer”)

NDA and contract

NDA

Operator B

Comarch“trusted 3rd party”

Due diligence

Audit

Cons

ultin

g

NDA withpermision to access

inventorydata

Restrictedcommunication

Optional:Law Company auditing

solution

Fig. 1. Legal framework during due diligence phase



Through detailed configuration of its solution, Comarch man-ages access rights to functionalities and data and ensures that only approved data is visible to the dedicated entities. This includes trusted and direct co-operation with network and IT partners of both operators, which are contractually acting on behalf of those operators. The system can be ad-ditionally audited by a legal office, which consults the opera-tors in the merger / acquisition process.

Technical solution

The solution for tactical network planning is based on Co-march's next generation OSS tools. The core modules of the solution include Network Inventory, Service Inventory, Radio System, Transport and Core Network Planning modules, Geographical Information System (GIS) and a Reporting mod-ule, with the addition of a Business Process Management

Next Generation Network Planning

Operator A

Operator B

3rd partyintegrationsif requested,

e.g. radiopropagation,geo data etc.

Pairing & Rating Engine

Tactical Planning Rules

Network Planning

NGNPTransport

NGNPRadio

NGNPNetKon

TransportRadio Core

Network Planning

TransportRadio Core

Network Configuration

TransportRadio Core

Network Planning

Inventory & Processes

OSS Process Management

Reporting

Common InventoryGIS

plan build run

Inte

grat

ion

Laye

r

Network Planning

TransportRadio Core

Network Configuration

TransportRadio Core

Network Planning

sync

sync

Fig. 2. Technical solution for tactical network planning

(BPM) engine for managing data and workflows. The Pairing and Rating module have been developed specifically for net-work planning purposes.

The quickest way to set up the environment is via a managed service model delivered by Comarch in an end-to-end man-ner, run from one of our international data centers and con-figured as well as maintained by our managed service team in Krakow, Poland (where Comarch is headquartered).

It typically takes about four weeks to set up the initial environment, including connectivity with both operators' facilities. Analytical works start in parallel: the first important phase is focused on aligning both operators' technical jargon – including naming conventions for network objects, rules for object identification / base-keys, common network planning guidelines etc. The result is a common network data system founded on Comarch's standard inventory model and adapted to the specific needs of both operators.



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You can modify the new system according to the settings required by customers or to specific project configurations. Software development efforts are only needed for interface design and data migration from customer-specific invento-ries and planning tools.

The network consolidation process Once you migrate the network inventory and planning data into the tactical network planning solution, the Pairing and Rating process begins. Its goal is to design the form of the future common network, based on key network KPIs (coverage, capacity, number of sites etc.). Once the network elements and sites of the two networks are “paired”, the objects get “weighed” according to the parameters related to network quality and costs.

The trade-off between network quality and network costs is defined by customer network engineering guidelines. Typically you need several iterations with different settings to achieve the best possible result.

After the optimal network design is calculated and pro-posed by the rating engine, the result is verified and fine-tuned through a verification process. This process is pre-configured in the solution and manages the verifica-tion tasks for radio and transport network engineers, as

well as for real estate and civil works specialists. Since all network engineering tasks are supported by standard net-work planning functionalities within one integrated solu-tion, you can conduct the entire tactical network planning process efficiently even in a small specialized team, which reduces the requirement for resources on your side. Dur-ing the process, both the engineers and the management receive constant reports on the resulting network KPIs (related to quality and costs) and the progress in network verification.

Comarch tactical network planning solution calculates spe-cific consolidation tasks for both networks. This informa-tion can be fed back to planning systems of the involved operators to initialize and execute specific network con-solidation activities (e.g. dismantling radio sites, transport capacity extensions, system swaps, etc.).

Even after you complete the merger / acquisition legally, and start the network consolidation process, there are still two organizations with two OSS environments in place. A tactical network planning solution plays a key role of a central common network data hub: during the entire con-solidation process it is used to manage all dependencies between network consolidation activities to ensure the consistency of network data and quality and to verify net-work design decisions. This enables you to start network consolidation activities immediately, without waiting for IT / OSS consolidation first.

Fig. 3. Pairing & Rating engine

16 IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS


In order to create visible cost savings on any merger or acquisition, it is essential to execute the network

consolidation project within a very tough and challenging time schedule.

The shorter the consolidation project lasts, the more savings your company will be able to make.

Typically 6 to 12 month

6 month

ComarchAnalyses &scopedefinition

Environmentready, firstprototype forvalidation

Solutionverificationsessions 3 month

Announcement ofmerger/acquisition,start of due diligence

NDAs signed andproject kick off

Solution acceptedand ready to use,first user trainings

Start of tacticalnetwork planning(target “golden grid”)

Target Network defined!Starting networkconsolidation activities

Approval ofauthorities

Legal closer ofmerger/acquisition deal

Typically 1 to 2 month

Legal milestones Comarch solution implementation Network engineering activities

Fig. 4. Typical project schedule for telco merger/acquisition deals using Comarch solution for tactical network planning

Business benefits of Comarch network consolidation solutionThe key factor when making a decision about any telecom merger / acquisition deal is the expected level of savings, resulting from the planned network consolidation. In order to materialize those expected savings, it is essential to begin the network consolidation activities as soon as possible in the merger / acquisition process.

Comarch’s solution allows network operators to define the target network based on the requested network quality / cost KPIs, as a result of an efficient process taking place during or directly after the due diligence period. Network consolidation processes can start immediately after official closing of the deal, without IT / OSS consolidation between

the parties as a first step. The solution can be delivered in a managed service model with Comarch acting as a trusted and certified third party, ensuring adherence to all legal re-strictions in the due diligence phase.

During the network consolidation phase Comarch’s solu-tion becomes the central hub for exchanging network data between the involved parties. This ensures that all depen-dencies between consolidation activities are properly man-aged and the impact of network changes on subscribers is reduced to a minimum. Close cooperation of our engineers with their counterparts on the operator’s side during the system setup is a prerequisite for the success of the project. Comarch has achieved best results in such projects with a joint project team working quickly and efficiently on site at the client's facilities.



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SDN – a step into the unknown land


18 IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & the future of OSS

W orking in an IT company’s R&D department means constantly making decisions to meet clients’

ever-growing expectations and demands, related to both software features and non-functional requirements, such as performance and high availability. The fast-growing need for real time reactions and automation, together with complexity and scale, leads to the invention of cutting-edge algorithms, techniques and to the development of ever-newer tools and libraries. It’s very easy to get confused and to drown in the sea of infinite choices. Staying in the comfort zone seems very tempting, but in-depth analysis and staying focused on your goals both help you make the right decision, even if you have to step into unknown land.

