APPLICATION NOTE. Business VPN Service Management and Assurance

Transcription

1 APPLICATION NOTE Business VPN Service Management and Assurance

2 Abstract Achieving operational excellence is the goal of every service provider deploying business virtual private network (VPN) services. This is a complex interaction that involves getting to market with the right business VPN service offerings and satisfying customers while keeping costs down. Good management of the network plays a significant part in achieving this goal. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) plays an important part in helping service providers to achieve operational excellence with their business VPN services. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provides operational benefits from the time the tin is in the ground through the full life cycle of the service, including commissioning, provisioning, assurance and mediation. Operational benefits, including reduction in provisioning cost, rapid troubleshooting and reduced OSS integration time result in significant OX savings, reported to be in the order of 50% for a new service product launch [1]

3 Table of contents 1 1. Operationalizing business VPN services 3 2. Fast and accurate business VPN service provisioning 6 3. Business VPN service assurance dealing with the inevitable 9 4. Commissioning the IP/MPLS core for business VPN services Reducing OSS/BSS integration times for business VPN services Enabling customer self-service portals for business VPN services Conclusion Abbreviations References

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5 1. Operationalizing business VPN services Bringing new business virtual private network (VPN) services on stream with short lead times, operationalizing them effectively, and deploying them with low drop-out rates, all while keeping sufficient control on OX, can be a significant challenge for service providers. In addition, service providers moving from SONET/SDH or ATM networks into an IP/MPLS-based network often face a variety of challenges associated with the transition. IP/MPLS networks based on the Alcatel-Lucent Service Router platforms offer rich capabilities, but these can be perceived to present complexity to the operations staff who have years of experience with earlier technologies. A service aware management system helps to integrate and unify the operations of these stages so that a smooth, error-free workflow can evolve. Business VPN services are mission-critical to the enterprises they serve and this makes service reliability a key concern for the service provider who must usually enter into service level agreements (SLAs) that make it very expensive when things go wrong. In addition the business VPN services are often global in nature with metro, national and global reach, and can be very large, making scalability an important concern for the service provider. Figure 1. Service aware network management with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) Traffic engineering Fault and RCA Provisioning Activation Performance SLA reports Mediation and billing OSS systems High reliability Advanced assurance OX Ease, accuracy of provisioning Integration cost Single integration point to OSS Service-aware management Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM Composite Layer 2 and Layer 3 Business VPN Access service Core network service Metro network service Access service FR UNI Frame relay IP VPN VPLS VPLS Ethernet ATM UNI ATM TDM IP VPN VPLS IP/MPLS service edge IP VPN VPLS IP VPN VPLS VPLS IP/MPLS metro VPLS Ethernet MTU switch Ethernet UNI Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 1

6 Some of the key difficulties that service providers face are summarized below. How the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM 1 can help in reducing these challenges is covered in this application note and summarized in the concluding section. Operational challenges facing service providers moving to IP/MPLS-based business VPN services include: Service provisioning The rich capabilities on the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR) and the Alcatel-Lucent 7710 SR mean new and unfamiliar provisioning demands on operational staff. Service assurance Troubleshooting Layer 2 and Layer 3 business VPN services based on an IP/MPLS core is complex. IP/MPLS core The full mesh requirement of tunnels for MPLS requires ongoing maintenance work in the core as it grows and many opportunities for error. Operations support system/business support system (OSS/BSS) integration Integrating a new manager into the existing OSS/BSS and operational methods is expensive. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is an integrated element, network and service manager all in one platform, which is designed to enable quick and error-free workflows for all the management stages required for best-in-breed business VPN service delivery. This provides the service provider with a low drop-out rate, which saves time, reduces costs, and improves customer satisfaction. Ease of service management is achieved in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM by sophisticated service modeling that is not found in other element management system (EMS) or network management system (NMS) software. Because the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is service aware, managing services is significantly better than in any manager that is not service aware. For example, Layer 2 and Layer 3 services are modeled in an integrated way so that the workflow is common and differs only where needed. There is no need to have separate management systems for each type of service. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a network-wide view of all network and service objects and the linkages between them. Layers 1, 2 and 3 and their relationships are all modeled. Hence the effect of changes or problems in any one level on the other levels is immediately apparent to the operator. The Alcatel- Lucent 5620 SAM displays the effects in real time with alarms, statuses, icon color changes, topology maps and more. This holistic network modeling allows the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM to automate certain functions that significantly simplify the workload on the operations staff. Business VPN services are often a combination of different service components, one component serving the access, another the network aggregation edge, and another the core. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM uses its composite service feature to allow the service provider to stitch all the components together into a single entity (the composite service). For example, this allows operators to identify when problems on one part of a service affect another. It also offers an overall live, real-time service topology view where the operator can see the end-to-end service and any changes in real time. Some of the specific operational activities where a well-designed management system such as the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM makes workflows easier are: New equipment commissioning Tying new equipment into the IP/MPLS infrastructure Configuring policies and access control lists associated with service offerings Provisioning new services Assuring services and network infrastructure Accounting and reporting on service performance for SLA management Integrating with existing OSS/BSS systems 1 The capabilities mentioned in this application note combine features from the integrated 5620 SAM and 5650 CPAM. For simplicity this is referred to as 5620 SAM throughout. The 5650 CPAM features cover advanced Layer 3 service assurance. 2 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

