Whats New

What’s New in ENTERPRISE 6.2? Quick Reference Guide

Software Version 6.2

Reference Guide Edition 1

© Copyright 2009 AIRCOM International All rights reserved

ADVANTAGE, ASSET, CONNECT, DATASAFE, DIRECT ENTERPRISE, ARRAYWIZARD, AIRCOM OPTIMA, and WEBWIZARD are recognised trademarks of AIRCOM International. Other product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

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This User Reference Guide finalised on 01 September 2009.

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What's New in ENTERPRISE? Page 5 Version 6.2

Contents

Chapter 1 What's New in ENTERPRISE? 7

What's New in Version 6.2? 8

What's New in ADVANTAGE 6.2? 8 What's New in ASSET 6.2? 12 What's New in CONNECT 6.2? 26 What's New in ENTERPRISE 6.2? 46 What's New in AIRCOM OPTIMA 6.2? 57 What's New in RANOPT 6.2 99 What's New in WEBWIZARD 6.2? 112

Chapter 2 Help Us Help You 115

Page 6 What's New in ENTERPRISE? Version 6.2


What's New in ENTERPRISE?

If this is the first version of ENTERPRISE that you have used, you should skip this document and instead:

Read the ENTERPRISE User Reference Guide for basic information about using the suite

- or -

From the Help Contents, double-click Using ENTERPRISE to start reading basic information about using the suite

For existing users of ENTERPRISE, this document gives a brief overview of what has changed in the various versions of ENTERPRISE.

In This Section

What's New in Version 6.2? 8 Help Us Help You 115

C H A P T E R 1


What's New in Version 6.2?

This section describes the changes that are new throughout the ENTERPRISE 6.2 suite:

What's New in ADVANTAGE 6.2?

In ADVANTAGE 6.2, the following additional features are now available:

Ability to Differentiate between New and Existing cells

In version 6.2, you can differentiate between new network elements and existing network elements. There is now an Element Status tab on the Settings page of the Optimiser Workflow, which enables you to choose which status field (pick-list or boolean) you want to use for this purpose.

This provides several benefits in plan creation:

Improved Selection Planning: The Optimiser can start from a realistic snapshot of the existing network, because new elements will not be initially switched 'ON'.

Improved Cost Modelling: The Optimiser can discriminate between new and existing elements when it considers action costs (for actions such as azimuth changes) - only existing elements can incur such costs.

Improved cost comparisons: You can compare the cost/benefits of turning 'ON' new cells, and/or switching 'OFF' existing cells.

Also, if you have a licence for the Financial Analysis module, the benefits are as follows:

You can evaluate additional captured revenue, rather than total captured revenue.

Any CAPEX element costs for existing network elements are ignored when calculating Net Income or Return On Investment (ROI).

Creating a New Plan from a Delta Plan

In situations where you want to work with a Plan that emanates from a Delta Plan, you can now convert any Delta Plan into a (normal) Plan.

In summary, the key benefits are:

The Plan values are equivalent to how they stood at the latest stage of the Delta Plan

You can edit the Action-Constraints (this is not possible in a Delta Plan)

You can then run a secondary optimisation from the point already reached in the Delta Plan

This is different from the existing option to Duplicate a Plan, which essentially enables you to work on a copy of an existing Plan, so that you can experiment with different Action-Constraints, while still retaining the original Plan, or enables multiple users to work on the same Plan.


Financial Analysis

In version 6.2, there is a new and powerful Financial Analysis module. This enables you to perform Capital Management Planning for your network, assessing its financial potential.

The ASSET and ADVANTAGE tools have a proven track record for planning and optimising networks in terms of the radio engineering domain, based on RF metrics such as signal strength, signal quality, served traffic and throughput.

However, given the significant investment in terms of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) for a modern cellular network, it is crucial to also consider the financial implications of planning. This deals with the questions: How many users does your network serve, how much revenue does this generate, and how can this be improved?

In today's competitive environment, it is essential to maximise the potential financial benefits and the investment returns, whether building a new network or integrating new sites into an existing network.

Offering a range of financial metrics, the Financial Analysis module can help you make informed network planning decisions.

The Financial Analysis module offers three discrete financial metrics:

Revenue

Net Income

Return on Investment (ROI)

Each of these metrics can be considered at any network level: cell, site or Property.

The Financial Analysis module consists of two distinct functions:

Performing a financial analysis, which can include calculating revenue capture, considering element costs, producing reports and saving the results to the database.

This function is available if you are using the module as an ASSET or ADVANTAGE user.

Using financial metrics when running an optimisation or performing a statistics analysis.

This function is only available if you are using the module as an ADVANTAGE user.

The module supports GSM, UMTS, Fixed WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX.

As an optional add-on to ASSET or ADVANTAGE, the Financial Analysis module is licensed separately.


Integration of CDMA2000 and EV-DO

In version 6.2, the CDMA2000 and EV-DO technologies are now integrated into the tool. This means that ADVANTAGE now explicitly supports the following list of technologies:

GSM

UMTS FDD

Joint GSM-UMTS

Fixed WiMAX

Mobile WiMAX

CDMA2000

EV-DO

Multi-layer Support for Vectors

If you have multiple cell layers (GSM) or multiple carriers (UMTS/WiMAX/CDMA2000/EV-DO), you can evaluate your network at a 'per cell layer' or 'per carrier' level (rather than 'per technology').

In version 6.1, it was possible to set layer-specific RF thresholds for Clutter, but not for Vectors. In version 6.2, you can now set multi-layer thresholds for both Clutter and Vectors.

The activation of the ‘per layer/carrier’ tabs is optional. If preferred, you can still use generic ('per technology') thresholds.

Example of Per Cell Layer Vector Thresholds for GSM


Ranking and Partial Plans

ADVANTAGE 6.2 introduces the ability to rank potential network improvement changes.

The ranking functionality can provide a very useful way of arriving at the best network plan, by judging and evaluating how good a new plan might be.

You can sequence the changes (grouped by cell, site or Property) according to any user-selected metric value (such as coverage, quality, revenue), and then assess the potential improvement in the chosen metric (or any other chosen metric) if the changes were to be implemented gradually one by one.

In basic terms, this functionality asks the question: Which is the best (user-subjective) sequence to perform the potential network changes, and how many of those changes are really needed to achieve the required benefits?

The ranking, analysing and reporting functionality can be used with Plans or Delta Plans.

For Plans, it would typically be useful for network rollout/deployment, especially for plans consisting of existing and new cells (site commissioning/decommissioning). It can help you to judge the metric's improvement in time during rollout.

After ranking the changes, you can optionally create a Partial Plan, which ensures that only your selected top-ranking changes can be considered. For example, if the ranking and analysis help you decide that the potential benefits from an initial plan for 100 new sites could be mostly achieved with only 80 new sites, then you could create a Partial Plan so that only those 80 sites can be switched ON in the subsequent optimisation.

For Delta Plans, it would mainly be relevant to labour-intensive changes requiring site visits, such as antenna azimuth or height changes.

After ranking the changes, you can optionally create a Partial Plan, which ensures that only your selected top-ranking changes can be considered. For example, if the ranking and analysis help you decide that the potential benefits from an initial plan for 50 antenna height changes could be mostly achieved with only 25 such changes, then you could create a Partial Plan so that only those 25 changes would be made, if it was Applied to the Site Database.

Ranking is supported for GSM, UMTS, Fixed WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX.


What's New in ASSET 6.2?

In ASSET 6.2, the following additional features are now available:

BCCH Allocation Pre-requisite for TCH allocation

In a 2g network configuration, there may be a requirement that cells in the Site Database should never have TCH carriers allocated without a BCCH carrier already allocated.

ASSET provides an option to activate this 'BCCH prerequisite rule' in your project. This option can be set (depending on user permissions) on the General tab of the Preferences dialog box, under the File menu.

If you decide to activate this restriction rule, specific user actions will be monitored, as follows:

(These actions refer to manual changes in the Site Database at the sub-cell level.)

Allocating/De-allocating Carrier Layers on the Carriers tab

When allocating a TCH carrier layer (or assigning an MA List), there must be a BCCH carrier layer already allocated.

When de-allocating a BCCH carrier layer (assuming it is the only one), there must not be any TCH carrier layers still allocated (or MA Lists still assigned).

Allocating/De-allocating Carriers on the Carriers tab

When allocating a TCH carrier (or assigning an MA List), there must be a BCCH carrier already allocated.

When de-allocating a BCCH carrier (assuming it is the only one), there must not be any TCH carriers still allocated (or MA Lists still assigned).

Where any of the above rules are broken, the change is prevented and a relevant message is displayed.

The monitoring only operates on manual changes in the Site Database (at the sub-cell level).


EV-DO Enhancements

EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimised) is a development of cdmaOne IS-95B, and is defined by the standard IS-856. EV-DO offers high-speed packet-switched transmission techniques specifically designed for a data-centric broadband network offering high data rates in a mobile environment.

Since that initial standard, the following revisions have evolved:

EV-DO Release 0 (Rel 0)

EV-DO Revision A (Rev A)

EV-DO Revision B (Rev B)

ASSET 6.2 supports these revisions.

The following sections summarise the key enhancements.

EV-DO Bearers

EV-DO bearer modelling in ASSET has been enhanced by introducing flexible downlink and uplink bearer configurations. The EV-DO Bearers dialog box includes 14 downlink bearers available by default. These incorporate the Digital Rate Control (DRC) channel data rates supported by EV-DO Rev. 0 and Rev. A.

In addition to the default DRC data rates, you can also define additional bearers, thereby having the flexibility to model user-specific network configurations.