The first step into an unknown landOur unknown land was called SDN. To cut a long story short: our high-level mission is to manage, monitor and configure SDN Devices to make networks more intelligent, resilient and fault-tolerant. OpenFlow protocol is the key word here. It is a standard created for testing experimental protocols in real networks. Nowadays OpenFlow is added as a feature to commercial Ethernet switches, routers and wireless access points. It allows to modify standard behavior of devices with-out changing any drivers. Device operation is controlled at runtime by an external application called the SDN controller.

First of all, we had to get one of these controllers. It was cer-tain from the beginning that developing our own SDN Con-troller would only be considered as a last resort, as there are several open implementations of such applications that we could use. After thorough evaluation, the decision was made that OpenDaylight was the most stable and most extensively developed one, and thus Comarch will use it for its SDN de-velopments.

What is OpenDaylight?

OpenDaylight is a set of partially independent projects. The most basic ones allow connecting with network devices, interaction with external applications, deployment of exten-sions and code generation. Some others are responsible for controlling behavior of network devices and for managing OpenFlow protocol communication. It significantly simplifies the process of setting up system configuration and gathering all crucial information about switches, allowing the developer to focus on more complicated algorithms, which add new value to the existing network.

JAROSŁAW KARPIAK Team Leader,

OSS R&D Department Telecommunications Business Unit



19

Furthermore, OpenDaylight provides some high-level fea-tures, for example an OpenFlow switch can be used as a standard L2 one. The technology stack of OpenDaylight was quite surprising. We were accustomed to the J2EE application server as an enterprise level container, but here we were faced with an Apache Karaf – OSGI (Open Service Gateway Initiative) based application container supporting several J2EE APIs.

Taking into account our goals, a test network was a must. Luckily we didn’t need to have a whole lab. It turned out that having OpenFlow infrastructure is not so complicated. Actually, there is software simulating real networks, consist-ing of OpenFlow switches. Mininet is a network emulator which creates virtual hosts, switches, controllers, and links. With this software one can create a testing network with OpenFlow-compatible switches connected to an external controller by one command. Mininet’s Python API lets any-one create complex networks and program events for test-ing purposes.

Can your network become smart(er)?Imagine a network that’s truly intelligent. It performs au-tomatic reconfiguration in case of failure or congestion. It immediately compensates any degradation of services, while utilizing resources in an effective and flexible manner. Applications are so close to the end users that any delay is imperceptible. It all sounds great, doesn’t it?

All of these concepts require enormous amounts of data to process. Gathering tons of statistical data has already proven that relational databases are not enough. Even simpler use cases like reporting detailed information about transactions in Mobility Management Entity (MME) or selecting the worst performers by device type were challenging, when working with relational databases.

Changing the architecture into one that supports Big Data boosts the execution time hundredfold. A storage layer and basis for all calculations is Hadoop Distributed File System

SDN controller

OpenFlow switchesand hosts simulatedby Mininet

Communication using



(HDFS). Resources (such as CPU, memory, IO) are managed in the cluster and assigned to applications (such as Spark or Impala by YARN – a very fast query engine handling ana-lytical and BI queries, mostly because of using optimized storage techniques (Parquet). The last component of the high-level architecture is Spark - a general purpose compu-tation engine responsible for ETL as well as more advanced algorithms. Two of its modules are worth noting. The first is Streaming, which allows to stream analytics related to the upcoming data. The second one is Machine Learning, which can be used for inference and prediction. Many com-mon learning and statistical algorithms are already there and ready to use. Their presence significantly simplifies data processing and analysis even in complex multidimensional cases. Currently, based on experience from simpler use cas-es, a similar architecture is used as an initial configuration for complex SDN scenarios.

Livin’ on the edge

The faster a system reacts, the better the user experience is. Even the most sophisticated optimization and fine-tuning

do not solve the problem of the overhead of network com-munication between a data center and a customer. The best solution would be to place apps and services as close to the end user as possible (at the network edges). A detailed vision of such an architecture was described several times in Comarch white papers and previous issues of this magazine. Although the vision is clear, it entails some practical challeng-es. A successful solution requires a highly efficient system for distributed deployment and immediate application migration and collocation. Algorithms for distribution should take many crucial factors into account, e.g. resource utilization, avail-able services, impact on other apps, usage density, current network state, etc. It enforces close cooperation between various systems in many fields. New techniques, algorithms and tools are being deeply researched. We want to avoid reinventing the wheel and save as much time as possible for really innovative inventions.

Now that we've entered the (previously) unknown land of SDN, we will pursue our vision of providing telecom opera-tors with future-proof OSS that supports new network tech-nologies. And we definitely do not intend to go back.

HDSFDistributed, redundant, reliable file system

- In-memory processing- Machine Learning- Streaming

YARNCluster resource and workload management

Interactive SQL queries



21

How to efficiently plan your transport networkComarch Technology Review 01/2015


PAWEŁ PŁASZCZYCA Product Owner

– NGNP Physical Inventory Telecommunications Business Unit

T he availability of any service at any time and in any location escaped the realm of dreams very quickly and has

now become one of the most basic customer demands. High-capacity services, as well as those requiring low latency and ultra-low la-tency, give headaches to mobile network op-erators (MNOs) who not only need to adapt their radio access networks (RAN), but also to invest in their transport networks.

Mobile commerce is constantly developing and it starts to rival e-commerce as the leading digital channel for retailers. In its “Top 10 Strategic Predictions for 2015 and Beyond” Gart-ner states that ‘By 2017, U.S. customers' mobile engagement behavior will drive mobile commerce revenue in the U.S. to 50% of U.S. digital commerce revenue’. As a result, mobile network operators need to make sure that their transport networks can efficiently manage the traffic generated by services such mobile payments (short transactions with high end-to-end quality of service – QoS), which are completely different from voice calls or data transmission.

Ensuring high QoS for low latency and high capacity servicesA significant amount of customers have already decided to change their fixed broadband to 3G or LTE. In comparison to the situation from a few years ago, the price-to-quality ratio for those services is very reasonable. However mobile access definitely wins in the area of coverage (e.g. in rural areas in suburbs) and “on-the-go” availability. Users demand high capacity services to be available not only at home, but also when travelling or going out. Video streaming, residential video and cloud storage are all examples of services that entail an explosion in the traffic that needs to be delivered to end users via mobile networks.

To ensure an acceptable quality of service to the end users, for both low latency and high capacity services, you need to apply customer-centric and service-centric traffic models. The changes must be applied not only in the access network but also in the transport network.

XaaS



23

How to deal with high costs of mobile backhaul?Several MNOs have already rolled out LTE in big cities, but there are still many blank spots on each country’s coverage maps. One of the reasons that prevent operators from roll-ing out LTE infrastructure in remote, rural areas (especially those located in difficult terrains, e.g. in the mountains) is the high cost of mobile backhaul.