7 Figure 2. The service management operational life cycle Offline preparation Hardward pre-configuration Boot software load Device pre-configuration Device repair Device received Diagnosis and repair Network troubleshooting fault diagnosis fault isolation fault resolution Network/service restoration Fail Device commissioning Hardware configuration Sofware boot/download IP address configuration Credentials assignment Device registration Mediation/polling configuration VPN service deployment Service template creation Service provisioning Service assurance Service accounting/reporting Service faulty Pass IP/MPLS infrastructure available Device operational (under supervision) Network commissioning Device inventory discovery Interface role/policy configuration Physical link configuration L2/L3 topology construction Network resource publication Network supervision A significant pain point for service providers is the integration time of their OSS/BSS systems. This can be the key determining factor in rolling out a new service. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM can help by becoming the single point of integration through its very deep and broad open interface, as well as the OSS Connected Partner program that provides pre-integration with leaders in the independent software vendor (ISV) space. Today, most enterprises are insisting on having some level of self-service capability for their business VPN, so the ability to provide this is becoming a table stakes offering. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is a key building block in this offering, providing a web-enabled XML/SOAP interface to feed valuable information to the customer portals and to enable self-service operations from the portal. 2. Fast and accurate business VPN service provisioning Service provisioning is key to a service provider s business. Layer 2 and Layer 3 business VPN services need to be provisioned quickly and easily by the operations group, which might even be located in an off-shore operations center. The act of provisioning needs to be very simple and easily validated, no matter how complex the underlying service is. To achieve this, information needs to be hidden and workflow customization must be supported. This ensures that the operator is presented with a minimal number of attributes to complete on a provisioning form, which helps to streamline the process and ensure adherence to company procedures. All forms in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM have a common look and feel to make them more intuitive and easier for operators to use. Provisioning of Layer 2 and Layer 3 services is implemented using a common infrastructure so there is a common workflow for both types of service offering, making it easier for a single operations department to handle both types of service. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM also offers a state-of-the-art solution with its second-generation service templates. From the Forrester report [1]: One interviewed customer said that provisioning that had previously taken approximately 15 minutes could now be done in a minute or less. Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 3

8 The service templates only need to be created once by the engineering team, in consultation with product marketing, to meet specific customer needs. This means that less technical supporting operators can easily off-load IP/MPLS engineering experts because they can use the service template. Creation of the service template involves determining the quality of service (QoS) requirements, forwarding class, statistics collection and other settings for different types of services. All the options for these settings are encapsulated in a service template. The service template hides all the complexity and at a minimum requires the operator to enter only two endpoints (for E-Line) or a site or a number of sites for E-LAN. This may be an extreme case and service providers will tailor their templates to their needs. In the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, the service template allows the service provider to customize the workflow so that the presentation to the provisioning operator matches existing or newly designed workflows. Service attributes are either available to the operator to set, hidden, or they are visible but cannot be modified. If they can be set by an operator, they are either mandatory or optional. The format of the data entry can be made to conform to a specific pattern. Access by an operator to the provisioning forms is controlled by pre-defined network spans in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM so that specific operators can only perform functions on specific network elements, in accordance with their allotted rights and privileges. The technically skilled work of creating the service templates and usage rights is done once by the planning and engineering department. The repetitive act of creating services can then be performed quickly, safely and accurately by operators that do not need a deep knowledge of IP/MPLS-based Layer 2 and Layer 3 services. While the ability to provision services via SAM-O alone was sufficient to make a positive business case, another driver for implementing the 5620 SAM was to improve network visibility and thus increase service quality. We leverage the 5620 SAM s comprehensive service mediation capability to automate service provisioning originating in our OSS service provisioning system and to provide real-time service quality feedback to our OSS fault management system. The 5620 SAM s proactive interoperability certification with market-leading OSS provisioning applications reduces the cost and time, not to mention the risk, of deploying new services on Alcatel-Lucent s Service Routing portfolio. We expect to achieve our target savings once the 5620 SAM is operationalized to its full extent. David Eldh, TeliaSonera Sweden Products and Production, Network Development, IP Core and Metro, quoted in Forrester [1] 4 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

