SUSAN WHITE NETCRACKER Q&A
Does Netcracker offer BSS for the retail side?
open APIs, in particular TM Forum APIs, have helped accelerate the integration needed across the ecosystem. So if a company is bringing in other players, it can integrate them much faster with this IT environment. Another key aspect of our solution is providing a real time view of what’s going on in the network. Most fibre operators have multiple inventory systems for the physical network, virtual and logical resources, which don’t communicate with each other. Whilst they know some things that are going on in one part of the network, it’s a manual process to correlate the two different environments. If you’re operating a small network, you can get away with it, but when you want to scale, it’s impossible. Having that multi-layer view that’s down to the fibre splices, the cable ducts, through to resources and services running on top, means everything can be brought together and shown in a way that makes sense. It also means being able to identify problems in the network and manage capacity more efficiently. And this takes me to the most important part which is end-to-end automation. Our solution helps to automate every process from planning and design of the outside plant and data centres through to turning customers into real orders, on-boarding and provisioning them, receiving payments and making sure there are no problems in the network. This degree of automation brings considerable operational efficiency and agility to the fibre business.
systems require considerable customisation, all of which increases costs and slows down the build. It’s therefore critical to transition to a lean and open IT layer. Netcracker provides this in a Fiber Cloud IT solution that is only focused on the specific needs of this business. It includes infrastructure management, resource management, service orchestration and a wholesale BSS offering and automates all processes across the fibre business. Out of the box functionality is also critical, and this is an important aspect of our solution that eliminates customisations. Previously, systems were customised for whatever project was needed; indeed, that was the nature of the game. Every customer had a different set of requirements and business processes, but that’s all changed. Everything today is out-of- the-box functionality with minimal or no customisations. Netcracker’s decades of expertise is essential here, enabling us to bring an extensive library of devices, models, integration adapters, as well as out-of-the-box automation processes. This helps to significantly speed up the fibre builds as the infrastructure will likely come from multiple vendors. Another factor is the ability to start small. To reduce upfront costs, we deliver to our customers a Minimum Viable Product, to get them moving quickly. While the capabilities provided on day one don’t provide everything they’ll need in five years’ time, through Cloud and DevOps, working in sprints and constant upgrades, we get them to where they need to be as the business grows.
OC
Yes, some of the companies we work with are not purely wholesale, they are doing retail as well. In those
SW
cases, the BSS will be more extensive because the company is also focused on the ISPs and partners that will be coming on to their network. Netcracker has a full cloud BSS suite to support these customers.
What about companies with legacy OSS/BSS?
OC
One thing that’s clear is when you look at the landscape, there are a mix of customers that are coming
SW
in. Some of them are going to be greenfield and even if they’re FibreCos that have been spun off from the main telco company, they may have to start from scratch if they are legally separated. However, sometimes they bring over the legacy OSS they’ve had from the integrated telco, or they may be an existing wholesale business with legacy IT and need to transform to stay competitive with new players. Regardless of the type of company, they must evolve to the new lean IT environment, otherwise they will be at a competitive disadvantage. Netcracker has been helping telcos transform to a modern, cloud native OSS/ BSS environment for many years and this experience is embedded into our Fiber Cloud solution. The combination of modern cloud technology with out of the box automation processes and integration experiences means we can help fibre operators scale their business faster and ultimately increase market share.
How important is the cloud to OSS/BSS evolution?
OC
SW The cloud is about being agile and is one of the most fundamental changes that’s happened to OSS/BSS over the last few years. We have evolved our whole portfolio to be completely cloud native and fully decomposable, which is a significant change. The move to cloud native IT happened at a faster pace than on the network side. The solution we have built is based on microservices and can be hosted on any cloud platform, meaning we can take full advantage of cloud operations. The solution can scale easily and upgrades can be performed with zero downtime, rather than a lengthy overnight process. Fibre operators can also put our IT solution on a hyperscale platform such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud and use DevOps to perform upgrades faster and evolve quickly over time. The use of
Susan White, Head of Strategy and Portfolio Marketing, Netcracker
15
www.opticalconnectionsnews.com
INDUSTRY FOCUS 2022/2023
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software