In many cases it is impossible or too expensive to build a fiber-optic connection to such areas. Telecoms are looking for savings in K-band satellite backhaul, but this may turn out to be a short-term solution, as this setup cannot provide sufficient quality of service for low latency and ultra-low latency services. On the other hand, a microwave based backhaul calls for a complex planning process and usually generates painful operational costs, due to high power consumption.

To compare the available options, you need to have end-to-end visibility of the process, as well as detailed knowledge of all its phases. Each phase (including construction work, pow-er infrastructure, hardware ordering, installation, integration, acceptance tests and documentation) generates costs. Only a tool that can orchestrate all these phases and provide nec-essary data to minimize the cost of each phase can bring real CAPEX savings.

The need for efficient transport network planningThe market environment, in which big MNOs are doing their business, has been recently seeing many takeovers, mergers and infrastructure sharing projects. Some mobile operators evolved to triple-play or x-play providers. This means that services, previously delivered only by fixed and mobile op-erators, must now must be handled (with proper quality of service) by a convergent transport network.

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE SHARING



Sharing infrastructure / resources for OPEX savingsMNOs must constantly struggle for operational excellence in order to remain competitive and to improve profitability. Infrastructure sharing has become a popular strategy that shows real results in the reduction of operational and capital expenditures.

Radio access networks (RAN) were the first kind of network that CSPs decided to share, but other scenarios like shar-ing of fixed access (PON or FTTx) or transport network (e.g. frequency sharing in DWDM network) are possible as well. At the same time virtualization of network resources and functions generates an almost infinite list of resource sharing opportunities and scenarios.

These strategies can provide significant savings, but they also require tools to simulate and plan changes in multi-tech-nology, multi-vendor, virtualized, convergent networks. Only with such tools will telecom operators be able to see the “big picture” and precisely localize most promising OPEX saving possibilities.

Comarch OSS is the answer

In order to efficiently plan changes in transport network you need to have full visibility of the impact the plan has on your access (both RAN and fixed) and core networks, as well as full information about the capacity and capability of the given device . An “umbrella” OSS solution can provide both, and in this way it can help you achieve significant OPEX reduction in a relatively short timeframe.

Comarch “umbrella” OSS is the perfect choice for operators that are aiming to optimize the management and planning of their transport networks. The benefits of using our solution are listed below:

Comarch Network Inventory delivers the neces-sary (detailed) information about the capability of devices, detailed down to the single device interface. This allows for maximal and optimal use of network resources, while minimizing the workload – which translates into significant decrease in operational costs (OPEX).

Above the detailed technological modelling, Comarch OSS provides a template mechanism, which enables to plan devices, as well as physical and logical connectivity between them, with the help of reusable templates (which decreases the workload as well). The device / planning data that is generated this way is sufficient for Comarch OSS Configuration Management to automati-cally, remotely configure the devices, or even to achieve a full closed loop, shortening time to market and decreasing capital expenditures.

Comarch OSS Transport is a tool for detailed planning of transport networks – including technologies such as Ethernet, SDH or DWDM. It enables full planning of each layer’s routing, while also delivering tools that automate this process as much as possible. This, again, short-ens time to market and decreases capital expenditures (CAPEX).

Comarch OSS is a multi-vendor, multi-technology solu-tion, which means it supports the inventory and plan-ning of any number of technologies present in a given network, using a single tool. It also means Comarch OSS stores information about all technologies (RAN, trans-port, core, fixed access, mobile access) and all vendors in one tool, with one database and one user interface. This allows e.g. for network optimization, when planning a converged network for triple-play or x-play operators.

There are currently new solutions introduced to Comarch OSS – ones that enable inventory and plan-ning of virtual resources, such as virtual servers, but also virtual contexts, switches, load balancers, firewalls, MGW and more. Inventory of virtual resources combined with reconciliation and assurance, provides a powerful tool for optimizing network rollout and maintaining a virtual-ized transport network.

The processes of planning and rolling out changes in a transport network are often complex and consist of multiple stages. Comarch Business Process Manage-ment & Planning enables telecom operators to sig-nificantly shorten the time of planning and rolling out changes (thanks to using a mechanism that automati-cally assigns tasks to the appropriate resources), as well as to improve communication in complex projects or the quality of process documentation.

To ensure an acceptable quality of service to the end users, for both low latency and high capacity

services, you need to apply customer-centric and service-centric traffic models.



25



Supporting smart metering programs with innovative OSS tools



27

Supporting smart metering programs with innovative OSS tools

MICHAŁ MĘDRALA Head of OSS

Product Management Telecommunications Business Unit

S mart meters enable remote measur-ing of energy, gas and water con-sumption and they are currently be-

coming more and more popular in both homes and offices, bringing the promise of higher transparency, efficiency, savings and accessibility.

There are three main aspects of the idea:

Measurement and visualization of resource con-sumption for the end customer – providing infor-mation on how resources are being utilized and which appliances are the main “resource consumers”, compar-ing consumption on a weekly / monthly / yearly basis, and advising the end user on how to optimize resource usage

Transmitting real-time measurements to reso-urce providers – sending real-time measurements and events to the resource provider's central hub – online analysis, accurate invoices – no more forecasts and / or high consumption thresholds – targeting resource leaks

Environment protection – reducing emissions through lower resource consumption

The aim of smart metering services is to bring significant sav-ings for both end customers and the governments, as a re-sult of improved resource consumption efficiency.

The British Smart Metering programIn 2010, the UK government established its Smart Metering program which, in its first phase, aimed to install innovative energy metering devices in all British homes, to generate water and energy savings and to reduce emissions to the atmosphere.

Within the program, smart meters were connected to the network via existing internet service providers (ISPs – mobile, LAN, WAN) or new networks created specifically for this purpose – long range radio (LRR). The meters send energy consumption data to the energy provider (the next phase is aimed at extending the system to support water consump-tion as well). Finding leaks and their causes helps users consume utilities more wisely.

Two ISPs were chosen to make this happen in the UK – Tele-fónica O2 (66% of the deal), which covers the entire UK with its mobile network technologies (2G, 3G, 4G) and Arqiva, which decided to build a new long range radio (LRR) network which will be able to provide the service in places such as un-derground pits beneath cast iron lids. The service demands a high-end network with excellent availability, low latency, high security and very high reliability.



Both operators are still testing several solutions to verify net-work capabilities for the metering service. They tested their mobile networks across the whole UK in tens of innovation labs / test areas. Tests were focused on accessibility, low la-tency, network reliability, but also encompassed the areas of:

Keep alive service

Robust collection of massive data

Firmware upgrades

Provisioning actions

Collection of alarms /events

The rollout began in 2015, with a plan to install meters in 30 millions of private houses across the whole UK between 2015 and 2020. The expected savings are estimated at 10.9 billion pounds.

