MMNS 2000 Supporting Service Quality Assurance via Trouble Management Dr Richard Sinnott GMD Fokus Berlin, Germany

Page 2 MMNS 2000 Outline  Deregulation and opening-up of telecommunications market offers means service providers have to be more competitive portfolio of services, add-on services offered cost of access and usage of services offered quality of services offered

Page 3 MMNS 2000 Intentions of FlowThru and Demo  Intention of FlowThru to develop: open solution  international standards (X.790) make maximum use of existing technologies  results of international projects, e.g. Susie, Prospect, P612,... be re-usable  through generic trouble handling components and gateways  Demonstrated through exchange and tracking of trouble tickets between customers and cooperating providers and impacts of troubles on subscribers

Page 4 MMNS 2000 Overview of System to be Demonstrated  TINA (CORBA) based environment (Y.TSP) support subscription, access, usage, charging of TINA services  Web based MusicShop service integrated into Y.TSP allow Musicians/Consumers to up/download Music  Simulated international ATM network to support end-end connectivity requirements of MusicShop service and its customers  Service and connectivity level trouble ticket handling components  Gateways to support interworking of TMN/CMIP-CORBA based management systems

Page 5 MMNS 2000 The Basic Idea of Trouble Tickets  Offer a means to deal with problems that might arise, e.g. software or hardware failures reporting by customers/providers of (potential?) problems tracking status or escalating problems lifecycle of troubles monitored/logged, e.g. when trouble identified, found, when cleared/resolved, by whom,... basis for determining impacts of troubles, e.g. discounts to be given once problem resolved  Problems might not be absolute failure, e.g. decreased performance than what “expected” requires expectations of service are known and agreed upon! achieved through service level agreement (SLA)

Page 6 MMNS 2000 Service Level Agreemeents  Agreed upon between subscribers and providers  Kept as properties of service and user subscription profiles kept in TINA subscription components  For demo consider small set of SLA properties maximum time to repair service minimum time between failures service availability over some period  Violations of agreements result in discounts being given for service/connectivity usage Ranges of discounts given, e.g. the longer the problem exists, the more discount is given

Page 7 MMNS 2000 Service GUIs Service GUIs Architecture of TINA Environment IDS Service TTR Service MS Service Consumer Subscription Accounting Retailer Service GUIs access session service session access components access components

Page 8 MMNS 2000 State Diagram for a Trouble Ticket

Page 9 MMNS 2000 Structure of MusicShop Service  Web based music storage service integrated into Y.TSP  registered with SLAs in TINA subscription  interworks with TINA accounting for normal service charges  Implemented upon Oracle database technology Oracle Application Server, Java/CORBA Cartridge  Implements fault management system based on subset of TMF SMART Customer-Service Provider Trouble Ticketing Interface (more later)  Implements proxy for receiving failure notifications from ATM connectivity

Page 10 MMNS 2000 Structure of TTRS Service  Generic TINA trouble ticket handling component integrated into Y.TSP interworks with TINA subscription and accounting user sessions with TTRS automatically started when user starts access session services with trouble reporting/reception capabilities  Implemented using Remedy Action Request System (ARS) generic help desk solution used for management of service trouble tickets CORBA wrapper for ARS based on TMF SMART Group CORBA Customer-Service Provider Trouble Administration

Page 11 MMNS 2000 TMF SMART Group CORBA Customer-Service Provider Trouble Administration Specification Customer Service Provider CORBA TTRCreate TTRCancel TTRModify TTRStatusTrack TTRVerify TTRView CTT_Cust TTRCancelNotify TTRCloseOutNotify TTRCreationNotify TTRDeletionNotify TTRModificationNotify TTRStatusUpdateNotify TTR_Notify PTRCancelNotify PTRCreationNotify TTRModificationNotify PTR_Notify TTRCreate TTRCancel TTRModify TTRStatusTrack TTRVerify TTRView CTT_Cust TTRCancelNotify TTRCloseOutNotify TTRCreationNotify TTRDeletionNotify TTRModificationNotify TTRStatusUpdateNotify TTR_Notify PTRCancelNotify PTRCreationNotify TTRModificationNotify PTR_Notify serverclient

