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once was to develop and deploy a much more efficient, flexible, scalable and easy-to-integrate OSS to

replace the previously fragmented processes, systems and data repositories. Furthermore, China Mobile

intended that in the process this would dramatically improve the operator’s digital service capabilities

and boost customer satisfaction. A key part of the OSS transformation was the construction of an end-

to-end resource management and service provisioning system. This has resulted in capital and operating

expenditure of thousands of millions of Chinese Yuan and slashed some service delivery times.

Over the years, China Mobile has been evolving from a giant mobile operator, with the world’s largest mobile network and most numerous customer base, into a major, full service player. To facilitate its transition from a provider of voice and text services to offering converged, voice, broadband data, and value-added applications, the group needed to overhaul and streamline its OSS/BSS capabilities.

This meant replacing multiple, fragmented support systems with an integrated multi-network management system, which provided comprehensive support for an advanced converged network and new services made up of multiple components. Or as Dr. Liu Aili, VP, China Mobile, put it: “[The] network should be visible, controllable, analyzable, traceable”.

At the time the decision was made to go ahead with the OSS transformation, there were a large number of ‘unknowns’ concerning the relationship between customers, products and resources. Nor was it possible to carry out impact analyses across different domains. All of these factors had serious impacts on China Mobile’s business, in particular preventing the rapid production and commercialization of new, converged services.

Its infrastructure comprised something like 50,000 core network equipment elements and 900,000 base stations of various types provided by about 100 different vendors. It was

also struggling to figure out the root cause and impact on customers and its business of the 14.37 million fault alarms it had to handle every day.

In operation, cross-domain network resource allocation could not be realized and customers’ quality of service could not be guaranteed. As a consequence, the service capabilities and customer experience were difficult to manage effectively. At the same time, it was becoming too difficult, costly and time- consuming to manage resources in the established stage.

In short, China Mobile wanted to achieve five aims through its ‘CM-OSS’ implementation:

n establish and manage complex relationships between resources;

n establish the association between different network elements (such as the air interface and the base station controller, return circuits, through the transmission network to the outside plant);

n have a clear line of view from the customer to the resources involved in providing a particular service, such as a leased line for an enterprise customer;

n have this information (in bullet point immediately above) available in pre-sales stages; and

n be able to locate problems rapidly and carry out an impact

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analysis to decide on the best plan of action – whether that’s contacting the customer to warn of a problem and advise them how quickly it will be fixed or alternative routing, which customers aren’t aware of or need to be involved in.

This was a hugely ambitious goal given China Mobile’s starting point and the scale, scope and complexity of the situation – potentially being able to look at every point involved in any given issue, from the nearest manhole cover to a port on a device.

Managing resources

A particular challenge was presented by inventory and resource management. Resource management systems were segmented by network domains, contained in separate management systems, and could not provide an overall end-to- end view. This meant that the group was unable to assure the accuracy, completeness and consistency of data. The diverse and complicated resources were becoming ever more difficult to manage as networks and types of network expanded, along with a sharp increase in the number of new services on offer, including enterprise and residential customer services.

Some idea of the scale and scope of the problem can be gleaned from the fact that just one branch of China Mobile had a system which stored 140 million resource entries, and more than 10,000 orders for enterprise customers’ services.

The group needed a platform where it could see layers of customers’ topologies, and from which service and resource layouts could be generated for all resources across multiple domains. These multi-layered views were designed to support business operational processes such as customer self-service, product and offer design, resource survey, and customer impact analysis. All of them underpin more efficient service delivery and greater customer satisfaction.

End-to-end visibility

Accordingly, China Mobile embarked on its ‘CM-OSS’ project. This included a focus on the construction of an Integrated Network Resource Management (INRM) system, oriented towards full-service operation and lifecycle management. It was developed in collaboration with esri.

The view of resources it provides combined inside and outside plant for the first time, so that a complete data model could be compiled showing a consistent, end-to-end view. The model has a three-layer (customer, service and network) structure, correlating resources across multiple domains and combining logical network layer data with physical bearer layer data (optical cable, channel, and so on). This can overcome problems such as separate cross-domain resources, difficulties in end-to-end resource presentation, invisible resources and a lack of effective processes.

The system is designed to be highly flexible and scalable. It uses a hierarchical model, which includes layers concerning

data management, service, application and access. The interfaces of each layer are standardized and extendable. ‘Link’ and ‘element’ concepts are used to provide a unified, abstract representation for processing by a generic topology engine. Based on a network view (comprising an access layer, collection layer and core layer) combined with round and tree layout management, the resource topologies can be generated to accommodate network changes, and enable bi-directional navigation between customer, service and network views.