EV-DO Services

EV-DO Service types provide a full set of parameters, so that the different traffic classes and their specific associated characteristics can be efficiently modelled. You can define EV-DO services to support either:

Real Time, e.g. VoIP, VT

Non-real Time, e.g. Data

You can also assign a respective service priority.

Service Dialog Box - Example of General Tab


For real time services, ASSET enables you to model various fixed and variable rate Codecs by defining their respective rates, probabilities and packet sizes to calculate average service rate and bearer activity factors.

Service Dialog Box - Example of Real Time Params Tab

EV-DO Simulator Arrays

Here are some examples of EV-DO arrays:

Example of EV-DO Arrays


Financial Analysis

In version 6.2, there is a new and powerful Financial Analysis module. This enables you to perform Capital Management Planning for your network, assessing its financial potential.

The ASSET and ADVANTAGE tools have a proven track record for planning and optimising networks in terms of the radio engineering domain, based on RF metrics such as signal strength, signal quality, served traffic and throughput.

However, given the significant investment in terms of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) for a modern cellular network, it is crucial to also consider the financial implications of planning. This deals with the questions: How many users does your network serve, how much revenue does this generate, and how can this be improved?

In today's competitive environment, it is essential to maximise the potential financial benefits and the investment returns, whether building a new network or integrating new sites into an existing network.

Offering a range of financial metrics, the Financial Analysis module can help you make informed network planning decisions.

The Financial Analysis module offers three discrete financial metrics:

Revenue

Net Income

Return on Investment (ROI)

Each of these metrics can be considered at any network level: cell, site or Property.

The Financial Analysis module consists of two distinct functions:

Performing a financial analysis, which can include calculating revenue capture, considering element costs, producing reports and saving the results to the database.

This function is available if you are using the module as an ASSET or ADVANTAGE user.

Using financial metrics when running an optimisation or performing a statistics analysis.

This function is only available if you are using the module as an ADVANTAGE user.

The module supports GSM, UMTS, Fixed WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX.

As an optional add-on to ASSET or ADVANTAGE, the Financial Analysis module is licensed separately.


HSPA+ Planning

High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology is an enhancement of the WCDMA air interface that supports data communication services with high data rates and low latency. HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) represents an evolution (for both HSDPA and HSUPA) toward even higher standards and better spectrum utilisation. The standards for HSPA+ are defined in 3GPP Release 7.

ASSET 6.2 supports HSPA+.

To enable HSPA+ planning, changes have been made to bearers, services, terminal types and node/cell parameters.

The following sections summarise the key enhancements.

Advanced Antenna Systems (AAS) Support

The following AAS options can be enabled on a per cell basis:

Receive diversity

Transmit diversity

MIMO (Spatial Multiplexing)

Signal/interference and throughput calculations are adjusted with user-defined offsets specified in AAS tables:

Example of AAS Tables

AAS modelling can be further adjusted by defining clutter-specific offsets for each technology.


HSDPA CQI Tables

You can choose to use HSDPA CQI Tables to determine which downlink bearers are used on a service.

ASSET enables you to define the HSDPA CQI tables to suit your exact requirements. Basically, each CQI table represents a set of predefined UMTS bearers for which you can specify the signal/interference values. The HSDPA CQI Table Editor comprises nine HSDPA CQI tables (A-I). Each table has the following columns: CQI Index, Block Size, Modulation, Number of Codes, Coding Rates, Eb/No Requirement, SINR Requirement (per code), SINR Requirement (total), a range of speed offsets, and six resource consumption columns. The last two tables (H and I) are MIMO tables.

Example of HSDPA CQI Tables


HSPA Simulator Arrays

Here are some examples of HSDPA/HSUPA arrays:

Examples of HSDPA and HSUPA Arrays

Improved Interference Table Wizard

The Interference Table Wizard for 2g networks in ASSET can calculate the interference 'costs' for any cell-pair combination for which there are overlapping predictions. The information in the table can be used as an input to influence the frequency allocations when using ILSA, the Interactive Frequency Analysis Wizard, the MA List Planner, or the MAIO Planner.

In previous versions, the Interference Table Wizard generated its results from either:

Coverage area data

- and/or -

Traffic data

The quality of information in the table is dependent on the level of confidence in the propagation models, coverage predictions, and traffic data. In the light of this, and given that propagation models can sometimes be inaccurate, there has been an increasing customer demand for the support of interference table information based on actual measured data.


Therefore, in ASSET version 6.2, you can now generate an interference table from:

Measurement data (inherently, this represents traffic data)

This is achieved by enabling the loading of external measurement data files. Initially, ASSET 6.2 supports the ICDM (Inter-Cell Dependency Matrix) *.msmt file format, but more file formats may be supported within subsequent releases.

If required, it is also possible to merge data from a new file with data already in an existing table.

Interactive Frequency Analysis

The GSM Interactive Frequency Analysis enables you to perform the vital task of analysing and manually optimising a frequency plan. This feature enables you to view and evaluate the frequency/carrier assignments for a single or a group of sectors. The evaluation can be performed based on interference costs and/or violation constraints (or a combination of both) associated with each assignment. Further, you can modify the problematic assignments (those with high interference costs or violated separation constraints) to achieve an optimal frequency plan.

The Interactive Frequency Analysis can be used as standalone, or as a supplement to an Automatic Frequency Planning (AFP) tool (for example, ILSA). It can be particularly beneficial when you have established a generally acceptable frequency plan from an AFP but then need to tune the frequencies of a few problematic cells. It may also be very useful when integrating some new cells into the network and quickly assigning carriers without the need to configure and run an AFP tool.

This feature is designed to analyse a single cell layer (for example, GSM-900 or GSM-1800) at a time. However, you can choose to analyse any combination of the carrier layers that exist within that cell layer.

In the case of Synthesized Hopping or Site Hopping networks, MA lists are supported.


The Interactive Frequency Analysis enables you to analyse and report on:

Interference costs (area or traffic)

- and/or -

Carrier separation violations

Example of Options in the Interactive Frequency Analysis Wizard

Interference Costs

The interference costs are statistical calculations of area or traffic affected by co-channel or adjacent channel interference, based on the carrier assignments. The costs are derived from an Interference Table (this can either be freshly generated or loaded into memory from a file).

The calculated costs can be based on victim, interferer, or both (combined sum), and can be in terms of:

Area (km²)

Area (%)

Traffic (mE)

Traffic (%)


Carrier Separation Violations

The carrier separation violations can be analysed by setting minimum separation thresholds (you can analyse the frequency plan based only on carrier separation violations, in which case you do not need an Interference Table in memory). The thresholds can be set at the following levels:

Site

Cell

Neighbours

Exceptions

Analysis and Tuning

After you have run the analysis, the GSM Interactive Frequency Analysis Report dialog box provides information on sector (cell) assignments, carrier assignments, cost breakdowns and/or separation violations.

This interactive dialog box enables you to:

View and analyse the cell-carrier-specific interference costs and/or separation violations when you select any cell and carrier in the report dialog box.

Sort the rows so that you can analyse the results more clearly. For example, you can sort by highest or lowest costs.

Manually tune an existing frequency plan, by reassigning, assigning or unassigning carriers (or MA Lists) for specific cells.

After doing this, you can perform an 'Update' in the report, which enables you to view the updated costs and/or violations resulting from your manual carrier assignment changes.

If you are satisfied with the results, you can then decide to Apply the changes to the database.

Coordinate the analysis report with the Map View, by selecting an analysed cell on the Map View so that it is automatically highlighted in the report, or selecting a cell in the report so that it is highlighted on the Map View.


Multiple Technology Support

The key technologies explicitly supported by ASSET are:

GSM/GPRS

UMTS FDD

CDMA2000

EV-DO

AMPS/TDMA

PMR/TETRA/iDEN

Fixed WiMAX

Mobile WiMAX

In previous versions, UMTS FDD, Fixed WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX could not be used in the same project.

In ASSET 6.2, it is possible, if required, to activate these in the same project:

Example of Preferences Dialog Box, Technology Tab

MYRIAD Propagation Model

ASSET 6.2 now offers the option of integrating the MYRIAD Model for use with your projects. This is a sophisticated and versatile propagation model that is the successful result of intensive research in such domains as propagation, modelling, optimisation and algorithms.

This model is able to automatically adapt itself to:

All cell sizes (micro, mini, small, and macro cells)

All radio environments (dense urban, urban, suburban, mountainous, maritime, open)

All systems (AMPS, CDMA2000, DVB-H, EV-DO, GSM, (E)GPRS, TETRA, UMTS, WiFi, WiMAX)

A wide range of frequencies, from 400 MHz to 5 GHz


The model relies on highly realistic modelling of the propagation channel, and therefore achieves synergy of the three vital physical elements:

Diffraction in the vertical plane

Guided propagation in the horizontal plane

Reflections from hilly or mountainous terrain

The MYRIAD Model is a licensable add-on for ASSET users.

Neighbour Planner based on Measurement Data

ASSET’s automatic Neighbour Planning Wizards enable you to generate neighbour relations between cells according to a wide range of user-specified parameters. This can be a very useful way of achieving a 'first pass' set of neighbours for each cell.

In previous versions, the only Neighbour Planning Wizard available was based on Predictions. The quality of information generated by the existing wizard is dependent on the level of confidence in the propagation models and coverage predictions.

In the light of this, and given that propagation models can sometimes be inaccurate, there has been an increasing customer demand for the support of a Neighbour Planning Wizard based on actual measurement data.

Therefore, in ASSET version 6.2, you can now generate a neighbour plan that is based on Measurements.