How Comarch support smart metering programsThanks to many years of experience in the IT industry and its out-of-the-box solutions, Comarch is able to provide a comprehensive, reliable solution that supports smart meter-ing programs, like the one mentioned above. The solution is composed of selected modules from our OSS Suite – a com-prehensive platform for managing IT and telecommunication infrastructures.

Apart from traditional OSS functions (such as Fault Manage-ment, Performance Management or Inventory Management), our OSS Suite is equipped with a Service Management func-tionality – this way it provides a service modeling environ-ment and enables definition of propagation rules for events from resource to service and customer satisfaction levels. The logical architecture of Comarch OSS Suite is shown in the diagram below.

Here is how the selected tools from Comarch OSS Suite can support your smart metering program:

Network Inventory stores the entire network topol-ogy, both logical and physical, related to service and resources; the system also provides many visualization and reporting capabilities,

Configuration Management (as Commissioning Tool) provides the ability to change attributes of site services and resources (meters, aggregation points) and remote software updates,

OSS Mediation is responsible for connecting with vari-ous resource types – which includes not only reading / discovering data, but also configuring it; to support massive data loads from several data sources Comarch Mediation supports the Hadoop technology for fast data processing and correlation,

Fault Management collects, prioritizes and raises alarms coming directly from the data sources (meters, aggregation points) and performs automatic actions (such as raising trouble tickets, restarting devices or

Fig. 1. How smart meters work

Cloud

WLANLRR

3G 4G 2G

End usermeters

Electricity/gas/waterproviders



29

ports based on descriptions and hints stored in the Knowledge Database),

Performance Management collects and presents per-formance data from resources (availability, payload etc.); due to the possibility of assigning thresholds, any devia-tion in performance data can be translated in the sys-tem into an alarm-event,

Service Monitoring enables real-time monitoring of service performance and availability (i.e. ping / keep alive),

Field Service Management supports field engineers with information required for resolving service issues.

Aside from the modules mentioned above, Comarch’s smart metering solution is additionally secured with an authentica-tion system (fully accessible online), and comes with a set of reports and charts that create a presentation layer for both types of recipients – residential and business.

STRATEGY, INFRASTRUCTURE& PRODUCT

OPERATIONS SUPPORT &READINESS FULFILLMENT ASSURANCE

ReportingService

SystemRepository &Configuration

Notification& Escalation

Service

Reusable Components

AuthenticationService

WEBConsole

OSSConsole

Other Systems (BSS, Trouble Ticketing, etc.)

OSS Process Management

Serv

ice

Man

agem

ent

Reso

urce

Man

agem

ent

Service Catalog Service OrderManagement SLA Monitoring

Service Fulfillment Customer ExperienceManagement

Service Activation

Service QualityManagement

ServiceMonitoring

Service InventoryManagement

OSS Mediation

PhysicaldevicesNMS/EMS

3rd partysystem

NetworkEnvironment

Network Planning& Design

Network InventoryManagement

Auto-Discovery& Reconciliation

Configuration Management

Field Service Management

PerformanceManagement

FaultManagement

Fig. 2. Comarch OSS Suite – Logical Architecture



Turning real-time data mining into actionable analytics

Big Data is one

of the most

important assets

CSPs have in their

hands. Analyzing

that information

must follow a

defined roadmap

based on real

business value and

it must be based

on well-defined

use cases.



31

T elecom operators have access to a huge volume of information about their subscrib-ers’ activities, done with the use of their mobile devices. This may be one of the most important assets communication service providers (CSPs) have in their hands – and

now is the time to make the best of it.

For years, the potential that this kind of mass data carries was not fully exploited, but under the pressure of today’s market challenges, a growing number of telecoms started to carefully mine their Big Data to get to know their customers better and as a result - enhance their marketing campaigns and sales activities.

Real-time actionable analytics can help operators manage crucial business processes, such as:

Searching for new competitive differentiators, additional revenue streams and maximizing return on investment on new product offers,

Effectively identifying and reaching specific target groups with dedicated services and products, designed for their individual preferences.

As predicted by Gartner, 2015 seems to be a critical year in terms of a growing need for data analytics platforms to scale and perform for larger amounts of diverse data. The chal-lenge for these solutions is to efficiently combine the technical aspects of data analytics with consumer and business needs. This is why there is a need to explore, govern and integrate theories and best practices related to multi-structured infor-mation, inferential statistics, machine learning models, predic-tive analytics, business intelligence, customer profiling etc.

Most executives say too much critical, decision-making infor-mation is delivered too late. Typical legacy solutions based on Business Intelligence (BI) / Data Warehouse (DWH) plat-forms, enable post mortem, offline data mining and analysis, and provide actionable results no sooner than several days or even weeks after the event took place. This is no longer enough in the world, where everything needs to happen in real time. Operational excellence requires immediate action.

Next-generation solutions should therefore focus on de-livering results and building real business value in a much shorter timeframe than before. A modern data analytics plat-form should ingest source data automatically in streaming mode, process it and make intelligent decisions in real time. It should also automatically trigger actions, based on analytic insights, and implement consistent precisely-timed integra-tions to different execution engines.

THE VALUE OF REAL-TIME DATA ANALYTICS Seeing the need of telecoms to implement data analytics so-lutions that are fit for today’s market challenges and require-

ments, Comarch designed a Data Analytics & Monetization platform, adding to its comprehensive BSS portfolio. The new solution focuses on delivering measurable business results using intelligent Big Data processing and real-time actionable analytics. It reflects the need to process data and trigger rel-evant action in real time.

Real-time streaming data ingestionThe system ingests data from multiple source feeds. The main data sources are network elements like SS7 probes and RAN elements, providing streams of signaling data that carries information about user activity and location. It is possible to use other sources of information like CRM, net-work topology, transport information, weather information, social data, web application logs, public open platforms etc. The data processing layer is fed not only by external sources, but also by feedback from already performed com-putations – this allows to improve future predictions and classifications.

Real-time decision processing based on machine learning algorithmsStream processing makes it possible to handle incoming events in real time and immediately execute the desired actions. Data is processed using various algorithms, which operate based on a model built from sample inputs, and use it to make predictions and decisions. ML-Lib – Spark’s scalable machine learning library includes various learning algorithms and utilities, including classification, regression, clustering, collaborative filtering, dimensionality reduction, and others.

