PLAYING WELL WITH OTHERS

Race to Integrate, Automate Operations Products Grows Urgent

It's agreed. Even in hard times -- or especially because of hard times -- service providers will continue to spend money on operations software in the coming months. But according to carriers, vendors, analysts and system integrators gathered for SUPERCOMM during June in Atlanta, simply being an operations software supplier won't ensure vendor survival.

Many say the buyers are grading individual point products in great part on their capacity and readiness to play well with others in an integrated, full-service package.

With that mandate in mind, vendors lit up the SUPERCOMM show floor with integrated operations support system and business support system demonstrations. The common thread through every marketing pitch associated with these demonstrations: automated flow-through of data and tasks from one OSS/BSS to another hands service providers the necessary keys to reducing costly human intervention and accelerating the delivery of new, revenue-generating services to market.

Still unanswered, however, is which integration methods will rule.

One school suggests that 'best combinations' of preintegrated products from each OSS/BSS category will achieve interworking while relieving buyers of integration labors and costs. At SUPERCOMM, such end-to-end solutions came from single vendors and partnerships.

The other school suggests that highly open standards for inter-OSS information and process sharing is necessary to enable carriers to respond easily to unforeseen market conditions by fitting any vendor it chooses into a plug-and-play, best-of-breed framework.

Few software vendors fit neatly or exclusively into one camp or the other. Indeed, as they face a coming shakeout that analysts believe will mirror the speed and mercilessness of ongoing buyer consolidation, many vendors who used SUPERCOMM to showcase preintegrated offerings also boasted an open standards positioning.

Camps

On the plug-and-play, best-of-breed side of the equation, a dozen vendors and system integrators joined forces at the show to tout the promise of the OSS Through Java Initiative (OSS/J). Founded in September 2000, OSS/J is building on the success of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technology in enterprise applications and e-commerce, as well as cross-industry Common Object Brokering Architecture (CORBA) and extensible markup language (XML) standards. Those technologies provide a framework for developing reusable applications in the form of software 'objects' and for exchanging tasks and data among OSSs.

OSS/J's first phase targeted the development of application programming interfaces for Trouble Ticket, 3G wireless service activation and quality of service systems, followed by an Inventory API late last year. A billing API is on the way. All APIs are standardized under the latest Java Community Process (JCP) program, yielding cross-industry economies of scale, according to advocates.

The plan, says Eftia OSS Solutions Inc. CTO Christopher Dean, is to systematically "knock off" an API for each OSS category, issue public domain development and testing kits to the vendor community, "then aggressively try to get them into practical use." So far, OSS/J has certified only one commercially available product, the premioss-sp service provisioning module from IP VALUE GmbH. But high-profile vendors, including Telcordia Technologies Inc., say they have implemented the APIs for demonstration purposes and intend to map their future developments around Java, CORBA and XML technologies.

Among OSS/J advocates at SUPERCOMM were:

• Application server provider BEA Systems Inc. and system integrator PwC LLP showed how BEA's Weblogic app server dynamically can combine multivendor OSS functions, such as the mobile workforce management suite built around Weblogic by PwC. With Java, "cost is spread across multiple industries," says Chris Kim, director of worldwide communications markets for BEA, who notes that 95 developers including Autodesk Inc., MetaSolv Software Inc., Netcracker Technology Corp. and PwC have built products on Weblogic. "Last October we demonstrated 13 different integrations in four days with three people," Kim says. "Now we have something that actually is plug and play."

• Nokia Corp. introduced its broadband element aggregation and mediation platform, Nokia NetAct for Broadband. Based on a distributed J2EE-based client-server architecture, the platform provides integrated management for all Nokia's broadband access and intelligent edge network elements. The company says that when it is integrated with other applications it works as a layer between specialized applications for network fault and performance monitoring, inventory management, service creation and activation, service assurance and a number of Nokia broadband network elements.

• Eftia publicized its role in defining OSS/J's Inventory API and demonstrated Web-enabled order entry and trouble ticket features of its Master.Scribe configurable OSS interconnection gateway, recently integrated with Oracle Corp.'s new Oracle 9i database management suite.

• At the same time, eXcelon Corp. pitched the data exchange functions of its native XML database management system, eXtensible Information Server (XIS).

Unlike past approaches to an 'integration bus' by such middleware players as SeeBeyond Technology Corp., TIBCO Software Inc. and Vitria Technology Inc. "with OSS/J, we're all mapping to a common information model per API that is all in the public domain, so nobody will own this," says Eftia's Dean. He notes that Java and XML pave the way for app-to-app integration and browser-based access to any OSS. "I'd hope we'd start to see general adoption next year, because why reinvent the wheel? We think this has the best shot at getting what everyone wants: applications dynamically talking to one another."