Example of Search Parameters in the Measurement-based Neighbour Planning Wizard

This is achieved by enabling the import of the appropriate measurement data files into the Measurements Toolbox.

Example of Measurements Toolbox showing Imported Measurement Data


Pathloss Predictor Enhancements

When you have run the Pathloss Prediction Generator, and you are inspecting the results, the dialog box now enables you to show only the failed predictions by clicking the 'Show Failed' button:

Example of Pathloss Predictor dialog box

This is an example of how the list would be reduced, showing only the failed predictions:

Example of Pathloss Predictor showing failed predictions

After doing this, you can also choose to populate the Selection filter with only the 'failed' sites or cells, by clicking the relevant button.


Project Defaults

In ASSET 6.2, in order to make a new project easy to use right from the start, the following default objects, with pre-set parameters, are provided:

Antenna default

Propagation model defaults (450, 900, 1800 and 2100MHz)

Template defaults (for each technology)

Terminal type default (for each technology)

These default objects represent the minimum parameters required to add/place sites and generate coverage arrays. The default templates include sites (nodes) and cells (sectors) that in turn make use of the default propagation models and antenna.

These defaults are only present when new projects are added in ENTERPRISE. Existing projects will not have these defaults created.

Statistics Report Enhancements

Statistical reports enable you to produce area and percentage statistics for arrays. They can only be generated after creating the relevant array.

The report sections (that is, the rows) can now show area statistics broken down by:

Specific vectors

Specific features (such as lines, polygons, roads) within a vector

New Options for Statistics Report

Example of Additional Optional Inclusions in Statistics Report


What's New in CONNECT 6.2?

In CONNECT 6.2, the following additional features are now available.

Adding CONNECT Screentips To the Map View

In CONNECT, you can now display linkend attribute data in the Map View window as screentips, which appear as you hover over cells/repeaters in your network.

This picture shows an example:

Viewing site tips


You can do this by clicking the Display Site Tips button , and then selecting the required attributes in the Site Tip Attributes dialog box:

Site Tip Attributes dialog box


NSMA File Format Support

You can now import microwave antennas in the NSMA file format. This is the standard data format for commercial antennas, provided by the NSMA (National Spectrum Managers Association).

Microwave antennas that use the NSMA format store additional information about the antenna:

FCC/ETSI ID - ID number issued by the Common Carrier Branch of the FCC

Pattern ID - Reverse pattern FCC ID number

Half Power Beam Width - The included angle centred on the main beam of the antenna, which defines the angle where the antenna response falls below -3dB


Example NSMA microwave antenna


Adaptive Modulation Coding

In CONNECT, you can now use Adaptive Modulation Coding (AMC) to automatically configure the modulation type for linkends and carriers, based on the required throughput.

When you are defining your radio equipment, you can now define the modulation type as being dynamic, rather than a single fixed type. This means that CONNECT can 'choose' from a range of different modulation types (which you must specify) depending on the network conditions.

Selecting the available modulation schemes for a radio equipment

Then, on the Modulation/Capacity subtab for a linkend or carrier, you can specify the required throughput in Mbps. CONNECT then calculates the maximum achievable throughput using the default modulation type. If this is not enough, then CONNECT will calculate for all of the other modulation types available for that radio, and select the most appropriate one.

CONNECT selects the most appropriate modulation scheme


You can override this selection, if required.

Overriding the selected modulation type

New Pre-defined Modulation Types

Working with modulation types has also been made easier with the introduction of a number of pre-defined modulation types, that are automatically loaded with a new project:

Pre-defined modulation types


User-Defined Traffic Channels

When defining frequency and capacity information for radio equipment, you can now specify your own channel-based radio capacity.

When you have chosen the traffic channel option (either PDH or SDH) on the Configuration tab of the Radio Equipment dialog box, instead of just selecting the first (multiplier) part of the capacity from the drop-down list, you can now type the value that you require instead (using up to 3 digits).

Any user-defined value that you Apply is added to the list for that equipment, and can be selected in the future. If you then Commit a user-defined value, it is added to the default list in the database and will be available to anyone else using the same database.

The total capacity is calculated and displayed next to the radio capacity that you have defined:

Channel-based radio capacity

Support for CONNECT Equipment and Links in the XML Data Editor

The functionality of the XML Data Editor has now been extended to include:

CONNECT-specific equipment - feeders, radios and link terminals:

CONNECT links - PtP links and PtP linkends:


You can work with these element types in exactly the same way as you would with others in the XML Data Editor, meaning that you can:

Open existing XML files for these element types and view the data in the Grid Display pane:

Edit the data as required, and then save it as an XML file (which can then be imported into CONNECT using the XML Import option):

Create a new XML data file:

Work with CSV files for these element types in the editor


Usability Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to CONNECT to enhance the overall usability of the tool.

Viewing Performance Results

When viewing link outage and link reliability performance results on the Performance tab of the Link Database, you can now choose to view the results in a number of different modes - as a percentage, or in terms of minutes/year or seconds/year.

You can select the required option in the Calculation Mode pane of the Outage and Reliability subtabs:

Selecting how to view performance results in the Calculation Mode pane

Shortcuts to Equipment Dialog Boxes

Shortcut buttons have been added to the Antenna and Feeder subtabs of the Linkend Settings tab of the Link Database, which enable you to quickly view and edit the properties of the selected antenna and feeder in their own dialog box.

If you click the antenna shortcut button , the Microwave Antennas dialog box appears:


If you click the feeder shortcut button , the Feeders dialog box appears:

Optimum Diversity Spacing Between Antennas

When defining feeders for linkends, you can now choose to automatically set the optimum spacing between the diverse and the main antenna.

By choosing the Optimum Diversity Spacing option, the height of the diverse antenna will be adjusted according to the optimum spacing calculation.

Optimum Diversity Spacing option

You can only choose the optimum diversity spacing option on PtP, PmP and passive repeater (back-to-back antenna and reflector) links.


Support for ITU-R P.530-12 Calculation Method

CONNECT now fully supports the ITU-R P.530-12 calculation method for propagation prediction, which has replaced the ITU-R. P.530-10 method.

This option is available on the Propagation Prediction subtab of the Calculation tab:

Example calculation tab (530-12 method)

Setting the Maximum EiRP for Antennas on Linkends

When you are configuring an antenna on a linkend, you can now choose to override the maximum EiRP in dBm for the main (and diversity) antenna(s) on the linkend.

This is available for PtP, PmP and passive repeater links.

If you do define your own User EiRP, the Max EiRP will always be 1 dBm smaller.


Link Status Values

When you are defining the general properties for links, you can now choose the link status from a number of default values, or define your own.

The default options available cover a number of standard link states (for example, Licensed, Installed or Temporary) but you may want to create additional ones that conform to your own internal work processes, for example, Phase 1, Phase 2 and so on.

You can do this in the Link LOS Editor:

Link LOS Editor


Configuring Web-Enabled External Data Pages for CONNECT

The web-enabled external data pages functionality has now been extended to CONNECT.

This means that you can create external data pages for the Link Database, which enable you to display links between Properties on a web-based map visualisation platform:


To do this, in the Configure External Data Pages dialog box, select Link (PTP), and configure your external data page as required:


Diversity on Multi-Radio and Dual Polar Links

Diversity has now been enabled for multi-radio and dual polar links in CONNECT:

For dual polar links, you can use space and frequency diversity

For multi-radio links, you can use space diversity only

To use frequency diversity:

1 Select the Frequency Diversity option on Frequency sub-tab of the Linkend Settings tab:

2 Define the diversity information on the Frequency, Radio and Feeders sub-tabs.

To use space diversity:

1 For each main link, on the Antenna sub-tabs of the Linkend Settings tab, define at least two antennas at one linkend (for Space2Diversity) or at both linkends (Space4Diversity):


2 For each radio link/polar sub-link, on the Feeders sub-tab, ensure that you make at least two of the defined antennas available at one linkend (for Space2Diversity) or at both linkends (Space4Diversity):


Ericsson Radio Support

You can now import radio equipment in the Ericsson radio (*.raf) format.

Ericsson radios use a specific file format, and are treated differently by CONNECT when it uses the T/I objectives radio settings in interference calculations.

To support this, the T/I Objectives Editor has been enhanced, in order to display the capacity for the victim and interferer radio equipment:

Capacity information on the T/I Objectives Editor


Enhanced Interference Analysis

Enhancements have been made to the Interference Wizard, so that you can define your interference criteria more precisely:

You can now choose to check all channels in the sub-band and/or allow polarisation changes for all victim link selection options, not just if you are analysing a single link:

If you do not choose to check all channels in the sub-band, each victim link will use the channel already assigned to them.

If you want to analyse a number of victim links in the Map View or a filter and then you choose to check all channels in the sub-band, the analysis will take longer to run.


The Best Channel Summary pane of the Interference Wizard results is updated accordingly:

If you selected to check channels in the sub-band, you can select the specific channel for which you want to view information:

If you selected to allow polarisation changes, select the polarisation for which you want to view information:

Any changes to the channel and/or polarisation that you Apply may have a detrimental effect on the other linkends.


Searching for CONNECT Equipment

You can now use a Search dialog box to quickly locate CONNECT equipment and network elements.

To open the Search dialog box:

Click the Search button .

- or -

From the Options menu, click Search.

The Search dialog box appears:

You can search based on element type, attribute and search string. You can also match the search string to different levels - exact or substring - or use regular expressions.