Page 12 MMNS 2000 Example of SMART IDL enum CustCreateType { CCALocationAccessAddress,CCALocationAccessHours, CCALocationAccessperson,CCAlternateManagerContactPerson, CCAuthorizationList,CCCommitmentTimeRequest, CCEscalationList, CCCustomerRoleAssignment,CCCustomerWorkCenter,CCTspPriority, CCCustTroubleTickNum,CCPerceivedTroubleSeverity,CCSuspectObjectList, CCTroubleDetectionTime,CCTroubleObjectAccessFromTime, CCTroubleObjectAccessHours,CCTroubleObjectAccessToTime}; struct CustCreateStruct{CustCreateType ccType; any ccValue;}; typedef sequence CustCreateList; void TTRCreate( in TTRType::AdditionalTroubleInfoList addTroubleInfoList, //strings in TTRType::TroubleObject troubleObject, //managed object in trouble(string) in TTRType::TroubleType troubleType, //reported trouble category (long) in TTRType::CustCreateList custCreateList, //attributes out string tRID, // trouble identifier out TTRType::CustCreateOutList custCreateOutList) //attributes raises (CreateFailed);

Page 13 MMNS 2000 Introduction to Demo Scenarios  Assumptions (realised by other part of FlowThru) Platform started and components available  user/initial agents, subscription, accounting, trouble ticket handling component MusicShop and ATM service successfully registered in subscription Users have subscribed to MusicShop running over ATM service over particular virtual path Appropriate SLAs have been set for subscribers of MusicShop running over ATM service over particular virtual path ATM service configured with topology given previously

Page 14 MMNS 2000 User Contacts Provider and Starts MusicShop ConsumerService Provider Restricted access log in ok MusicShop TTRS joined automatically log in to service provider list subscribed servicesstart MusicShop service Net scape search music download music

Page 15 MMNS 2000 Service Provider Identified Trouble with Automatic Problem Resolution, Verification and Discounting ConsumerService Provider MusicShop Net scape MusicShop notified MusicShop has problem who subscribes who has an active session note time trouble reported notify users of TT creation notify users that TT opened and being repaired notify users trouble repaired and needs verify user verifies that service now works correctly create trouble tickets (queued) notify users that trouble ticket closed trouble tickets (opened) notified service repaired, needs verification note time trouble repaired check whether SLAs violated send discounts to accounting

Page 16 MMNS 2000 Customer Identified Problem with MusicShop with Verification Required and Discounting Incurred ConsumerService Provider MusicShop Net scape MusicShop subscriber? others? who has an active session note time trouble reported create trouble tickets (queued) notify MusicShop fault manager trouble tickets (opened) download musicuser reports problem (create TT) notified problem found, being repaired notified problem resolved, needs verify notify users that TT creatednotify users that TT opened notify users trouble found repair started notify users trouble repaired and needs verify user verifies that service now works correctly notify users that trouble ticket closed trouble tickets cleared note time trouble repaired trouble ticket closed check whether SLAs violated send discounts to accounting

Page 17 MMNS 2000 Remote Connectivity Provider Identified Trouble with No Verification and Discounting ConsumerService Provider Net scape notify users TT created notify users trouble found repair started notify users trouble repaired, verify not needed Trouble Ticketing System Fault Mgt System X.790 Cust NEM NMS NEM Trouble Ticketing System Fault Mgt System X.790 NEM NMS NEM MS problem monitored fault management system informed TT created (queued) X.COOP GW TT created (queued) affects? inform remote TT system TT (opened) trouble ticket created (queued) affects? inform service provider trouble ticketing system TT (opened) trouble ticket created (queued) subscribers?active sessions? trouble tickets created (queued) trouble found, repair started inform TT system TT status update inform remote TT system update status TT inform service TT system change status TTs trouble repaired no verify needed inform TT system TT cleared TT cleared inform remote TT system TT cleared inform service TT system inform local TT system TT opened TTs cleared

Page 18 MMNS 2000 Conclusions  TINA based service provisioning environment  Open trouble ticket exchange between autonomous organisational domains via TMN (CMIP) and TMF (Corba) Standards  Seamless problem administration across CORBA and CMIP management systems (TMN/Corba Gateway)  Flexible integration between service delivery and service and network management systems  Integration with well established in-house problem handling system (Remedy ARS)  SLA Handling & Discounting