Show Me

Reflecting the blur between best-of-breed and end-to-end camps, two of the best known end-to-end players also publicized their OSS/J involvement.

• Telcordia unveiled its Managed IP Solution for end-to-end management of IP networks and services. It includes inventory, configuration, performance, fault management and enterprise network management components, which tie in with network devices or element management systems, in part through preintegration with Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Micromuse, Nortel Networks and Riverstone products. Telcordia stressed the "single, common, logical data model" underlying its Common Network Topology Database, Network Configuration Manager, Surveillance Manager and other software suites. On April 30, it contracted with Borland Software Corp. for JBuilder Java tools, Java Messaging Service and Visibroker CORBA tools to develop and integrate its models and applications. "You'd like to take an order and have that flow through to devices configured and profiles updated, or have a correlated alarm flow through to a dispatch application, and with object software, we can build pieces of a job, then build these flows of tasks," says Patrick Roche, vice president and general manager of integrated solution engineering for Telcordia. "Carriers want multiple vendor systems to work together through integration busses and/or APIs through CORBA. Having open documented interfaces helps that process."

• Greenwich Technology Partners unveiled the first release of its GTP Express Management Solutions (GEMS), a set of reference OSS frameworks. This one focuses on provisioning, configuration, fault and performance management associated with MPLS-based IP VPN services. This 'best combination' preintegrates OSS products from Aprisma Management Technologies; Concord Commu- nications Inc.; Dorado Sofware Inc., which unveiled its own cross-vendor resource and topology database suite at SUPERCOMM; InfoVista S.A.; Micromuse Inc.; Orchestream, which announced a partnership with Riverstone Networks Inc.; and Peregrine Systems Inc. GTP plans to issue further frameworks this year.

• MetaSolv, another OSS/J member with a breadth of products, demonstrated integration across its flagship inventory and order workflow products along with the service activation and usage mediation applications it recently acquired from Nortel Networks, a charter OSS/J member. "OSS/J is a nice technology we have to look at," says MetaSolv president and COO Curtis Holmes, who notes that despite MetaSolv's current products, it will continue to pursue partnerships with vendors of automatic asset discovery, order capture, service assurance and billing products. "The issue is how you automate all these processes and simplify operations for customers by hiding the complexity. Efforts like OSS/J can open up both best-of-breed and end-to-end from us."

However, Holmes suggests, preintegration is the right approach for the current market. "The customer may buy only one point product today, but he's saying, 'I don't want to keep spending more money to continue integrating eight or 10 more vendors,' as he adds more products down the road."

Common Data

Like MetaSolv, other OSS players on the Atlanta show floor underscored the push for inventory consolidation, arguing that little OSS integration can be achieved in the absence of common, accurate databases of network assets. Indeed, several vendors associated with inventory apps are using that foundation to extend their asset discovery and inventory management offerings to include device configuration and provisioning, service fulfillment and performance assurance.

* Network inventory application provider Cramer Systems Ltd. supports OSS/J and believes "the latest release is now carrier grade," says Cramer CTO Don Gibson. In late May, Cramer won a contract with British Telecom plc to automate service delivery across multiple voice and data infrastructure. Cramer showcased its integration with Siebel Systems Inc.'s eBusiness order management OSS. "We do see a shift from best-of-breed to best combination, preintegrated solutions," Gibson says. "We want, like Siebel, to draw information from multiple resources and present an integrated business level view, to move away from positioning OSS as a technology and toward presenting a business proposition that solves business problems," he says. "BT is now selling 1.5-megabit access, not T1, which comes closer to delivering service, rather than technology."

• Cisco Systems Inc. introduced its own push into OSS/BSS with a new Programmable Network Layer architecture, with key elements including intelligent probes, event collection and analysis and a "ubiquitous communications bus" allowing OSSs to publish and subscribe to data and applications across optical, packet, content delivery, broadband access and mobile network domains, says Kurt Dahm, director of OSS market development. The architecture is designed to deliver to other OSSs a range of services including workflow, security, inventory and topology and event management.