A list of the items matching your search is displayed, with some information for each item - who created it, when it was created, and so on:

Example of search results (18GHz radios)


Finally, from this Search dialog box, you can locate and highlight one of the found items in the Link Database, Equipment dialog box or Site Database (as appropriate) by double-clicking it:

Locating one of the radios found in the search in the Radio Equipment dialog box

Storing Performance Calculation Results in the Database

A number of performance calculation results can now be stored in the database. You can now Apply and Commit the following values from the Performance tab in the Link Database:

Value Sub-tab

Rx Level (dBm) Link Budget

Composite Fade Margin (dBm) Fade Margin

Annual Availability (%) Reliability

Total Annual Reliability (%) Reliability

Link Length (km) Objectives

This is particularly useful if you have any interfaces to external applications, because you can now configure them to retrieve performance calculation details from CONNECT if required.


What's New in ENTERPRISE 6.2?

In ENTERPRISE 6.2, the following additional features are now available:

Version History

A History tab has been added to many of the ENTERPRISE dialog boxes and to the Site Database window. If you have the necessary licence you can use this tab to:

See what changes have been made to objects in your network

Roll back the state of an object to an earlier version

This picture shows an example of a history tab and a comparative list of object parameters that can be accessed from the tab:

Differences in parameter settings between versions of an object can be highlighted at the click of a button.

Also, provided that you have the necessary licence and permissions, the new Version Reporter available from the database menu gives you a bulk view and limited rollback capability for committed data:


Classification of Vectors for Improved Searching

You can now use the Vector Manager to divide your user vectors into different classes. This picture shows an example of the Classifications menu:


Once you have done this you can limit the vectors displayed in the Select Vectors dialog box to those of one or more classes. This picture shows an example:


Quick Finder

The new Quick finder dialog box gives you a single tool with which to search the Map View window for such items as a location, a Property, a link, or a piece of text. This picture shows an example:


Filtering on Web Feature Services

Provided that your Administrator has set this up, you can now filter properties, sites and so on based on associated Web Feature Services. To do this you select WFS Services when creating a filter using the Filter Wizard:



A number of usability enhancements have been made to some of the core ENTERPRISE features.

Choosing which Tabs are Displayed in the Site Database

You can now choose which tabs are displayed in the Site Database, rather than having to display all of them.

You can choose the required tabs in the Choose Pages To Display dialog box:

Choose Pages to Display dialog box

In this dialog box, you can also re-order them as required, using the Move Up and Move Down button.

Example of re-ordered tabs


Creating Workspaces

You can now create workspaces, which are a combination of regularly-used windows and dialog boxes arranged on the screen in your preferred layout. You can save the layout as workspace, so you do not have to re-open and re-position all of the elements each time you open a project.

Workspaces are managed in the Windows dialog box:

Managing workspaces in the Windows dialog box

Workspaces cannot be shared across machines, databases, projects or users.


Site Region Load

ENTERPRISE already enables you to set up your project to load only a regional sub-set of site data (site region load), by creating a polygon or rectangle while the project is closed.

In ENTERPRISE 6.2, there is a new and easy way to set up a site region load, with the significant benefit that you can visualise your sites/nodes in the normal 'open project' Map View while creating the polygon.

While the project is open, you simply create the polygon in the usual way, within the normal Map View window. Then, after closing the project, you specify that it is also to be used as the region load polygon. (Alternatively, you can use a polygon that already exists in your normal vector folders.)

This picture shows an example of creating/viewing a polygon in the normal way, in an open project:

Example of creating a polygon in the normal way in an open project for the purpose of Site Region Load


This picture shows an example of selecting that (or any other existing) polygon to be used for Site Region Load, using the Region Load Map View from the Modify Project dialog box:

Example of specifying a polygon that was created in an open project to be used for Site Region Load

Administrator Enhancements

Customization

You can now customize the appearance of the Administrator tool. You have control over:

What appears in the Navigation Pane.

Which web site appears by default in the Administrator Window.

Which web sites can be displayed in the Administrator Window via short cuts in the Navigation Pane.

What options appear on the Menu Bar and the Admin Toolbar and the location of these bars.

The behaviour and location of an Output Pane containing the Message Log.

What colour scheme (skin) is applied.


Last Logged In

A Last Logged In column has been added to the details displayed when you select Users in the Navigation Pane. This column shows the date and time when each user last used ENTERPRISE and is therefore useful when performing a clean-up to identify users who may have left:

Filters Last Used

The Committed Filter Permissions dialog box has been modified to include a Last Used column. This shows when each filter was last used and so helps you to identify which filters are useful and which could be deleted:

Multi-Selection

For Users, Sessions, Groups and Filter Permissions you can now multi-select and copy content to the clipboard so that you can then paste it into another application such as an Excel spreadsheet:

You can also multi-select and lock or unlock users.


Session Killer

Under Sessions, you can now terminate the session of a user who is currently logged in:

Column Sorting

The speed of column sorting has been greatly improved.

Message Log

The Message Log now appears in an Output Pane at the bottom of the Administrator Window by default. You can hide or move this Output Pane and you can copy or clear the contents of the Message Log.


What's New in AIRCOM OPTIMA 6.2?

In AIRCOM OPTIMA 6.2, the following additional features are available.

AIROCM OPTIMA Front End Enhancements

This section describes the improvements to the AIRCOM OPTIMA front end that have been made for version 6.2.

Sandbox Functionality

A number of enhancements have been made to the sandbox functionality.

This picture shows the enhanced Sandbox Options dialog box:

Sandbox Options dialog box

The left hand grid of the Sandbox Options screen has been modified to show multiple users, and it is now possible to edit the Allocated Space and % Used options.

Space Allocation Warning

A warning has been added, which appears when a user exceeds their space allocation creating or refreshing views. The user is requested to contact their administrator to check their space allocation.

The space allocation is defined by the administrator in the Sandbox Options dialog box.

Deleting Users

When a user is deleted, all of their associated information and objects (views and sandbox views) are now deleted as well. The administrator receives a warning explaining this when they try to delete the user, which gives them the option to cancel the deletion.


Expiry/Last Refresh Details

In the Sandbox Tablespace Details dialog box, the list of objects allocated to the user now shows details of when they expire and when they were last refreshed.

You can open the Sandbox Tablespace Details dialog box by right-clicking in the user view area.

New Expiry Options

In the Sandbox Options dialog box, you can now choose what happens to a sandbox view when the expiry period is exceeded. You can either:

Delete the sandbox view from the database

- or -

Revert it into a normal user view

Deleting Sandbox Views

Oracle does not use the recycle bin for sandbox views. Therefore when a sandbox view is deleted in AIRCOM OPTIMA, it is completely deleted.

Icons for Sandbox Views and User Views

In the Data Explorer, there are now different icons for sandbox views and user

views .

Restriction on Sandbox Views

A restriction has been added to sandbox views: you cannot publish them to the data model.

In the Create User View dialog box, when you select the Sandbox View option, the Add to Data Model option becomes disabled.

Defining Indexes for Sandbox Views

In the Data Explorer, you can now create an index for a sandbox view. This can increase performance, because queries run on the underlying tables can run faster when they use a good index.

You create indexes for sandbox views in the Sandbox View Index Management dialog box, in which you can create entirely new indexes or base the new index on an existing one. Within the index, you can order the parameters as required, and prioritise particular parameters based on the expected results (parameters that return fewer entities will be processed quicker than those that return a large number).


In the Sandbox View Index Management dialog box, you can also delete indexes.

Sandbox View Index Management dialog box


Reporting Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the Reporting functionality.

Running Linked Modules

If you have created drill-down links between modules, you can now choose to run only a specific sub-set of the linked modules, rather than all of the linked modules.

You can run the linked modules from the grid or graph for a particular module as required.

When you double-click the element name (in the grid) or the series point (in the graph) in the module from which you want to drill down, you are given the choice of which linked modules you want to drill down into:

Select Linked Module(s) dialog box


Drilling Down Based on Date and Time

The drilling function has now been extended to include drilling down within modules based on date and time.

For each module in the grid that has time aggregation enabled, a new tab has been added to indicate the time aggregation type - for example, hourly:

If you double-click the date column, the Date Time Picker appears, which you can use to choose to:

Select a different range of dates - this will run the module with the same time aggregation type, but for the chosen period instead.

- or -

Select a different time aggregation type - this will run the module across a new time aggregation type. A new tab for this type is added, and the new data is added to the Series List so that it can be plotted on the graph.


This picture shows the Select Drill Down Options dialog box:

Date Time Picker dialog box



A number of improvements have been made to the usability of AIRCOM OPTIMA. This section describes these changes.

Viewing KPI Use

You can now see where KPIs are used throughout AIRCOM OPTIMA in a single location, the KPI Use dialog box.

You can view this dialog box by right-clicking the required KPI and selecting View KPI Use.

This picture shows an example of the KPI Use dialog box:

The KPI Use dialog box shows:

In which objects (reports, tables, modules and so on) the selected KPI is used - in this example, it is used in one alarm (Channel Allocation Request Failures (Voice)), one module (Channel Allocation Requests (Voice)) and one report (Channel Allocation Requests (Voice))

The location of those objects - in this example, the alarm, module and report are all stored in the GERAN subfolder (within the All Folders folder)

The tables in which the KPI is used - in this example, DEMO_GERAN.CELLSTATS, DEMO_GERAN.CELLSTATS_DY, DEMO_GERAN.CELLSTATS_MO and DEMO_GERAN.CELLSTATS_WK


KPI Bulk Import

Previously, you could only import KPIs from an XML file, but now there is an alternative.