Real-time action triggering based on analytical insightsActions generated by the solution’s algorithms are pub-lished as events via a message broker. Each event consists of information about the required action type and its pa-rameters. Alerts are one example of an action type – they are mainly sent to users for further consideration (Machine-to-Human (M2H)). Events can be accessed by various con-sumers. This architecture is completely open to integration with other modules and external systems (CRM system, messaging etc.).

DARIUSZ JĘDRASZEK Product Manager,

Data Analytics & Monetization, Telecommunications Business Unit



SAMPLE USE CASES FOR DATA ANALYTICS & MONETIZATIONUse Case 1: Activating ‘silent roamers’ - customer insight

management

Reaching out to customers, who turn their data roaming off when abroad (‘silent roamers’) and offering them personal-ized roaming service packages is well received by mobile subscribers. This is due to the fact that the main reason behind this behavior is the customers’ fear of ‘bill shocks’ at the end of the billing cycle. Showing mobile users their actual spending in real-time or allowing them to set cost or volume thresholds while being abroad encourages them to step out of the ‘silent’ segment.

Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization can not only classify a given user (roamer) into a defined customer segment, but it can also process this information and send appropriate noti-fications to that roamer. Such a message can present to the customer one of predefined traveler packs for all or selected telecom services. This way, a specific product can be offered automatically, based on the given customer’s home-based and/or roaming preferences from previous trips (e.g. a customer who tends to use only e-mail and social media will be more in-terested in a data roaming pack than in a voice roaming pack).

When designing its Data Analytics & Monetization solution, Comarch implemented the TM Forum’s Customer Insight Management functionality into the roaming management do-

Comarch Data Analytics and Monetization

X Provide advertising providers, OTTs, traditional and online TV stations and their partners with processed and anonymous data to generate new revenues

X Use real-time insight tools to analyze customer needs, make better product decisions and proactively manage the user experience

DATAMONETISATION

Business Value

Outputs

Insights Delivery

& Visualisation

Real-Time

Big D

ata ProcessingD

ata SourceFeeds

BUSINESS /OPERATIONS

SUPPORT

Social Media CRM Data

DASHBOARD & REPORTING

360 CUSTOMER VIEW

Streaming Ingestion

RAN

Network Environment

Probes Rated Events

DataAnonymisation

MULTI-CHANNELNOTIFICATION

Actionable Insights

Reporting &Visualisation

CustomerProfiles

ActionTriggering

NetworkEvents

Usage& Charges

PublicProfile

PrivateProfile

DetailedData Store

Real-TimeActionable Analytics

AggregatedData Store

Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization - Solution overview

Figure 1. High level functional system architecture

John has just opened a new grill bar on St. James Street. He is searching for new marketing ideas to get visitors to come.

John makes a deal with his mobile operator to run a marketing campaign for his bar. John supplies the operator with the target customer profile and the text of the message which will be sent to potential customers in the campaign.

The operator and John agree that the campaign will last 2 weeks. Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization will send an SMS to each of his subscribers who:

Shows up within a 1-kilometer radius from John’s bar between 7 PM and 9 PM on any day during the 2 weeks of the campaign duration (and)

Is a man (and)

Is 25-45 years old (and)

Didn’t get any SMS within the current campaign yet (and)

Agreed to receiving marketing messages from the operator upon contract signature


Is a man (and)




Tom likes to stay connected with his family and friends in his home country. Each day he surfs the internet using his mobile device, he also regularly uses a messenger and is an active social media user.

One day, Tom goes abroad. It’s his first trip with his current mobile operator. To avoid paying too much for data transmission, Tom turns off his data roaming.

Comarch Roaming Actionable Analytics classifies Tom as a ”silent roamer”. Knowing that Tom is pretty active in his home country, the system sends him a text message (SMS), offering a mobile traveler pack at a fixed cost for a defined period of time / traffic limit.

TOM A ”SILENT ROAMER”

JOHNA NEW BAR OWNER ADVERTISING HIS BUSINESS LOCALLY



33

main. Although Customer Insight Management builds upon traditional business intelligence and analytics tools for cus-tomer transactions and interactions, it is unique in providing real-time customer service, in the form of relevant, timely, and personalized actions.

Use Case 2: Real-time precision marketing, based on mobile location information

Nowadays, most consumers always have their mobile de-vice on them, both at home and on the go. This creates a massive opportunity for service providers to provide

a context-aware, location-based mobile experience and reach their customers with personalized offers. It is how-ever essential to first obtain and analyze as much informa-tion about customer behavior as possible – only with such insights is it possible to implement personalized sales and marketing. Does the user have any behavior patterns (e.g. a person who goes to a football game every Sunday)? Does this person shop online or offline? What places does he / she visit during the weekends? All this information empow-ers a mobile operator with knowledge, that can help in building offers perfectly tailored to the needs of each cus-tomer segment.

Customer profileand current offer

Mobile operator indestination country

Mobile operator inhome country

COMARCH ACTIONABLEANALYTICS

Hey! Stay in touch withyour Facebook friends.Check out our 200MB

roaming pack

Some customerswith turned data off

while being in roaming

Roamers

Figure 2. Silent roamer activation use case

Figure 3. Real-time geo-fencing advertising usecase

SMS text

Man, 25-45 years old7-9 PM

Telco OperatorComarch Data

Analytics & Monetization

Hey! Come in to the John’s Grill Baron Eagle St. 2342 and enjoy your free beer

(show this SMS to the bartender)!



Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization analyzes informa-tion about human flows based on tracking data collected from the mobile network. The range of analytical insights is broad and may include geographical mobility, demograph-ics, social segmentation and more. Using customer profiling, classification and clustering, the conclusions help telecom operators enhance information about individual custom-ers (a 360-degree view) and build social-based customer segments. The obtained insights can help operators iden-tify various ways to boost customer experience through precisely targeted marketing, geo-fencing and operational actions.

Use Case 3: Data monetization – information is power

Analytical insights are a great and powerful asset and can be used by telecom operators not only to improve their custom-er profiling, offer building and precision marketing. A wireless carrier can share anonymous and aggregated subscriber data with third parties in order to help them achieve better results in their own marketing efforts. This new revenue stream may provide direct monetization of the gathered and analyzed data. It is possible to deliver an application in the “data as a service” business model.

The ability to provide location-based insights based on an analysis of population movements, makes Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization a great asset to be used as part of Smart City solutions, helping local governments with urban planning, transport optimization, public safety, sociological

analysis, traffic management for large events, prediction of evacuation process, etc. – adjusted to the real preferences of the city’s inhabitants and visitors. The system also allows to make customized local retail offers for stores or restaurants, as well as to determine the best locations and most appro-priate formats for new ones.

Summary

Big Data is one of the most important assets CSPs have in their hands. Analyzing that information must follow a defined roadmap based on real business value and it must be based on well-defined use cases. Only such an actionable approach can improve customer experience management, trigger proactive care (up-selling and cross-selling, churn reduction activities etc.) and help CSPs to obtain additional revenues generated by their own services, as well as their partners’ products.