TM Forum in the frame

The development and implementation of China Mobile’s new system made use of TM Forum’s Information (SID), Business Process (eTOM) and Application (TAM) Frameworks in a number of areas. They are all elements of the Forum’s Frameworx suite of standards-based tools and best practices.

The group created its own business framework using the Forum’s Business Process Framework as a reference. By mapping the old processes with Business Process Framework’s Level 3 processes, broken processes and missing steps were identified and many more processes were optimized.

The new, standardized process flow is more comprehensive, efficient, clear and effective with optimized operational rules and requirements. It is also easier to execute and assess, and enables the efficient transfer of information and knowledge- sharing between team members.

In particular, the system relies heavily on the reference located in the Operations Support & Readiness (OSR) part of the Business Process Framework, which involves customer relationship management, service and resource domains. It can determine the correlation between customer, service and resources through a provisioning flow. It supports resource change management processes, and maintains details of the full relationship between resources throughout their lifecycle management.

The project gained from using the Business Process Framework by shortening system requirements analysis and gap analysis cycles (from the previous three months down to two months, a reduction of 30 percent).

China Mobile designed the overall resource model by making full use of the Forum’s Information Framework’s advantage, including its uniformity, stability and extensibility. To build an end-to-end, customer-focused system, China Mobile generated a consolidated China Mobile Operations Support System (CM- OSS) Information Model using the Information Framework.

The Information Framework is abstracted from a higher level compared with other models for specific networks so it meets management requirements for the converged network. This means it could be used for full-domain alarm correlation and root-cause analysis. For example, China Mobile provides more than 600,000 leased lines to customers for voice, data and transmission. By acquiring information from enterprise

Sharing experience through a ‘Catalytic converter’

Drawing on its real-life experience, China Mobile initiated the Catalyst project, Converging the resource view to improve service capabilities.

TM Forum Catalysts are short-term, collaborative projects which strive to create solutions for critical industry operational and systems challenges, as defined by different types of service providers, MSOs, defense agencies, enterprise IT departments and others. The projects last between three and six months and their culmination is a live demonstration at one of TM Forum’s Management World events. They are based on the Forum’s standards-based tools and best practices and typically feed their work back into the Forum’s Collaboration Community to extend and enhance those tools and best practices for the good of all TM Forum’s members.

This particular Catalyst project demonstrated how to construct and apply end-to-end customer-resource views for converged networks, to improve service capability and customer satisfaction, which is essential for transformation from a single mobile network to a converged network.

Different layers of customer topology views, service topology views and resource views were generated for all resources across multiple domains, and utilized in business operational processes, such as customer self-service, product/offer design, resource survey, customer impact analysis; all of which help support improved service efficiency and customer satisfaction.

China Mobile Communications championed this Catalyst, supported by Alcatel-Lucent, ZTEsoft Corporation, Beijing BOCO Inter-Telecom Technology Co., Ltd., Inspur Communication Information Systems Co., Ltd, Huawei Technologies Ltd, Ericsson, ZTE Corporation and Beijing University of Posts and Communications.

customers, services, and performance and alarm data from network equipment, China Mobile was able to establish the relationships between customer-product-service-resource for enterprise customers, based on the Information Framework.

The model allows convergence of the original and separate domain models into a unified end-to-end system model, including outside plant resources to construct a full domain network resource model. It correlates inside and outside plant, and solves such problems as resource separation across different types of networks.

The OSS application’s structure is based on the Application Framework, so that integration between processes, data and applications can be achieved progressively, accommodating the integration of legacy applications with new systems. The development and implementation cycle of the system was also shortened by using the Application Framework’s specification to form standard service-oriented architecture-based interfaces with other systems (for example, the joint interface debugging and the other integration processes). This reduced the risk of delay during the construction period.

The new system is component-based, multi-layered and independent of any technological platform. New types of equipment and alarms can be integrated into the system quickly, with less coding and lower costs associated with change. For example, it used to take one month to integrate new equipment in the old network management system, but that’s now down to two weeks.

The entire project used Frameworx as the common language for business requirement analysis and documentation, which also reduced the communication cost and time by 10 to

20 percent, and this also influenced China Mobile’s choice of suppliers. The service provider preferred those whose products and solutions have received Frameworx Conformance Certification from TM Forum – or who stated that they are committed to gaining the Certification. In addition, China Mobile is pushing other vendors to do so.

This is because choosing products and solutions that have been certified as Frameworx Conformant shortens and simplifies the procurement process: China Mobile says using TM Forum Frameworx as a common language and for technical negotiations with the OSS vendors shortened the negotiation cycle about 10 percent.