9 Figure 3. An example of an Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provisioning template Handing over a business VPN service that is not fully functional to a customer is costly in terms of repair dollars and customer satisfaction. Thus, having made it really easy for an operator to deploy a business VPN service, it is important to ensure that the operator s work is backed up with adequate information about the success of the deployment and the health of the service. When an operator creates a business VPN service in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM such as a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), Virtual Leased Line (VLL), or virtual private routed network (VPRN), the 5620 SAM pushes all the configurations to the network elements (using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)) and monitors their acceptance by the network elements. This process is plainly visible to the operator in the live view service topology map where the colors and icons reflect the real time status of the service in creation. Failure of any part of the service to deploy is immediately obvious in the topology map and alarms are raised in the dynamic alarm window. If the service components all deploy and are operationally up, they will be indicated on the service map as green (no issues). The prudent service provider would like at least one more assurance that the service is really working before handing it over to the customer. The service should be seen to carry traffic and meet certain service performance criteria, such as round trip delay, jitter and loss. The Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers provide an array of powerful operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) tests that can be run to measure these parameters on any service. Instantiating them with every service provisioning would be time consuming. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM integrates this power into a single button: Validate. Figure 4. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM Validate button Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 5

10 When operators see the service is green, they push the Validate button. This deploys and runs an array of OAM tests on the service to verify the passage of traffic and to measure the service performance parameters. Any failure to meet the defined quality standard is immediately flagged by an alarm and shown in the service status. The path of the service can also be traced during the validation of the service. OAM packets are captured by the real time statistics counters and provide an additional validation that the service is passing data correctly. Once the validation is complete, the operator switches the service from the provisioning state into the In-Service state. This means that alarms from the service will now be visible on the main alarm window. Alarms from services that are in the process of being provisioned are treated like maintenance alarms and shown in a separate window. This is the recommended setup, but the alarm display can be modified to suite other operational models as well. In summary, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has hidden the complexity of creating and validating services and rendered them into a simple form with a few simple actions. Behind the scenes, a lot of rich configuration takes place, OAM tests are run, results analyzed, statistics collected and displays updated. Yet to the operator, the process is simple and intuitive. This makes for a high throughput of provisioned services with a low error rate the right mix for operational excellence. The experiences of Portugal Telecom provide an interesting perspective: We usually do not invest in IP management software offered by equipment vendors, as there is generally little additional value over and above what the node management interface can offer. However, the business case for introducing the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM was positive, even if we only considered service provisioning and OSS integration. It was the most cost-effective and the shortest time-to-market solution that helped us meet our cost and timeline targets when introducing a new service type. On the upside, it also provided a comprehensive monitoring solution that enabled us to proactively test network and service performance so that we can consistently deliver high service availability to our customers. This 5620 SAM has really met our need for a carrier-class IP management solution. Jose Palma, PT Prime, Engineering Department, quoted in Forrester [1] 3. Business VPN service assurance dealing with the inevitable In a well-engineered IP/MPLS network, business VPN services should achieve a very high standard of reliability. However in any network, the inevitable always happens and a service can go down or, equally serious, operate at below the agreed service levels. IP/MPLS-based business VPN services are sometimes perceived to be difficult to assure. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM delivers very powerful troubleshooting capabilities to the service provider to keep those valuable business VPN services running with as little down time as possible. At the same time, the troubleshooting needs to be accessible to first line staff as well as highly skilled engineering staff. 6 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