Data analytics and monetization can be based on customer transaction data, marketing data, customer demographic data, network performance data etc. However, to obtain real business value it is crucial that it also includes mobile location information – as it is the main source of information about customer activities. The movement of mobile users is the primary source of insights, location-based customer profiling, decisions and triggered actions. Delivering valuable customer insights to third parties is key to successful moneti-zation of external data.

John has just opened a new grill bar on St. James Street. He is searching for new marketing ideas to get visitors to come.

John makes a deal with his mobile operator to run a marketing campaign for his bar. John supplies the operator with the target customer profile and the text of the message which will be sent to potential customers in the campaign.

The operator and John agree that the campaign will last 2 weeks. Comarch Data Analytics & Monetization will send an SMS to each of his subscribers who:


Is a man (and)





Is a man (and)




Tom likes to stay connected with his family and friends in his home country. Each day he surfs the internet using his mobile device, he also regularly uses a messenger and is an active social media user.

One day, Tom goes abroad. It’s his first trip with his current mobile operator. To avoid paying too much for data transmission, Tom turns off his data roaming.

Comarch Roaming Actionable Analytics classifies Tom as a ”silent roamer”. Knowing that Tom is pretty active in his home country, the system sends him a text message (SMS), offering a mobile traveler pack at a fixed cost for a defined period of time / traffic limit.

TOM A ”SILENT ROAMER”

JOHNA NEW BAR OWNER ADVERTISING HIS BUSINESS LOCALLY

DON’T FORGET ABOUT SOLID FOUNDATIONS!Launching innovative services requires support of your core BSS.

operator projects.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you with your next BSS transformation!

[email protected]



Customer Experience & Multi-Partner Field Service Delivery ModelInterview with Brian Crouthers and Robert Hess from ViaSat Communications, Colorado, USA by Szymon Uczciwek, COMARCH.



37

COMARCH: Customer Experience can be defined on dif-ferent levels. One of the definitions says that customer experience (CX) is the sum of all experiences at various touch points a customer has with a supplier of goods and/or services over the duration of their relationship with that supplier. This can include awareness, disco-very, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy. It can also be used to mean an individual experience over one transaction” (Source Wiki.org). From my experience in the telecommunications indu-stry, customer experience may be considered from at least three perspectives: delivered product perspective i.e. what the customer gets for the money, the quality of the delivered product or service and the way in which the customer interacts with the supplier. What does Customer Experience mean for you?

Brian: You are right, when looked at from a broader per-spective; customer experience can be defined as each of the three mentioned aspects. In simple words, the customer must be happy with the product or service, with the way in which it’s delivered and with its quality. From my perspective as a director who manages the field service department, the main focus is to serve each customer in a way that is most convenient for him / her. Most of our field services are re-lated to installations and service calls. In both of these cases, setting an appointment and performing a quick installation or fixing a problem are crucial to achieve full satisfaction at the service end point. We’ve introduced all the necessary tools to enable customers to set the time of the technician’s visit during the first call. We’ve found that it’s really important, both for acquiring new customers and better serving the existing ones who are experiencing any kind of issue related to our product.

Rob: Of course this is only one of our methods to increase client satisfaction. Imagine a customer who was booked for an installation service during the first call, scheduled for to the next day, between 3 PM and 6 PM. He leaves work ear-lier, and gets home to be there when the technician arrives, but nobody comes. He will probably resign from the product. So it’s very important to monitor, whether the booked ap-pointments are really executed on time. When the whole process is based on real technician availability, it is easier to abide to set visit times, but we always have to take some un-foreseen circumstances into account. This is why we monitor in real time whether or not meetings are conducted accord-ing to the plan and always try to meet the first scheduled date and time. As a satellite service provider we deliver our services all over the US, which is why we rely on subcontrac-tors in terms of field service. In such a distributed service delivery model getting the right level of customer satisfaction is much trickier.

COMARCH: I understand you decided to outsource all of your field service to external suppliers – is it just one company, a few big subcontractors or a whole network?

Brian: As Rob has already mentioned, in order to cover all the states we have to deal with different subcontrac-

tors. Having our own field workforce support such a large area would be costly and very challenging in terms of time management. With the way our business works, it is almost impossible to work with just one partner, so we deal with many companies and each one views customer experience differently. We have our own team of “fire fighters” to deal with complex or emergency situations; the rest of our field service is outsourced to other companies.

Robert: These subcontractors vary – we deal with large fulfillment partners who cover multiple states and have their own well-organized structures. We also deal with a network of smaller partners, self-employed technicians, who cover smaller areas. A third party may have different priorities than we do and we also have limited influence over individuals who are not our employees.

COMARCH: By definition, outsourcing should be based on strictly defined KPIs, which must be met by the con-tractor. It is aimed to make any process simpler - instead of having to manage your own workforce, you pay and demand — isn’t it like that?

Brian: Outsourcing means that the work is provided on customer location by a third party. This does not change the fact that it is still our customer, and ViaSat is the supplier of the final product. Of course, we have strictly defined KPIs in place, and it helps to motivate subcontrac-tors to care about our customer experience. The most important factor is that the settlements between every contractor and our company are precisely defined. It would be too risky to just leave everything in the hands of a third party. We have an advanced product that works really well, but today a good product is not enough for a telecom company to compete on the market. You have to win customers with excellent service. This is why we decided to support the delivery of ViaSat services with our own tools. From the time of the sale to a new customer, installation of services and customer support post installa-tion, these processes are all supported by Comarch Field Service Management (FSM).

Technicians access the system through their smartphones or tablets, using a special application managed by our company, which enables them to finish work, provide our product on the customer’s site and close the order. Such a toolset helps us automate certain processes, such as provisioning, remote diagnosis, etc. Having our field staff equipped with access to the FSM system provides them with the possibility to interact with our other IT systems and activate or change the product on location, without extensive efforts. In fact, considering a 6-hour difference between time zones and thousands of miles between the customer location and our headquarters, it wouldn’t even be possible.

COMARCH: So how exactly should you divide respon-sibilities between a field service subcontractor and a provider of a final product / service? Which parts of the process did you outsource and which ones stayed in--house at ViaSat?

ViaSat CommunicationsThe company that acquired WildBlue Communications is ViaSat’s two-way satellite Internet service provider di-vision. Serving over 600,000 subscribers in the United States, the company offers services to home and busi-ness customers directly and via resellers including DISH and the National Rural Tele-communications Coopera-tive (NRTC). In January 2012, ViaSat launched a new, much fast-er satellite Internet service called Exede by ViaSat. The service increases the speed and capacity of satellite In-ternet dramatically through the use of the ViaSat high-capacity satellite system, which includes the 140 Gbit/s ViaSat-1 satellite.