You can import KPIs in bulk from a CSV file. The values in the CSV file should be in the following format:

{KPI Name, DESC, EQUATION, SCHEMANAME, TABLE}

Where:

KPI Name is a valid field name in ORACLE

DESC and EQUATION are in double quotes if they contain a space or a comma, for example

{KPI Name, Description, "NVL (Field,0)", Schema, Table}

The only field allowed to be null is DESCRIPTION

The first line of the CSV file should be a header line which contains all the column names.

You cannot use the bulk import for KPIs that contain %AGGR or %KPI in their equation. You must import these individually.

To perform a bulk KPI import:

1 From the KPI menu, click KPI Manager.

-or-

Click the KPI Manager button .

2 In the KPI Manager, right-click and from the menu that appears, click Import.

3 In the Confirm dialog box that appears, click OK. The Import Objects dialog box appears.

4 Click to browse to the location from where you want to import the KPI.

5 Click OK. The selected file is displayed in the Import Objects dialog box:

6 Select the KPI that you want to import and click OK.

7 If you want to import the KPIs as public/group KPIs that can be accessed by everyone, click Yes.

- or -

If you want to import the KPIs as personal KPIs just for the current user, click No.


If you try to import a public KPI that already exists in the database, then the import will work differently, depending on whether you are an OPTIMA_Administrator or not:

If you are an OPTIMA_Administrator, you will be prompted to either overwrite the existing one or not import the KPI at all. You can choose to do this for all KPIs at once or decide for each one individually.

If you are not an OPTIMA_Administrator, and the KPI already exists as a public KPI, then it will be imported as a private KPI. If the KPI already exists as a private KPI, then it will be imported as another private KPI with the same name and a different identifier.

KPI Bulk Entry

Editing Multiple KPIs

You can now edit KPIs as a group, as well as individually. To do this, right-click the group of KPIs that you want to edit, and then click Edit.

The Edit KPIs dialog box appears, in which you can edit the properties of the KPIs that you have selected - the security levels, the administrative rights, the base table and schema used and the time/element aggregation details.

Edit KPIs dialog box


Deleting Multiple KPIs

In the KPI Manager, if you are deleting KPIs, you can now select multiple KPIs by clicking on each one while holding down the Ctrl key.

Graph Options - Select All Elements

Previously, when displaying a graph for a particular combination, the user had to manually select all the elements after selecting a counter.

You can now set an option to select all the elements automatically once you select the counter.

All the elements will be selected even if none of the elements have been selected manually.

This option is available in the User Preferences dialog box, on the User Defaults tab of the Graph Options sub-tab:

Select all elements option


Saving Combinations

AIRCOM OPTIMA has a new 'Save As' option, which enables you to rename an existing combination, and/or save it in a different location.

To use this option:

1 In the Combination Explorer, double-click the module combination window that you want to copy.

2 In the module combination window, click the Save As button .

If you rename a combination and/or choose a different folder for a combination, this is the same as making a copy of it - the original is kept, with the original name in the original location.

You can still use the Save button to save an existing combination with the same name and/or in the same location.

Saving Changes to the Data Explorer

In the Data Explorer, you can now use a new OK button to save any changes that you make.

For example, when you have edited the SQL for an object, click OK and then click Yes to save your changes.

Using 'Double-Click' in All Explorers

The 'double-click' functionality has now been standardised across all of the AIRCOM OPTIMA explorers. This table describes what happens when you double-click a particular item:

Item Description

Modules As an administrator, opens the module for you to edit.

As a user, runs the module.

Combinations Opens the combination.

Reports Runs the report.

Alarms Opens the alarm for you to edit.

All other objects (for example, filters)

Opens the object for you to edit.

Creating Folders When Saving

When you are saving items (for example, module combinations, work areas or reports) and choose a folder to save them in, you can choose to create an entirely new folder for the item.

In the Save dialog box, an 'Add New Folder' button has been included, from which you can define a new folder for the reports.


New User 'Welcome' Screen

When you first open AIRCOM OPTIMA, the AIRCOM OPTIMA Quick Help welcome screen appears.

AIRCOM OPTIMA Quick Help welcome screen

This provides a reduced version of the main AIRCOM OPTIMA Help, and can be used as a brief 'look-up' reference for AIRCOM OPTIMA.

By default, it appears every time you log in. To turn it off:

In the AIRCOM OPTIMA Quick Help screen, de-select the 'Always show quick reference on login' option:

Viewing Microsoft Excel Templates in the Excel Report Editor

In the Excel Report Editor, if you have assigned a pre-existing Excel template to a report, or created a new template for it, you can now quickly view the contents of the

template by clicking the Open Template button :

Excel Template


Favourites Stored in the Database

If a user creates AIRCOM OPTIMA favourites, these are now stored in the database for that particular user, rather than in the registry under the current OS user.

If you are upgrading from 6.1, all favourites created in 6.1 will be retained in 6.2. However, if multiple users used the same OS user account, AIRCOM OPTIMA is not able to recognise which user owned a particular favourite listed in the registry. Therefore, the first person to open the project in AIRCOM OPTIMA 6.2 will receive all of the favourites associated with that OS user as they are deleted from the registry and moved to the database.

Edit Favourites dialog box

When loading a favourite from an ini file, AIRCOM OPTIMA uses the path specified for the icon file to find the icon image. If the folder specified in the file path is not found, then AIRCOM OPTIMA looks for the icon in the folder containing the ini file. If the icon is still not found, a default icon is used.

When saving favourites to the ini file, AIRCOM OPTIMA saves the icon image to the same folder as the ini file.

Schedule Explorer Enhancement

When viewing the history of a schedule in the Schedule Explorer, if the report is currently running, the Last Run Status will show 'Running'.

To see the 'Running' status, you must press F5 to refresh the report status.


Reorganisation of Administrator Options

For version 6.2, the Administrator options have been reorganised into three different groups, which can all be accessed from the Administrator menu.

General Administrator Options

The General Options, Email Client Settings and Web Wizard tabs have all been moved onto the General Administrator Options dialog box:

To open the General Administrator Options dialog box, from the Administrator menu, click General Options.

If you are an OPTIMA_Administrator, you can set the following global settings (which are not specific to a particular user):

Option Type Description

General Enables you to:

Choose to show Cancel dialog boxes

Set the maximum tree size for a module hierarchy

Choose to prompt users to save combination templates when closing a combination

Choose to select all elements for the selected counter in combination graphs

Set AIRCOM OPTIMA client settings

Define the WEBWIZARD URL from which users will access WEBWIZARD

Sandbox Enables you to allocate individual quotas for your users to use space in the 'sandbox' environment, so that they can create sandbox views in the Data Explorer.

Partition Maintenance Enables you to set retention periods (partition maintenance) for the partitioned tables in the database.


Sandbox Options

In the Sandbox Options dialog box, you can allocate individual space quotas for your users to use in the 'sandbox' environment, where they can create sandbox views in the Data Explorer. For more information, see Saving a Query as a Custom View in the Sandbox.

The Sandbox Options dialog box contains information on:

Individual users' allocations and what percentage is used

The sandbox as a whole, for example the total space available for all users

To open the Sandbox Options dialog box:

From the Administrator menu, click Sandbox Options.

Partition Maintenance Options

In the Partition Maintenance Options dialog box, you can set retention periods (partition maintenance) for the partitioned tables in the database.

To open the Partition Maintenance dialog box:

From the Administrator menu, click Partition Maintenance.


Alarms Enhancements

In AIRCOM OPTIMA, the alarms capabilities have been enhanced so that you can now use three different types of alarm:

Alarm Type Description

Performance Performance alarms enable you to set network counter thresholds or key performance indicators (KPIs) and then receive alerts whenever network conditions are not met. Network data is processed, at user defined intervals, by AIRCOM OPTIMA. This data is stored in database tables in the form of counters. Ripple counts are used to define the threshold conditions for setting or clearing alarms.

The information from these alarms can be:

Queries in modules and reports

Viewed in the Alarms Explorer

Passed on to a fault management system

System System alarms are alarms raised on AIRCOM OPTIMA events, not performance data events.

Threshold Crossing Alert (TCA)

TCAs are loader-specific alarms, which are raised as data is loaded into the AIRCOM OPTIMA database using the Loader. They indicate a discrepancy between the expected values according to the defined thresholds and the data loaded into the database after any modification during the loading process.

In the Alarms Explorer, you can define performance and system alarms:

Performance and System tabs in the Alarms Explorer

You can define performance alarms using the Alarms Wizard, and you can define performance and system alarms using the Alarms Editor.

In the Alarm Handler Explorer, you can define handlers for performance alarms, system alarms, and TCAs:

Performance alarms, system alarms and TCAs in the Alarms Handler Explorer

You can define TCAs when you configure the Loader in the AIRCOM OPTIMA back end.


In the Configure loader table mappings dialog box (which you can open from the the Table Settings tab of the loader report), you can define the TCAs to monitor the value of particular columns, and signal if the loaded values are incorrect:

Defining TCAs in the Loader Table Mappings dialog box

In this example, TCAs have been set to trigger if the loaded value of COUNTER1 is greater than 10, and/or the value of COUNTER2 is greater than 56.

On the Table Settings tab of the loader report, you can select to enable any TCAs that have been created, choose at what severity they should be raised, and choose to send TCA notifications by SNMP:

Table Settings options for TCAs


Additional Roles for AIRCOM OPTIMA Users

A number of additional roles have been defined for AIRCOM OPTIMA users, which provides you with greater control over the activities of users who are logged into AIRCOM OPTIMA.

Two new roles have been created, in addition to the current OPTIMA_Administrator, OPTIMA_Advanced_User and OPTIMA_User:

Role Description

User_Administrator User_Administrators can add, edit and delete new OPTIMA_Advanced_Users, OPTIMA_Users and groups.