11 To really understand the extent of the capabilities that the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provides, it will be helpful to consider a common scenario. This example begins with a link being cut, which takes out a number of services. A well-engineered IP/MPLS network will immediately respond by working around the disruption and in doing so, will generate a lot of alarm information. The operator needs to identify what has happened, identify who is affected, make sure the services are operational on backup paths, locate and isolate the source of the problem, and get it fixed. Troubleshooting this using a command line interface (CLI) is very time consuming. Since multiple devices will be recording many alarms and events at physical, routing and service layers, operators using only CLI must start to perform a linear search through the most likely devices looking for what has happened. When the operators eventually find two logically or physically adjacent ports indicating a link failure, they need to tie this physical inventory to the services and customers that are affected. They then need to verify that the backup design has operated as intended and that the traffic is flowing on the alternative paths. This is not a scalable solution and works at best only in smaller networks with very highly skilled operators. In the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, the troubleshooting operations are very simple. First, since the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has an integrated view of the whole network and the relationships between all objects, it can immediately correlate all the alarms coming from the devices and present only the key alarms to the operator. In other words, it hides the alarms (although they are still available if needed) that are simply the consequence of another event that is more fundamental. For example, when the link is broken, the attached physical equipment generates alarms, but so do all the logical entities that rely on the physical equipment, such as service access points, tunnels and protocols. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM understands the relationship between these and will report only the two adjacent port alarms, hiding in some cases thousands of other related alarms. Since there are only two alarms to investigate the operator is not drowned in a sea of red and quickly sees the alarm in the de-cluttered alarm list. Drilling into these alarms will expose all the other alarms if they are needed. In addition, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM allows the operator to mask out alarms coming from equipment being commissioned or in maintenance mode, thus there are no extraneous alarms to distract the operator. These alarms could be a significant problem in a busy and rapidly expanding network where a lot of commissioning activity is going on in parallel to a large In-Service base. Opening the alarm in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM immediately links the operator to the affected equipment properties forms. Located on the equipment properties form are all the logical objects that depend on it, thus the operator immediately knows which services and customers are affected. This is all in a couple of clicks. Step one and two are complete: the operator knows what is broken and who is affected. The operator can now move on to answer the question: Are the affected services running on a backup path and if they are, is that path delivering the correct service levels? The simplest way to check this in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is to have prepared in advance an OAM test suite that can be run on any service when there is doubt about its integrity and this is certainly the recommended practice. Assuming this has been done, the operators will find in the service form (the one that just arrived from the alarm), a button to execute this predefined OAM. The test provides trace, delay, jitter and loss statistics that will inform the operators where the service is running and whether it meets its agreed service levels. The test itself has built-in thresholds that reflect these levels and will alert the operator if they are exceeded. In the mean time an operator has reported the broken link and when customers call, the fact that they have been affected is known and feedback can be provided to them. Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 7

12 A full OAM test on a multi-site E-LAN service, such as a VPLS, requires that OAM tests are configured on each of the sites. The tests are unidirectional, so two tests are required to cover each directions. If an operator chooses to do this using CLI scripts, they would have to establish a Telnet or Secure Shell protocol (SSH) session to each network element and configure the tests to all other sites in the service. For a two-site VPLS, this is two Telnet/SSH sessions; for four sites, it is 12 sessions; five sites is 20; 10 sites is 90, and so on. The complexity and the amount of provisioning work grows almost exponentially. Errors are bound to occur. Adding just one site to a 10-site service requires 20 CLI configurations to update the OAM test. Trying to use the full OAM power of the network elements without a good network manager is not operationally effective. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM completely removes this burden from the operator. In the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, the sites are simply added to the test suite. Configuring each site with the appropriate OAM test to all others is done automatically by the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM through SNMP. When a new site is added to a 10-site VPLS, only this site needs to be added to the test suite and the new tests are automatically provisioned. The reduction in opportunity for operator error must be clear. In this second example, the problem is more subtle than a link cut. In this case, a customer has exceeded its service limits without realizing that, and is complaining about excessive packet loss. The Alcatel- Lucent 5620 SAM inventory model will allow the operator to immediately correlate the customer with the right service and sites. The same predefined OAM test suite can be used to verify the packet loss. Even if it does not find any, perhaps because the loss is time-of-day dependent, a review of the stored historical traffic statistics with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM graphing tool will quickly identify excessive use and packet loss. If the operator is actually experiencing the problem at the present time, the real-time statistics graphing will make it very simple for the operator to see excessive use in relation to the services QoS policy. The two scenarios described are reactive assurance. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM also supports a proactive assurance model in which the operator can know about problems before a customer finds out. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM allows the operator to have automated OAM tests running continuously in the background on business VPN services. If a quality parameter drops below the desired threshold, an alarm is raised. The OAM tests measure delay, jitter and loss and should have picked up any problems. So in this example, the service provider should already be working on the problem when the customer calls. In summary, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is a very powerful troubleshooting tool that enables ordinary operators as well as highly skilled engineers to locate problems in business VPN services based on IP/MPLS networks. It encapsulates all the behavioral knowledge and details of the Service Router platforms. The teams building the Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers and the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM work side by side. As a result, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a set of finely-honed troubleshooting tools that allow very quick resolution of problems. Below is a summary of the troubleshooting tools: A dynamic alarm management system that uses tight modeling of the relationship between network components, so the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM knows that problems on one component cause a problem on another component and can determine which caused which. This allows for alarm correlation and suppression. An automated OAM test center that provides background automated OAM tests as well as on-demand tests for specific troubleshooting Real-time visualization of tunnels, services, statuses and packet traffic paths that allow the operator to find where traffic is flowing Real-time statistics graphing on multiple simultaneous counters that allow packet loss and traffic volume to be immediately compared. 8 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