BRIAN CROUTHERS ViaSat Communications Director of Field

Operations

ROBERT HESS ViaSat Communications Field Operations Manager

of Systems and Support



Robert: From the technology perspective, the end-to-end process is still managed by ViaSat. The FSM tool supports this process at every step. When we look at the people in-volved in the process, the process is divided between us and third parties. Here’s what the process looks like. Orders get created by external sales teams, the system assigns these orders to outsourced field workforce, usually automatically), then dispatchers (who, in most cases, work on a subcontrac-tor’s side) monitor these assignments. Field technicians get their tasks through mobile devices and once they execute these tasks, the system automatically closes them. All of these people involved are employees of our suppliers, so in this respect the process is totally outsourced. ViaSat’s involvement is only required when there is a problem or in the case of smaller / local tasks that are covered by our own technicians.

Brian: That’s true, but on the other hand we have full insight into the process, we can monitor it at every step and react when anything goes wrong. This way we can, for example, provide special support for a new inexperienced technician. So in fact no part of the process is “fully out-sourced” to a third party. From our viewpoint, this is the best approach. We rely on automation tools, we track the whole process, we know exactly who will execute the task but we do not have to interfere with how the workforce is organized on the subcontractor’s side. Subcontractors define the avail-ability of their resources themselves, based on workforce ca-pacity, skills and areas covered. We based the performance of these outsourced fulfillment and assurance processes on strict KPIs that are important for our business. We outsource processes and workforce activities, but do not outsource the responsibility and control over these processes.

COMARCH: You mentioned that automating the pro-cess is important. From the technology perspective, what technological improvements do you see as manda-tory to make field service optimal from both your com-pany’s perspective and that of your customers?

Brian: Automating the process is crucial, I’m quite sure about that. Once the order is created, the scheduling that follows must be automated.

I think it is necessary that all parties involved in the process can at all times access their work orders and calendars. Centralized management of field service delivery requires tools that can collect certain events and allow us to react accordingly. I am talking about potential events during the process that may affect our KPIs. A customer escalation is a good example. Once customer service registers an escala-tion, the information gets propagated via the FSM system to a responsible party, who should react. At this stage we do not participate in the process. However, if the escalation is not resolved immediately, then we must get involved.

Mobility is another important factor that supports automa-tion — once tasks are assigned, they can immediately be allocated to a responsible technician (without a need for an office visit or time-consuming explanations), together with all data needed to perform a given field activity.

Rob: From a technology perspective, the IT solution sup-porting the process must also be well integrated. In the case of field activity there is no space for swivel chair integration (i.e. copying data from one system and pasting it into an-other one). The technician must activate the service on site, be able to check signal quality and send necessary data to the billing system, all with the use of one single tool. There is no room for mistakes in our business. When a technician drives three hours to install a service in the mountains, he can’t go back later to fix or finish his work — he must do it on his first visit.

The FSM system that we use also enables us to automatically generate reports related to our specific settlements with subcontractors and to monitor all KPIs. I think these func-tions that we named here are the most important in terms of how field service can contribute to enhancing your customer experience.

COMARCH: Automation, mobile access to necessary data and tools, monitoring the process and the KPIs. Is that all you need to achieve excellence in customer experience?

Brian: In an ideal world, it could be. But in reality we must constantly monitor the quality of the delivered service, looking not only at the technical perspective, but also at the customer’s perception of the provided service quality. We perform audits for selected work orders and check various measures related to technical and non-technical aspects

SZYMON UCZCIWEK FSM Product Manager

Comarch Technologies



39

of the service. Well-documented work orders (complete with measures and pictures) help us to go through the first quality check, which is done remotely. But in order to truly improve the quality of service, field audits are crucial and we cannot resign from them.

COMARCH: Do you face the same challenges with quali-ty audits performed in the field, as you mentioned with regards to delivering a service in vast, rural areas?

Rob: Technology helps resolve many of the issues that we encounter here. First of all, auditors have on-site access to all data related to work orders and to quality measurements.That’s crucial, but it is not everything. It is necessary to de-termine locations that need to be checked – those with the highest risk related to service quality.

We found Comarch FSM to be very helpful, also in this space. The system ranks work orders and indicates those with a really high probability of quality issues. I won’t reveal all the aspects of this sophisticated mechanism, let me just say that it calculates both obvious factors, like the result of the last audit and the trickier aspects, such asmeasuring the prefor-mance of each individual technician. If the given technician fails an audit of his work, he may expect another one. At the beginning, when we introduced order ranking, 80% of all audited tasks didn’t pass the audits. Now it is less than 50%.

COMARCH: Was it really so bad? Maybe the survey questions were too detailed or too strict?

Brian: On the contrary, it was so good (laughing). We used the same surveys as before. The audit procedure, excluding the mobility part, was also performed according to our previ-ous standards. The ranking tool pointed out work orders necessary for auditing, so our auditors didn’t have to waste their time anymore on auditing services where the quality was high. That was a huge and positive change.

COMARCH: What about a situation when a customer complains about a technician’s visit? What are the usual reasons for such complaints and how do you face them?

Rob: Outsourcing field workforce is a game where some-times not all the parties play fair. Thanks to the fact that the whole process is documented, we have photographic documentation of all field activities, so we can reasonably face customer complaints related to private property dam-age or even theft. Having good quality data enables us to easily check what had really happened and professionally resolve the problem. This way we can turn even the most un-pleasant circumstances into a situation that builds a positive customer experience.

COMARCH: As a final question, can you provide some key takeaways for other service providers? A lot of them are currently considering resigning from outsourcing completely, as the cost proves to be too high and the qu-ality is below their expectations. You are an example of a company where outsourcing really works. Do you have some advice for these other companies?

Brian: It depends on the business conditions. For example, as in our case, building your own workforce in all covered regions may not be reasonable. In this situation, dealing with subcontractors is the only way to do business. At the same time I can’t imagine that this crucial process would be simply left without our control at every stage. We trust and rely on our partners, but we can’t risk that any issues on their side would affect our business and our relationship with ViaSat customers. Fortunately, technology allows us to do it with limited risk.

COMARCH: Brian, Rob thank you for your time and letting us take a little peek behind the scenes of your business, I am sure this will be a great insight for many other service providers that read our magazine.

Why Comarch“Comarch Field Service Management enabled ViaSat to automate order and resource management processes, which has enabled us to provide an excellent customer experience in fulfilling customer orders.”Brian Crouthers, Director of Field Operations, ViaSat Inc.