User_Administrators have no other permissions.

Alarm_Administrator Alarm_Administrators can add, edit and delete performance alarms and performance alarm handlers.

Otherwise, all permissions are identical to those of an OPTIMA_Advanced_User.

AIRCOM OPTIMA Back End Enhancements

This section describes the improvements to the AIRCOM OPTIMA back end that have been made for 6.2.

Password Encryption

Password encryption has been added for all programs that have the password stored in the ini file. Previously, passwords were not encrypted in any way and were stored in plain text form within the ini file.

The AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool (OIT) and Loader GUI now automatically create ini files with encrypted passwords.

For existing/legacy ini files, or those that are created manually, the command line executable ‘OPXCRYPT’ can now be used to encrypt the passwords.

The command syntax for ‘OPXCRYPT’ is:

OPXCRYPT.exe [[[-f File] or [-d Path]] [-r Recursive] [-t Tag]]

or [-v]

Where -f File

Is a single, defined file containing the password to be encrypted. The filename defined can be a wildcard (for Windows) or a regular expression (for UNIX) - for example, *.ini.

-d Path Is the directory containing the *.ini files containing the passwords to be encrypted. If the directory is not defined, then the current directory will be used by default.

-r Recursive Is an optional tag, indicating that opxcrypt should also look for ini files in all sub-directories of the defined directory.

-t Tag Is an optional parameter, used to locate the password in the file. You should only use this if the password parameter is called something other than ‘Password’ – for example, ‘remotePass’.


-v Is the print version string. This overrides all other command line parameters.

The syntax supports comma-separated values, for cases where there are multiple IP addresses/passwords. During encryption, the comma is only ever used as a separator - it is excluded from the character set available for encoding purposes in order to avoid erroneously splitting whole passwords.

‘OPXCRYPT’ is available on a number of supported AIRCOM OPTIMA Mediation Server platforms, including Windows XP (32-bit), HP-UX Titanium and Linux Redhat Enterprise Server 4.

It is not currently available for Sun Solaris 8.

This table shows the full list of supported applications:

Application Name Encrypted Element in the INI File

Manual Encryption Required?

Configuration UI Name

Alarms Notifier Password, SMSC_Password No Alarms Notifier

Alarms Processor Password Yes N/A

FTP remotePass Yes N/A

Loader Password No Loader GUI, OIT

Report Scheduler Password No Report configuration tool

SNMP Poller CommunityRead No SNMP Poller configuration tool

WEBWIZARD Password No AIRCOM OPTIMA frontend

For those applications where manual encryption is required, you need to use OPXCRYPT to encrypt the listed element.

The OIT encrypts the Oracle connection to the OSS_DICTIONARY and AIRCOM in the project file. If you update the two passwords in the Database Connection section of the Project Parameters form, they will be encrypted automatically when Loader ini files are created.

Password encryption for WEBWIZARD works slightly differently. It is invoked in the AIRCOM OPTIMA frontend, and passes a Hex encryption of the password as part of the WEBWIZARD URL.

AIRCOM OPTIMA will perform internal decryption at the latest point possible prior to connection, in order to maximise security and ensure that the decrypted password is not available for any longer than it needs to be.


PRID Limit and Interface Support

PRID Limit

PRIDs (Program IDs) have had their upper limit extended, by making the INSTID component alphanumeric, rather than just numeric.

This means that it can support more than 999 instances in a backend application.

If you are upgrading from a version older than 6.2, any existing INSTIDs will not be updated but any new INSTIDs will be calculated by using the next available alphanumeric ID.

PRID Interface Support

The PRID definition has now changed. Rather than representing the Machine ID, the first three numbers of the PRID represent the Interface ID, and are a unique identifier for the particular interface. This means that the same process can be run on different machines, without changing the configuration each time.

The Machine ID is now stored separately, as the host name. The host name is read by AIRCOM OPTIMA and used in a number of places:

A number of file names have been modified to include the host name:

File Type New Name

Log <hostname>_<exename>_<PRID>_<date>.log

Monitor <hostname>_<exename>_<PRID>.pid

Temporary <hostname>_<exename>_<PRIDn>.tmp

The host name and PRID are both written to log file messages

The host name environment variable and PRID are used in monitor files to associate it to a program instance

The functionality to read the hostname environment variable rather than the MachineID in the PRID is not backwards compatible. Therefore if you have a 6.2 version of the Process Monitor, you must ensure that all of the applications that you are monitoring have been upgraded to version 6.2 as well. However, if you are still using a pre-6.2 version of the Process Monitor, you do not have to (but can) upgrade the backend applications that you are monitoring to 6.2.


Improved AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool

An enhanced version of the AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool has been developed, containing the following new features.

Multiple User Support/Deployment Ease

In order to make deployment easier, the AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool now supports multiple users in a number of ways:

There is no longer a single project file, and instead multiple users can connect to the OSS_ DICTIONARY schema, and upload and activate interface templates at the same time.

Multiple users can now upload and activate multiple interfaces into one AIRCOM OPTIMA system. Each interface can be uploaded from different locations by different users at the same time.

Users can check-out templates in order to implement changes. The interface to which the template belongs is assigned to a particular user and marked as 'checked out':

Interfaces are marked as green if they are checked out to you:

Red if they are checked out to another user:

Black if no-one has them checked out:


If another user wants to activate or change that template, they must 'check out' the interface to themselves, using the Checkout Interface dialog box:

Users can also check templates back in, so that they can be made available to other users, by right-clicking and selecting Check in.

Exporting Revisions of Excel Templates

All revisions of Excel templates are stored, and copies of these can be exported out of the OIT for viewing and editing locally elsewhere for subsequent upload and activation.

Exporting a revision of an Excel template


Querying Templates

As well as validating templates, which checks for any syntax/code errors in the template, you can now query templates as well.

Selecting an OIT query within a template to test


Querying a template effectively creates a simulated version of the activated template in the production environment. When the template is queried, the returned results are displayed:

Results from querying a template

If you are testing a validation query, results will only be returned where there are errors. If data is validated correctly, then nothing will appear in the bottom pane.

If there are any errors, you can modify the query in the top pane, and then re-run the query.

Interface Naming Convention

The interface naming convention has changed slightly. It is now:

vendor_domain_sub-domain_portal_technology

(The vendor schema naming convention is vendor_technology).

Performance Enhancements

Performance has improved; for example, the activation tree displays information more quickly than in previous versions.


Data Quality - Performance Improvements and Sub-Daily Processing

As part of the requirements to improve the performance of data quality, the 'Availability', 'Completeness', 'Last Load' and 'Nullness' queries need to be tuned:

The 'Availability' query calculates the percentage of elements which are completely missing for a day.

The 'Completeness' query calculates the percentage of available data for the period loaded. This does not include data which is not present at all. For data that is present it gives an idea of missing entries each day.

The 'Last Load' query provides the last date that a table was loaded (in other words, the maximum date of the table).

The 'Nullness' query calculates the number of null entries in the table for a day, for a specified list of columns.

New SNMP Poller GUI

A new user interface has been developed, which enables you to configure the SNMP Poller quickly and easily:

SNMP Poller Configuration dialog box


You can use the Configuration GUI to perform a number of tasks:

Load managed objects, and create reports that define which managed objects will be reported on

Define the devices (agents) that will be polled - by either defining them manually, or searching for existing devices and loading their details into the SNMP Poller GUI

Choose which devices will be reported on in each report

Assign the devices to particular machines from which you want to poll the data

Generate an ini file of these settings

Directory File Limit

A large number of the backend components have been enhanced to limit the number of output files created in each output (sub) folder.

The file limit is configurable in the ini file, using a series of new parameters:

Parameter Description

UseFolderFileLimit Indicates whether the folder file limit should be used (1) or not (0).

FolderFileLimit The maximum number of output files that will be created in each output folder.

This is set at 10,000 by default.

minimumFolderFileLimit The minimum number of output files per folder that will be accepted.

If the user sets the FolderFileLimit to be less than this, the application

will not run.

This is set as a read-only value of 100.

maximumFolderFileLimit The maximum number of output files per folder that will be accepted.

If the user sets the FolderFileLimit to be more than this, the

application will not run.

This is set as a read-only value of 100,000.

Depending on the number of files that you are processing, the lower the file limit, the more output sub-folders that will be created. This can have a significant impact on performance, so you should ensure that if you do need to change the default, you do not set the number too low.

These parameters are stored in a different section of the ini file depending on the backend component:

For the FTP, they are in the FILENAME PARAMETERS section

For the CMB, they are in the GENERAL section

For all other affected components, they are the MAIN section

The limit can be set to a maximum of 100,000 on Windows and 500,000 on UNIX/Sun.

The files are loaded in availability order, in other words, a file available 10 minutes ago will be loaded before a file available 5 minutes ago.


Editing Multiple Report Schedules in the Summary GUI

As well as editing individual report schedules, you can also edit multiple report schedules simultaneously. To do this:

1 Select the report schedules that you want to edit.

2 Click the Edit Multiple Schedules button .

The Edit Multiple Schedules dialog box appears:

3 Change the details of the schedules as required. The parameters are the same as those for individual schedules, although a few have slightly different names; for example, the 'Set all Selected Schedule's Next Run Dates to SYSDATE' option is a checkbox rather than a 'Set To SYSDATE' button.

4 When you have made the required changes, click Save.


Using AIRCOM OPTIMA Across Multiple Time Zones

If your network is spread across more than one time zone, the associated time zone difference can cause discrepancies in any AIRCOM OPTIMA application which handles data - particularly, report scheduling and summary.