13 Based on interviews with service providers using the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, the Forrester report [1] had the following comment: Based on the improved network information available from 5620 SAM, organizations were able to reduce the number of trips made by field technicians for both discovery and repairs. This was because of the improved information available centrally, which reduced the need for actual excursions for on-site diagnostics and repairs. The reduction in trips resulted in significant savings for the organization. Figure 5. Tracking alarms using the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM 4. Commissioning the IP/MPLS core for business VPN services The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provides the full fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security management (FCAPS) capabilities of an element and network manager to commission equipment, routing and the IP/MPLS infrastructure. Equipment maps are built on SNMP discovery and dynamically show equipment status in real time. All the Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers have rich read/write SNMP V2c/V3 management, which means that what you see in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is an accurate view of the state of the equipment. Physical maps, hierarchical views and multiple selection capabilities make it easy to see what is needed, then bulk-configure settings on many network elements at once and finally review the result. For those operators that still prefer to do things using CLI, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a powerful CLI script manager tied to its database that enables version control of scripts and storage of script results. Parameterized scripts can be pushed to multiple targets simultaneously. While fully functional in the area of equipment commissioning, this area is not the biggest challenge service providers face. For IP/MPLS networks that will be making full use of the rich IP/MPLS capabilities of the Alcatel- Lucent SR platform, commissioning the IP/MPLS infrastructure and keeping it up to date as the network evolves are more likely the challenges of interest. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM makes this a much easier task. Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 9

14 A multisite E-LAN service, such as a VPLS, requires that all the sites are meshed together with service tunnels. If an operator chooses to do this using CLI scripts, they would have to establish a Telnet or SSH session to each network element and configure the tunnels to all other network elements. As described in Section 3 in the discussion of OAM testing, the complexity and amount of provisioning work grows almost exponentially, and errors are bound to occur. Adding just one site to a 10 site tunnel mesh requires 20 CLI configurations. Again, the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM completely removes this burden from the operator. With the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, a tunnel group is created and the network elements are simply added to the group. Configuring each network element with tunnels to all others is done automatically by SAM via SNMP. When a new site is added to a 10-site VPLS, only this site needs to be added to the tunnel group and immediately the sites are meshed. The reduction in opportunity for operator error is clear, but the benefits go beyond that. It is a good idea after adding a new site to an MPLS core to run an OAM test to ensure that the mesh is really going to carry traffic as intended. How could it be that it does not? Well in an ideal world there would be no such problem, but in real networks many activities are happening at the same time and it s possible, for example, that maintenance activities on a new site accidentally result in a misconfiguration that disrupts the tunnel meshing. It is better for operators to find this out before their customers do. To do this using CLI, again involves a series of repetitive functions, similar to the tunnel configuration. An OAM ping and trace test that runs on the service tunnel and verifies it is carrying traffic correctly can be configured on the Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers. A Telnet or SSH session is established to each device that is part of the tunnel mesh and the OAM test configured. Again, the tests are unidirectional and a test must be configured at each end. The same math applies and for a 10-site network, 90 configurations are required and adding one site requires another 20 configurations. The high number of repetitive CLI actions again introduces the potential for operator error, and of course it is very time consuming. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM completely removes this burden from the operator. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM pushes all the configurations of the network elements through SNMP in one operator action. It then runs the tests and reports any exceptions. This reduces time and increases accuracy. Automation in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM reduces the operations around fully meshed objects to a linear problem. Instead of needing N(N-1) operations when adding a new element to the network, only a single, one-time operation is required to include the new network element in a group or test suite. This has had significant operational advantages to operators using the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. For example, according to NextGenTel an operator in Norway: We have typically developed our own systems and CLI scripts for provisioning and managing our IP network. But we revised that strategy when we looked at introducing multicast-based services and VPN services such as VPLS or Ethernet pseudowires. The development costs for provisioning were prohibitive, whereas the 5620 SAM provided us with out-of-the-box functionality, preintegrated with the entire Alcatel-Lucent IP portfolio, ready to provision any Layer 2 or 3 services. We now have improved tools to commission the network and to diagnose any network or service issues. Jorn E. Hodne, NextGenTel, Technical Chief, quoted in Forrester [1] 10 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