Those who have products and solutions certified by TM Forum already and were involved in China Mobile’s ambitious project include Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks and Oracle. Please see page 55 for more information about Frameworx Conformance and Certification.

With the help of Frameworx, the INRM system has been now implemented in the 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and directly administered municipalities throughout mainland China that are home to the group’s 698 million-plus customers. The project was completed on schedule, and covers full-technology resource management on wireless, transmission, IP bearer, passive optical and IP Multi-media Subsystem (IMS-based) networks, etc.

In all, thousands of network elements and over one million pieces of equipment are included to support the key

processes of resource management, such as network change, customer service provisioning, and resource survey. A number of other highly efficient integrations were also implemented

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TM Forum’s Frameworx suite of standard-based tools and best practices (see page 6) is already widely recognized as the standard for business processes, information and applications, and rapid integration.

Frameworx Conformance Certification Assessments enable service providers and suppliers to verify an implementation, product, or solution’s conformance to Frameworx Business Process and Information Frameworks’ models and improve the overall efficiency of an organization’s procurement processes.

Frameworx Implementation Conformance

The Frameworx Implementation Conformance Assessment provides verification of a service provider's internal business processes and enterprise data model enabling you to validate and improve the efficiency of your organization, comparing adherence to the proven Frameworx Business Process and Information standards, on a sliding scale.

Implementations which meet the rigorous certification standards are awarded the TM Forum Frameworx Implementation Conformance Mark.

Combined with TM Forum Benchmarking (see pages 6 and 29), Implementation Conformance Assessments provide a clear assessment of how your enterprise-wide operations compare to industry leaders, and where to direct transformation investment for maximum effect.

Frameworx Product and Solution Conformance

By demanding Frameworx-conformant products and solutions you can reduce implementation cost, time and risk.

Product Conformance Assessments provide an independent verification of a supplier's product conformance to Frameworx. Each assessment verifies adherence to the Frameworx Business Process and Information models, providing an easy way to assess a product's conformance. Since service providers can procure discrete products and/or pre-integrated off-the-shelf solutions, the TM Forum also offers Solution Conformance Assessments that assess a solution suite's conformance to Frameworx.

Procurement (RFx) Training and Support

To help simplify the process of procuring Frameworx- conformant products and solutions, TM Forum provides RFx templates and training for your procurement staff, helping you request and check Frameworx conformance quickly and simply.

In addition, TM Forum offers a broad range of support and expert advice for service providers striving for Frameworx conformance.

The business impact of standards-based conformance to realize end-to-end service provisioning and assurance

process flows.

Huge business benefits

The standards-based tools and best practices that helped design and build the INRM are helping deliver some massive benefits to China Mobile’s business. They include:

n the accuracy of network resource data has increased from 70 percent to 90 percent, and the completeness of on-site circuit information has increased to 98 percent;

n there has been a saving of thousands of millions of Chinese Yuan; n service provisioning is much faster. The efficiency of

dedicated line service fulfillment has increased four times, which greatly improves customer satisfaction;

n service response times are better, down from hours to minutes, again improving customers’ experience; n time to market for new services has been reduced; n dramatic reduction in fault processing time due to the

creation of a single view of alarms. The drill-down analysis improved the efficiency of fault handling and processing customers’ complaints. The active fault detection rate was increased from 32 percent to 82 percent and customer satisfaction for fault restoration was increased;

n the number of manual trouble tickets was reduced by 46 percent, while incorrect trouble tickets have been reduced from 17 percent to 3 percent and the average fault processing time is reduced by 42 percent, from 23.4 hours to 13.6 hours.

Building on its huge success so far, China Mobile is planning further research on a number of other aspects, such as full- domain alarm correlation to improve the efficiency and accuracy of root cause analysis as well as the standardization of the converged network alarm interface.

The multi-domain alarm correlation mainly focused on the radio network in the first phase and in the next, it will cover correlations between core network and transmission network, between data and transmission network and between data and core network.

In addition, the operator will move to a performance alarm model to identify the potential faults or problems proactively and look to introduce a higher level of automatic fault

restoration using routine inspecting and intelligent processing, which will greatly reduce labor costs.

China Mobile is keen to progress to end-to-end service monitoring for individual customers. The plan is that by

integrating and monitoring all the information collected from the service platform, network and terminal, customers’ problems will be quickly revolved.

Finally, but not least, China Mobile intends to continue sharing its experiences with TM Forum and contributing to the development of TM Forum standards and best practices (see ‘Catalytic converter’ panel on page 54).

Process-oriented governance delivers better