For example, you may be running a daily network summary that covers a network across multiple time zones. If the last hour of data from the farthest part of the network is 5 hours behind the rest of the network, there will be a delay of 5 hours on the summary. This in turn will affect the schedule.

If time zone support is not used and the client and database machines are in different time zones, there could be ambiguity in scheduled time.

You may also have network elements that have child nodes that span time zones - for example, MSCs with BSCs in regions that have different time zones. If time zone support is not used, this could cause problems because there would be data from two different time zones coming in - for example, 9am ET (Eastern Time) is 8am CT (Central Time). This means that if the BH is summarised at 9am, it would not be truly representative of the elements in both time zones.

In order to mitigate this, AIRCOM OPTIMA now supports the use of multiple time zones, at a number of different levels.

Currently, time zone support for alarm forwarding is not available.

Defining Time Zones

In the AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool, when defining the project properties, you can specify which time zones are used in the project:

Time Zones tab


Also within the AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool, when setting up the interface workbook, two additional types have been added to the Type field to enable you to specify time-related information:

Type Description

TS Timestamp. This corresponds to the TIMESTAMP data type, which extends the DATE data type to include fractional seconds.

TZ Timestamp with Time Zone. Similar to the TS type but with an explicit time zone attached to it. This corresponds to the Oracle TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE data type.

Selecting Your Time Zone When Logging In

When a user logs into the project for the first time, they must choose their time zone from the defined list of AIRCOM OPTIMA time zones:

Selecting the time zone

After this has been done for the first time, it can be changed at any time using the Time Zone tab of the User Preferences dialog box:

User Preferences dialog box


Configuring Summaries

When creating summary reports, you can choose to aggregate data using timestamp aggregation.

If you choose the Enable Timestamp Aggregation option, you can then select the source table's timestamp column name, which will be read across all of the raw tables in order to ensure time zone consistency:

Specifying the timestamp column

When configuring the summary table, you can select the timezone that will be used to aggregate the data at the correct time across all of the time zones in your network:

Selecting the time zone


Scheduling Reports

When creating report schedules, you can now set the recurrence to run against a specific time zone, rather than against the database's local time.

Similarly, when configuring the Report Scheduler, you can define the time zone in which the scheduler is located, so that AIRCOM OPTIMA can manage the difference between this time zone and the time zone where the database is located.

The Report Scheduler works differently depending on whether or not you have configured the Report Scheduler to use a specific time zone.

The Report Scheduler Uses a Time Zone

If your network spans across multiple time zones, and you have configured the Report Scheduler to use a specific time zone, when the scheduler is started, it will search for and run:

All report schedules set on the same time zone as the Report Scheduler, where the next run date is equal to or less than the database local time (for example, the Oracle SYSDATE) adjusted by the time zone

Any other schedules without a specified time zone, where the next run date is equal to or less than the database local time (SYSDATE)

Consider the following network example:

A network across multiple time zones

The example network is spread across different time zones:

The database is in the UK

The client is in Greece

The report scheduler is in a third country


The following report schedules have been created:

Schedule Number Time Zone Next Run Time

1 GREECE 14:00

2 GREECE 12:00

3 GMT 15:00

4 None Set 12:00

The Report Scheduler has been configured to use the GREECE time zone.

If the Report Scheduler is set running, then the database time (SYSDATE) is converted according to the GREECE timezone, giving an actual runtime of 14:00.Therefore, the Scheduler will run:

All report schedules set on the GREECE time zone, where the next run date is equal to or less than 14:00

Any other schedules without a specified time zone, where the next run date is equal to or less than 12:00

This means that it deals with each example schedule record as follows:

Schedule Record Runs? Reason Why

1 Y Next run time = 1400, SYSDATE + GREECE TIME ZONE = 1400

2 Y Next run time = 1200, SYSDATE + GREECE TIME ZONE = 1400

3 N Has a different time zone set, and so is ignored

4 Y Next run time = 1200, SYSDATE = 1200

The Report Scheduler Does Not Use A Time Zone

If your network spans across multiple time zones, and you have configured the Report Scheduler to use a specific time zone, when the scheduler is started, it will search for and run all report schedules where the next run date is equal to or less than the database local time (for example, the Oracle SYSDATE) adjusted by the specific time zone for each schedule.

If no time zone has been set for a schedule, it will just compare the database local time with the next run time.

Take an example network, when the following report schedules have been created:

Schedule Number Time Zone Next Run Time

1 GREECE 14:00

2 GREECE 12:00

3 GMT 15:00

4 None Set 12:00


If the Report Scheduler is set running, then it will treat each schedule record as follows:

Schedule Number Time Zone Next Run Time SYSDATE Adjusted SYSDATE Run?

1 GREECE 14:00 12:00 14:00 Y

2 GREECE 12:00 12:00 14:00 Y

3 GMT 15:00 12:00 12:00 N

4 None Set 12:00 12:00 12:00 Y

Validator Options for the Loader

The Loader Configuration dialog box now contains an additional Validator Options tab.

You can use the Validator Options tab to configure the Loader to perform the validation of the data before it is loaded.


Example Validator Options tab

To configure the validation options:

1 Select the Validate Input File option.

2 Choose any trimming options that you want to use when validating the data. This table describes the options:

Option Description

Trim Header Removes any spaces found around the header columns.

Trim Data Removes any spaces found around the data values.


3 Select the required separator for input files - comma, SPACE, TAB or another character.

4 Choose any additional options that you want to use when validating the data. This table describes these options:

Option Description

Windows Input Files Select this option if the files that are to be loaded/validated are in Windows format (where the lines end with \r\n).

Remove Header Does not include the header in the output file.

Columns Case Sensitive Compares the header columns to ensure that they are the same case.

Check Header Only Only checks that the header is valid, not the entire file.

5 In the Missing Value box, type the value to be used for any columns which are not in the file and are to be added to the database.

6 In the Header Line Number box, specify the number of lines that need to be skipped in order to process the data.

7 You can choose to use Safe Mode.

Safe Mode enables you to generate a file containing the data for any new counters (or columns in the parser file header) that the parser outputs but were not expected based the configuration of the original report.

If you want to use Safe Mode:

Select the Safe Mode option

Define an appropriate directory for the generated new counter file to be stored.

Select the primary and ignore columns for the new counter file:

Column Description

Primary Primary columns are those which will be needed to load the new counter file.

To add a primary column, click the Add Primary column button, type the name of the column and then click OK.

Ignore Ignore columns are columns for any new counters that you know have been added since the validation report was created, but are not interested in, and want to exclude from the file.

To add an ignore column, click the Add Ignore column button, type the name of the column and then click OK.


Managing Resources Through Consumer Groups

In AIRCOM OPTIMA, you can now use Oracle consumer groups to manage database memory allocation between users.

For the AIRCOM OPTIMA front end, the consumer groups are based on the user type:

User Type Consumer Group

OPTIMA_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_ADMINISTRATORS_CG

OPTIMA_ADVANCED_USER OPTIMA_ADVANCED_USERS_CG

OPTIMA_USER OPTIMA_USERS_CG

OPTIMA_USER_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_USER_ADMINISTRATORS_CG

OPTIMA_ALARM_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_ALARM_ADMINISTRATORS_CG

This means that when a new user is created and assigned to a particular user type, they will be assigned to the corresponding consumer group at the same time.

For the AIRCOM OPTIMA back end, the consumer groups are based on the backend application:

Application Consumer Group

Report Scheduler OPTIMA_REPSCH_PROCS_CG

Loader OPTIMA_LOADER_PROCS_CG

Loader GUI OPTIMA_LOADER_USERS_CG

Summary GUI OPTIMA_SUMMARY_USERS_CG

Data Quality GUI OPTIMA_DQ_USERS_CG

Alarms Processor OPTIMA_ALARM_PROCS_CG

Alarm Handler OPTIMA_ALARMHANDLER_PROCS_CG

SNMP Agent OPTIMA_SNMPAGENT_PROCS_CG

SNMP Poller OPTIMA_ SNMPPOLLER_USERS_CG

This means that when a user logs into a particular application, they will be assigned to the corresponding consumer group at the same time. For example, when OPTIMA_LOADER_PROCS logs into the Loader, they will automatically be assigned to the OPTIMA_LOADER_PROCS_CG consumer group, and receive the specified allocation of database memory for a member of that group.

These resource groups are used in conjunction with resource plans, which define how resources are balanced across the system (in terms of % share) according to business rules.

AIRCOM OPTIMA has a default resource plan, which is assigned at the start of the deployment of AIRCOM OPTIMA. This contains a number of subplans associated to the consumer groups for the different components of AIRCOM OPTIMA - for example, Loader, SNMP, Summary and so on.


Accessing the AIRCOM OPTIMA Database

Users can now access AIRCOM OPTIMA's data and configuration tables from outside AIRCOM OPTIMA - for example, using SQLPLUS or TOAD with read-only access - for example, they cannot edit or delete any data or tables.

A special 'power user', the DBACCESS user, can access the database to create new objects.

To manage access when using the AIRCOM OPTIMA front end and backend applications, a number of dedicated Oracle roles have been created.