15 Figure 6. Automating IP/MPLS service updates with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM Tunnel auto binding P P IP/MPLS P Network commissioning Add a new customer site Automation extends IP/MPLS infrastructure Service topology tracking Service OAM test auto-generation P P IP/MPLS P 5. Reducing OSS/BSS integration times for business VPN services Service providers work in a highly competitive environment and providing differentiated services is key to their success. Time-to-market with these new types of services is important. New service offerings that depend on new network element features cannot be deployed until the OSS/BSS system are brought up to speed with the new capabilities. This integration period needs to be as short as possible. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM plays a critical role in this. All operations that can be performed from the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM GUI are available to an OSS application through the 5620 SAM northbound XML interface. Experience with many OSS vendors has proven that integration with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM solution s XML interface is much simpler and quicker than the traditional method of integrating directly with the network elements. This dramatically reduces the time an OSS/BSS takes to integrate with the nodes compared to a direct-to-node solution such as the Alcatel-Lucent SAM solution s XML interface, which presents a consistent and stable model of the network element capabilities and hides the changes in the management information base behaviors. Many service providers use off-the-shelf OSS systems for such Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 11

16 functions as performance management and alarm management. Each of these OSS systems needs to integrate with the latest version of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. Potentially, this could delay the overall integration process. To address this issue, Alcatel-Lucent has established a partner program with the major ISVs to pre-integrate their products with new releases of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. Alcatel-Lucent provides early interface information to these partners, as well as access to labs and expertise so the ISVs can validate their adaptation plug-in. This means that when a service provider wishes to upgrade its OSS system, the integration between the OSS and Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is already done. This significantly reduces the overall integration schedule, enabling a faster time-tomarket. Customer endorsement of this approach has been loud and clear: With the OSS Connected Partner Program, Alcatel-Lucent will enable us to implement the new Service Router release 5.0 faster and more efficiently because of the simultaneous availability of the 5620 SAM release 5.0 and pre-certified Infovista s VistaInsight for Networks and IBM s Netcool OMNIbus application. This is an invaluable program that will allow us to speed up new service delivery and time to new revenue. Bob Belcher, OSS Technical Architect, Virgin Media, quoted in Forrester [1] Without the 5620 SAM, we would have had to get the OSS provisioning application to completely model the new service and its dozens of QoS parameters, which is very expensive. But using the 5620 SAM s QoS policies and service templates has reduced the OSS integration cost. We can also reduce MTTR and provide better customer service with the 5620 SAM s customer impact information, OAM diagnostics, and proactive service testing. National IP Core Networks Technician, TELUS, quoted in Forrester [1] 12 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

17 Figure 7. Comparing traditional OAM with Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM OAM Traffic engineering Fault and RCA Provisioning Activation Performance SLA reports Mediation and billing OSS systems Costly and difficult to maintain SAM-O single point of integration 5620 SAM 6. Enabling customer self-service portals for business VPN services Beyond providing stable and reliable services, it has become necessary for service providers to provide to their customers a new level of control through self-service. This is part of the product differentiation that is required to remain competitive in the business. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM XML/SOAP-based northbound interface is already aligned for integration into a web portal. There are two types of portals. The first focuses on providing self-service capabilities to end customer IT departments. Using the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, the service provider can give customers access to their services for such functions as running their own tests, viewing network topologies, and viewing service statistics. Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 13