• Ai Metrix Inc., whose NeuralStar OSS Framework wraps around its own suite of autodiscovery and reconciliation, inventory management, provisioning and activation apps, demonstrated new performance assurance apps, including a NetPerformance Doppler View topology console. "Hopefully, what you're seeing at this show is a change in mindset to favoring integrated OSS," says Ai Metrix CEO Richard Hanna. In addition to expanding its own portfolio, Ai Metrix is pursuing integration with "selective partners" in CRM and billing, such as Portal Software Inc., Telution Inc. and Step 9 Software Corp., whose iCustomer OSS integrates customer facing functions like sales and service with back office functions like fulfillment, inventory and billing. "In some cases we'll look at overlapping companies where they can sell our other products," Hanna says. With its XML bridge-based "deep discovery" of infrastructure assets, he adds, Ai Metrix can leverage Vitria's BusinessWare, BEA's WebLogic or Microsoft's BizTalk Server to reconcile asset reality with asset records. Ai Metrix also announced that SDN Commu- nications, a private company held by several independent South Dakota telephone companies, will deploy NeuralStar to help provide advanced voice, data, and video services to affiliated companies over a member-owned, 5,000-mile, multistate, fiber optic network.

• Service Resource Management system provider Granite Systems Inc. introduced a Web Services Toolkit for its Xpercom suite. The toolkit is designed to enable service providers and systems integrators to build targeted Web and custom Java interfaces to meet the business requirements of diverse user groups. Additionally, Granite made a Business Delegate Layer (BDL) API available to Granite development partners and customers. "Our customers need products that will integrate well with other OSSs and easily align with their business processes," says John E. P. Borden Jr., CEO and president of Granite Systems. "With these new capabilities, carriers and systems integrators can easily customize Xng to automatically and efficiently provide the specific functions their systems and people need."

• CoManage Corp. also demonstrated inventory improvement in the form of its TrueSource data integrity applications, including automated upload, cutting the cost of inventory database population; migration validation, enhancing the accuracy of inventory data migration; and evergreen reconciliation, synching the inventory system with the network for ongoing data integrity. "Analysts estimate that 50 percent of assets are unrecognized and stranded in SONET alone, so even five to 10 percent recovery of that has a potential worth of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars," says CoManage CEO David Nelson. "Once the inventory is cleaned up, processes like order entry, provisioning, fault management and customer care operate better."

• Visionael Corp. and Intelliden Corp. announced a marketing alliance in which the companies will offer service providers and enterprises a complete device and inventory management solution. Visionael's carrier-grade, inventory-based network resource management (NRM) solution manages physical and logical network inventory and connectivity between network devices, while Intelliden's products manage the logical configurations and changes within and across the devices.

• And, with an emphasis on solving multi-technology service activation challenges faced by broadband providers, Astracon Inc., provider of service activation solutions for IP and broadband networks, talked up its agreement with Hewlett-Packard Co. to enhance the HP Integrated Service Management (ISM) software and services solution.

"Partnerships make sense, to position for full service offerings, and there's going to be consolidation to the players who can be full service," says PwC managed consulting services' David Tierno. "But there will be no significant market for a proprietary, comprehensive offering that doesn't also have a roadmap and a story to tell about open APIs. At the end of the day, the customer chooses."

PLAIN SMARTS

SMARTS (System Management ARTS Inc.) recorded a net profit over three successive quarters, reporting second quarter best-ever revenue nearly doubled over Q2 2001. SMARTS' service assurance software is designed to manage networks, systems and applications in alignment with the business it supports by applying a common information model across IT and business domains. Its Codebook Correlation technology offers reduced operational costs, improved QoS and faster launch of new services. Customers include AT&T Corp., Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Federal Express, Goldman Sachs and UBS PaineWebber Inc. The company has set new revenue records in each of the past six quarters.

UNITED COLLABORATION

Operations Web services applications provider MetraTech Corp. will combine its MetraNet Web-based billion product with Polycom Inc.'s VoicePlus audio bridge, video and Web conferencing platform to enable service providers to deliver unified voice, video and Web collaboration solutions integrated with Web-based, real-time, multipoint billing. The joint solution will enable delivery and instant billing for any collaboration service including voice conferencing and video conferencing, even within the same conference, providing users with the ability to mix PSTN and IP voice conferencing with IP and ISDN video conferencing.

PARTNERS IN INTEGRATION

Web services developer, integrator and consultant Paros Software has partnered with Web Services vendor Cape Clear Software Inc. to enable telecommunications providers, ISPs, cable companies and wireless providers to integrate new and existing systems and deliver new services faster. Paros Software's Virtual Professional Services and Expert Anywhere offering utilize real-time audio/video/data conferencing, portal capabilities and project tracking and management software to enable close collaboration with customers to place experts virtually on scene, reducing charges to minutes, with no travel expenses. It has developed and integrated applications with communication service providers including SBC Communications Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Covad Communications Co., as well as numerous ISPs. Cape Clear Software enables new business applications to be linked over the Internet from diverse technologies, such as Java, Enterprise Java Beans, Common Object Request Brokering Agent and Microsoft .NET.

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