In the front end, these are based on user type, and are assigned to users when they are created in AIRCOM OPTIMA:

User Type Role

OPTIMA_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_ADMINISTRATORS

OPTIMA_ADVANCED_USER OPTIMA_ADVANCED_USERS

OPTIMA_USER OPTIMA_USERS

OPTIMA_USER_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_USER_ADMINISTRATORS

OPTIMA_ALARM_ADMINISTRATOR OPTIMA_ALARM_ADMINISTRATORS

For the AIRCOM OPTIMA back end, a separate, dedicated role exists for each application:

Application Role

Report Scheduler OPTIMA_REPSCH_PROCS

Loader OPTIMA_LOADER_PROCS

Loader GUI OPTIMA_LOADER_USERS

Summary GUI OPTIMA_SUMMARY_USERS

Data Quality GUI OPTIMA_DQ_USERS

Alarms Processor OPTIMA_ALARM_PROCS

Alarm Handler OPTIMA_ALARMHANDLER_PROCS

SNMP Agent OPTIMA_SNMPAGENT_PROCS

SNMP Poller OPTIMA_ SNMPPOLLER_USERS

These application roles are session-based, and only activated when the user logs into the appropriate application - if the same user tries to use an application outside AIRCOM OPTIMA to access the data and configuration tables (for example, SQLPLUS or TOAD) they will only have read-only access again.


Generating Associated Tables Automatically

As well as defining associations for a table manually, you can now generate them automatically. You can do this in two ways.

When Activating an Interface in the AIRCOM OPTIMA Installation Tool

In the Activate Interface dialog box, there is now an option to update front end tables:

Update Front End Tables option

If you select this option, when the interface is activated, the DATA DICTIONARY and ASSOCIATED TABLES table are updated with any summaries that are included in the activated interface. The associated tables are created and this data is populated in the Table and Field Info dialog box.

When Repopulating AIRCOM OPTIMA's Data Dictionary

In the Table and Field Info dialog box, you can automatically create table associations based on the summary configuration tables in the database, by using the Regenerate Table Info option:

Automatically creating table associations

An associated table is created for each pair of source and destination tables defined within the summary report, and also for all of the other relationships within the hierarchy.


Summary Element Aggregation by CFG Table

AIRCOM OPTIMA now supports summary element aggregation by CFG table.

This means that when defining summary reports, you can join a raw table with a CFG table (for example BSC,CELL) and then aggregate and join with a summary table (for example, CFG.CITY).

These pictures show how this would be configured in the Summary Report dialog box. The first shows the configuration of Source Table 1:

First source table


The second shows the configuration of Source Table 2:

Second source table


Then, in the Advanced Options for the summary report, if you choose the 'Insert then Update' load option, re-summarization will be supported.

Choosing the Insert then Update load option

This configuration should be supported by an appropriate query, defined on the SQL Query tab of the Summary Report dialog box:

SELECT cfg.CITY, SDATE,

SUM(TCALLS) TCALLS,

SUM(TCONGS) TCONGS,

SUM(TNDROP) TNDROP,

.... and so on

SUM(TFMSESTB) TFMSESTB,

SUM(CMSESTAB) CMSESTAB,

SUM(TFCASSALL) TFCASSALL,

SUM(TFNDROP) TFNDROP,

SUM(TNUCHCNT_SCAN) TNUCHCNT_SCAN,

count(*) ENTRIES

FROM AIRCOM.CELLSTATS, AIRCOM.CELLCFG cfg

WHERE SDATE BETWEEN :STARTDATE AND :ENDDATE

AND %FILTER

AND AIRCOM.CELLSTATS.CELL = cfg.CELL_NAME

GROUP BY SDATE, cfg.CITY


Loader Error Tables

When defining the Database and Processing Settings for the Loader, there is now an option to enable Error tables.

This option is only available if you are using the 'Bulk Load' or 'Bulk then Upsert' Load Type options, and enables you to create an error log table, and store details of loading errors.

This option is particularly useful if there is a reasonable chance that the data you want to load will produce 'primary key violation' errors, because if you use it in conjunction with the 'bulk then upsert' option, when the bulk load fails, the Loader will use the information logged in the error table to try to update/insert the errored rows correctly.


You can view this loader error information in two places within the database:

The LOADER_LOG table provides a brief description of the number of errors for a particular file (using the pre-batched filename) and the cause of the error. This picture shows an example, as seen in TOAD:

The filename will only be given in the LOADER_LOG table if the INPUT_FILE_NAME has been defined as one of the aliases in the external table settings (Loader File Mappings and Loader Table Mappings).

The ERROR_LOG table (called ERR_PRID, where PRID is the Program ID) gives a detailed description of the load failures for each offending row. This picture shows an example, as seen in TOAD:


What's New in RANOPT 6.2

In RANOPT 6.2, the following additional features are now available:

RANOPT Route Correction

In RANOPT 6.2 you now have the facility to "fill in" location gaps that occur when there are consecutive groups of invalid locations and/or groups of duplicate locations. This option is available on the Manipulation tab for a filter, and you can specify what type of route correction you want to use. Using the Route Editor screen, you can correct sections of the drive route which are missing.

There are two main types of route correction used in RANOPT:

Item Description

Automatic Corrects sections of the drive route using linear interpolation.

Can be set to either correct invalid locations and/or spread in-between locations.

Manual Corrects the drive route based on user-specified modification sets.

Manual route correction is only available for 'Merge All Files' filters.


New Renderer Look and Feel

The map renderers have a new 3D look and feel in RANOPT 6.2. The user comments also have an improved look making them easier to read.


Changes to the Filter Manager

Exclusion Rules Listed in Filter Tool Tip

In the Filter Manager, if you hover your mouse over a filter, a Tool Tip appears with information about that filter. For example, the name of the filter, the equipment, technologies and so on are listed. In RANOPT 6.2, any exclusion rules that have been added to the filter are now also displayed in the Tool Tip.


Creating Tile Maps and Call Drill Down

In RANOPT 6.2 you can create tile maps in addition to creating range, line and image maps. Tile maps are defined in the RANOPT Report Registry.

A tile map displays dynamic aggregation of the data in your filter. You can access tile maps that have already been set up using the the new Quick Drill Down menu by right-clicking on a filter in the Filter Manager.


Once you have defined the tile maps, you can use them to drill down into calls in the Map View window. Right-click on a filter in the Filter Manager, click on Quick Drill Down and, from the menu that appears, click the required parameter set.


Table View Enhancements

In RANOPT you can create a historical view of the data values along the drive test route using a table view. In version 6.2, the following enhancements have been added to this function:

You can now restrict the amount of data displayed for a particular parameter using the Filter Criteria fields in the Filter Settings dialog box. You also have the option to colour code values that exceed the maximum threshold you have set.


If you are replaying data using the table view, you can now export information as a data file using the Table View Export Settings dialog box.

You can choose whether to include the header in the export, and whether you want to export as ASCII text or to Microsoft Excel.

Loading User Equipment Trace Files

You can now load User Equipment (UE) trace files into RANOPT 6.2 in the same way as Measurement files, to help you to further investigate the causes of failures on the network. These files can then be associated with drive test files in a filter, enabling you to view the trace events.

RANOPT currently supports RNC 3810 (Ericsson) trace files only, but other file types will be supported in future releases.


Changes to RANOPT Scheduler

In RANOPT 6.2 Scheduler, a number of changes have been made to enhance usability:

A second pane has been added to the lower half of the RANOPT Scheduler screen to enable you to view information about jobs and tasks as they are executed

In the Report Running Task screen, a second pane has been added to enable you to view the report parameters for the filter you have selected

In the Report Running Task screen, user-defined filters are now available

You now have the option to run a monthly job on a specific day of the week

Filter creation tasks now display public and private filters as they have been defined in the Filter Manager

You can now access the New Task menu by right-clicking on a Job in the Scheduler

You can modify or edit a task by double-clicking on the task in the Scheduler

You can now enable or disable a job using the icon on the Scheduler taskbar


Creating Bounding Polygons

If you are displaying a drive test route in the Map View window, you can create a bounding polygon for it. The polygon will approximately cover the drive test route, and can be used for example for filtering purposes.


Alpha-Numeric Parameters

In RANOPT 6.2, you can now use a discrete Alpha-Numeric range to define a parameter in the Report Registry.

The range contains a list of values, each represented by a unique and different colour to the previous one in the list. This creates a more visual difference between the displayed colours.

This is useful for values which contain both non-numeric and numeric characters; for example, you may have a combined BSIC/BCCH parameter for which the values are separated by a 'forward slash' character, such as 42/37 or 24/111.


Enhancement to the Parameter Selector

The Parameter Selector screen has been enhanced to enable you to view which equipment, filter and technology nodes have parameters already selected. The list in

the parameter selector displays a sign to indicate that a node has one or more parameters selected.


Help Topic Available for Replay Display Properties

A help topic is now available for assistance when setting the replay cursor and cell line's Display Properties.

Help Topic Available for Scale Display Properties

There is now a Help topic available for the Scale Display Properties dialog box.


Dynamic Query Variables Detection Added to All Replay Module Queries

The execution of all Replay module queries has been speeded up in RANOPT 6.2. A global parser for all queries has been introduced which dynamically identifies and replaces all query variables, speeding up consecutive executions of the query.


What's New in WEBWIZARD 6.2?

In WEBWIZARD 6.2, the following features are now available:

WEBWIZARD with VE Integration

You can now use WEBWIZARD and WEBWIZARD Lite with VE (Virtual Earth) integration to include Microsoft Virtual Earth functionality in WEBWIZARD applications. This picture shows an example:

ArcSDE Integration

You can now choose to include ArcSDE server software when you install WEBWIZARD. This software allows spatial data to be stored in the database and results in superior performance for layer rendering. A new option has been added to each of the layer creation pages to allow you to choose for each layer whether you wish to use ArcSDE or not:


In-Line Reporting

You can now view details associated with a site or sites on an in-line report. This picture shows an example:

You can export these report details in a number of different formats:



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