18 The second type of portal is where the service provider itself requires a portal for some part of its operations staff. Again, this can be implemented using the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. In some cases, operators must be given very restricted visibility of the network to the extent of not even being able to deduce the presence of other equipment or IP address ranges, for example. A customized portal is an appropriate solution for this type of requirement. Another requirement may be to customize the workflow, including the look and feel. Again for this specialized use, a portal can be the right solution. Alcatel-Lucent provides a custom portal development service for both types of portals. 7. Conclusion The Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers offer a high grade platform for Layer 2 and Layer 3 IP/MPLSbased business VPN services. Service providers transitioning from SONET/SDH- or ATM-based networks may perceive the new technology as being unfamiliar and therefore difficult to operationalize. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM enables the best use of the rich features of the Alcatel-Lucent Service Routers without requiring network operations staff to go through extensive retraining in IP/MPLS solutions. Automation; templates; a powerful assurance capability; a simple, consistent user interface; and OSS API all work together to keep operational costs to a minimum while allowing the rollout of sophisticated Layer 2 and Layer 3 business VPN services. Table 1 summarizes the rich feature set of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager. Table 1. Summary of Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM Features Operational challenge Service provisioning Rich capabilities on the Alcatel-Lucent Service Router platforms introduce new and unfamiliar provisioning demands on the operational staff Service assurance Troubleshooting Layer 2 and Layer 3 business VPN services based on an IP/MPLS core is complex. IP/MPLS core The full mesh requirement of tunnels for MPLS requires ongoing maintenance work in the core as it grows introducing many opportunities for error OSS/BSS integration Integrating a new manager into the existing OSS/BSS and operational methods is expensive how 5620 SAM can help Second-generation service templates mean only a minimum of attributes need to be entered by operations staff on a regular basis when deploying new services. Workflows can be tuned to meet the specific operational needs. Powerful, yet simple to operate alarm management that quickly leads the operator to the source of failure Automated OAM testing Real-time multivendor topology maps that show where traffic is flowing in real time. Real-time statistics graphing showing where the volume of traffic or packet loss is occurring. Border Gateway Protocol-based VPN connectivity tracking by monitoring route changes over time Automation of tunnel building makes core extensions very simple and error free. Automated diagnostics for RSVP-based label switched paths make it possible to pinpoint the location of a routing failure in the network. IP control plane monitoring to detect abnormal protocol behavior Path monitoring that captures path history and alerts operators when changes are deemed outside of norms Protocol configuration audits to detect misconfiguration between protocol peers. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a rich but simple to use open interface based on XML messages. This makes integration with existing OSS systems straightforward. Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a pre-integration program with most major ISVs offering performance and SLA management, fault management, traffic, engineering, flow-through service activation, provisioning and inventory. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM open interface allows for customer self-service portals and fully customized service provider portals. 14 Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note

19 All the benefits that have been experienced by service providers that have deployed the Alcatel- Lucent 5620 SAM are put very succinctly in a quote from the Forrester report [1]: In conducting in-depth interviews with four existing 5620 SAM customers who initially managed their Alcatel-Lucent-based IP/MPLS network without deploying the 5620 SAM, Forrester found that these companies achieved benefits in: productivity gains in provisioning and technical support; cost avoidance in script maintenance; and strategic flexibility in new product development, including reduced time to roll out new services. 8. Abbreviations 9. References ATM BSS CLI EMS FCAPS FR ISV MPLS MTTR MTU NMS OAM OX OSS P Asynchronous Transfer Mode Business support system Command line interface Element management system Fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security management Frame Relay Independent software vendor Multiprotocol Label Switching Mean time to repair Multitenant unit Network management system Operations, administration and maintenance Operating expenditures Operations support system Provider Provider edge QoS Quality of service RCA Root case analysis RSVP Resource Reservation Protocol SAM (Alcatel-Lucent 5620) Service Aware Manager SAM-O (Alcatel-Lucent 5620) SAM OSS Interface SLA Service level agreement SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol SR Service Router SSH Secure Shell protocol UNI User-network interface VLL Virtual Leased Line VPLS Virtual Private LAN Service VPN Virtual private network VPRN Virtual private routed network [1] The Total Economic Impact Of Alcatel-Lucent s 5620 Service Aware Manager (5620 SAM), prepared by Forrester Consulting for Alcatel-Lucent, December 10, This report is available at: [2] Flexible Service Access Options for Business VPNs, May This application note is available at: Business VPN Service Management and Assurance Application Note 15

20 Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are trademarks of Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The information presented is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein Alcatel-Lucent. All rights reserved. CAR (06)