Arming your sales reps with innovative mobile tools for an optimized customer experience



41

ROBERT SKROK BSS Solution Architect,


As a communication service provider (CSP), you've invested a lot in increas-ing your ability to provide modern,

competitive services. This means new cus-tomers should be rushing to your offices and lining up to sign contracts. But the reality is a bit different – the customer base is growing slowly, much slower than you expected. What are the reasons? Maybe your company has not invested enough in advertising or people are not aware about your special offers? Per-haps they don't understand why they should choose your offer over those presented by your competitors?

Some CSPs believe that nothing can substitute direct sales, so they send their sales representatives to reach their cus-tomers in their homes, out on the streets or in public spaces. Speaking face-to-face with your potential customers is a surefire way to inform them about your services and current special offers. But a conversation with the customer is only the starting point of a sales process. You need the tools that help you optimize it and make it more efficient.

Fast changing offers demand fast adapting toolsTraditionally, sales representatives used to present their offer in a form of paper brochures or Excel files. But times have changed – today telecom service and product portfolios change fast and special offers are updated or replaced very frequently. This is why sales reps need convenient online ac-cess to the most up-to-date portfolio of offers and services – in this kind of fast-paced environment printouts or Excel files get outdated too fast, which could mean your field sales may be out there presenting outdated offers to potential clients.

Modern sales tools enable you to present your company’s offer files through a convenient mobile app (used on a tab-let), external to your CRM and available anywhere through online access. This app should be constantly connected to a database, where information about available services and promotions gets uploaded and refreshed every day, so that your sales reps only approach the customers with the most current offers.

Know your customer before you start your sales pitchBefore entering a client's home or starting a conversation in a public place, your sales reps should already know whether the person they are talking to is an existing, former or future customer, whether that person has already signed for any communication services (and which ones) or not. The customer may also provide us with inaccurate or false information (e.g. someone who has outstanding invoices for the services they use may omit that fact, in order to qualify to buy a new service).

Modern sales

tools enable you

to present your

company’s offer

files through a

convenient mobile

app (used on a

tablet), external

to your CRM and

available anywhere

through online

access.



Mobile-based sales apps solve these problems – they enable your sales reps to search the customer base immediately and adjust their selling strategy accordingly. New customers may be presented with the entire product portfolio and can choose the option that suits them best. If the person your sales guy is talk-ing to is already a client, they may be offered a new type of ser-vice or an upgrade for the service they already use. Equipped with full information about the customers, your sales reps can also make sure that subscribers who have outstanding invoices are asked to pay first, before they sign any new contract.

Signing the contract does not end the saleTraditionally, once the client decided to sign a contract, a sales rep would take out a paper form and a pen to write down all the details. After a whole day or a few days of work in the field, your traditional salesman would come back to the office and copy the contract details into a CRM system. This not only creates additional and unnecessary delays in service activation, but is also prone to human error (when copying the data manually from a paper form to a CRM system). As a result, some services might be activated in a way that differs from what was originally requested by the customer and agreed upon.

A mobile sales app enables the sales rep to input the con-tract directly onto their tablet and transfer the contract de-tails to the CRM automatically and almost immediately (pro-vided the tablet is connected to the Internet). The chance of human error is significantly reduced, since the sales rep and the customer can review the contract details together before it's confirmed. Most importantly, thanks to automating the process and removing the necessity to go back to the office and manually transfer the contract details onto a computer, the sales representative saves a lot of time.

Promise only what you can deliverMany communication services can't be offered in any given location, since they depend greatly on the network infrastruc-ture built by the operator. Some areas of a country or a city enjoy better network coverage, in others the infrastructure is older, while some areas may not even be covered at all.

That is especially true in the case of cable TV operators, whose infrastructure is a combination of fiber-optic, HFC cables and hot-spots or antennas. Sometimes even various parts of the same street may have access to a different portfolio of services, because of the differences in network infrastructure availability. This makes the job of sales representatives dif-ficult – it’s impossible to remember the exact service coverage for every district or street. Without that knowledge a sales rep may end up offering a service that is unavailable to a given customer, or the opposite, not offer an optimal service to a given customer, even though its available in their location.

A mobile sales app helps the sales rep to quickly check, which services are available in the given location. This means

that the offered services are always the ones that are really available – so once the customer signs the contract, there should be no problem with the activation of the service.

Don’t let your customers wait for their serviceAll telecommunication services except mobile require a technician's visit in order to install the equipment and / or configure it to activate the service with a desired quality level. A traditional paper-based sales system does not allow a sales rep to immediately set the date and time of a technician's visit, because of lack of access to up-to-date information about the technicians’ availability.

A mobile sales app working in online mode makes it possible to send an availability enquiry to a Field Service Management system, assign the date and time of the installation visit con-venient for the customer and reserve the technicians time slot instantly.

Sell easily with Comarch External Sales Mobile App (CESMA) Comarch meets the challenges of a modern-day sales pro-cess with its new tool – Comarch External Sales Mobile App (CESMA).

CESMA is a tablet-based app solution that provides support for door-to-door sales. It enables sales representatives to check the most up-to-date customer data and / or account balance from any location at any time, check service availability in a given location and register contracts directly on their tablet.

The system needs to be integrated with a CRM tool (Co-march CRM for Telecoms or your own CRM) for automatic order handling and supplying service and with a Field Service Management system for scheduling installation and / or maintenance visits. CESMA supports your sales reps by partly automating the process of ordering new service and upgrad-ing existing ones.

All the online services available through CESMA require a connection with the CESMA server. This means the tablet needs either a WiFi or cellular data (3G/4G) connection to present the most up-to-date information about customers and services.

However, sometimes the data connection may not be avail-able or it could be too slow to use the app efficiently. This is not a problem for CESMA! Most of its functions work also in the offline mode, so the sales process can still be efficient, with only slight limitations. Customer data, service availability and product catalogs can be pre-loaded to the app and con-sulted by the sales representative in an offline mode. Con-tracts registered offline will be sent to the server once the tablet is reconnected to the Internet. Technicians’ visits can't be reserved instantly in the offline mode, but the customers may be contacted afterwards, once the service activation order is registered in CRM.

The Things have spoken

It’s time to listen

Technology wing of Comarch Capital Group

technologies.comarch.com

Device Management Operation and MaintenanceIntegration with M2M Platform Field Service Management

The Things have spoken

It’s time to listen

Technology wing of Comarch Capital Group

technologies.comarch.com

Device Management Operation and MaintenanceIntegration with M2M Platform Field Service Management

IT’S THE RESULTS THAT COUNTLearn how Comarch helped its telecom customers turn IT projects into real business results.

Download our Customer Success Book in PDF at: success.comarch.com

Documents

IN FOCUS: SDN/NFV & THE FUTURE OF OSS