Telecom Network Inventory System: Physical, Logical - Sunvizion

Have better insight into your network

SunVizion Network Inventory Management System is multi-module and multi-technology comprehensive solution for inventory of logical and physical network elements and support of network planning process. The solution works with any network technology and with all types of the network. In-built workflow engine supports the processes related to network management and sales of the services. Intelligent discovery and reconciliation mechanisms improve the accuracy of network data. The solution is available on three platforms: desktop, web and mobile.

As integrated, powerful, enterprise-wide platform SunVizion enables operators successful OSS transformation.

By intelligent management of data about the network and services SunVizion Network Inventory provides substantial efficiency gains for telco business processes such as:

Network design
and expansion

Service sale, delivery
and provisioning

Fault
management

Network
maintenance

Physical Inventory

SunVizion Physical Network Inventory is used to collect, process, and provide information about physical network resources. By integrating inside and outside plant data the system stores information about infrastructure (such as buildings, rooms, room equipment, cable routes, duct segments, cable chambers, manholes, cabinets, utility poles, cables, etc.) and its physical usage (card distribution within shelves, cables occupying ducts, physical ports on devices used by attached cables).

Physical Network Inventory - Data availability

Direct access to all information about network resources and their physical attributes
Presentation and localization of network resources on digital maps with scale dependent visibility
Powerful GIS environment from Esri
Smart mobile application for field workers

Objects control

Cross sectional approach
Advanced compatibility control features to match device types and technologies and available bandwidth
Presentation of auxiliary documents associated with an object (possible integration with external repository)

Network failure analysis

Shows failure consequences and analyze their impact on the network and services provided to users
Manages of the process of planned disconnections and analyze their results
Controls of SLA arangements
Reports data on current failures and historical failure percentage ratio for network elements
Supports all kind of telecommunication network and all network technologies
Supports logical resource inventory, recording the resource’s functionality, bandwidth, and relationships with other physical and logical resources

Advanced map interface

Possible visualization on Google Maps and Google Earth – interesting option for users who do not require the advanced map interface
Resources shown on the Google Earth map can be retrieved through an external service that provides data in KML format or can be exported to the map.

Benefits

GIS provided by Esri, the most powerful GIS environment

Lower costs of network management

More efficient network planning

Swift analysis of failure consequences and disconnections impact

Logical Inventory

SunVizion Logical Network Inventory allows for managing information about connections and relationships between different connection types. Logical Network Inventory records the resource's functionality, bandwidth, and relationships with other physical and logical resources. The solution also allows to document the bandwidth allocation in a telecommunications network and track relations between the logical and physical elements.

Logical Network Inventory

Cross-cutting approach thanks to integration with NMS systems
Access to network topology information
Data related to network utilization
Features for searching and reserving network connections

One system - different technologies

All network technologies support:

D WDM, SDH/PDH, Ethernet, IP/MPLS backbone, ATM.

SDH Schema

Loading of selected parts of any topology (ring, mash)
Tracking of the trail in individual spans
Bandwidth preview
Location of occupied VC-12/3/4 containers in selected SDH connections
Container number and name of the path inside each container

Benefits

Unified access to comprehensive data about the network

Better use of network resources

Swift analysis of failure results

Services sale support

Failure management support

Data on logical resources available for other OSS

Network Planning

SunVizion Network Planning & Design was created to support Cable Operators and Triple Play Service Providers in their network expansion plans. It significantly reduces the time and cost of the design, analysis and implementation of new networks.

Telecom network planning

SunVizion Network Planning & Design is a natural extension of the SunVizion Network Inventory solution and it’s fully integrated with it. The data is
automatically imported from one system to another so the planning is always based on up to date information about current state of existing network.

Designing - analyzing changes

Features:

Unique algorithms taking into account things like topography, existing infrastructure, possibilities of use and costs of lease of other operators infrastructure, costs of equipment and costs of transmission easement
Automatic exchange of data with network inventory system
Libraries of pre-modelled network elements and devices.
Detection of power supplies conflicts, and calculation of power consumed by each element.
Automatic generation of a bill of material report for newly designed networks.
Presentation of auxiliary documents associated with an object

Benefits

Significant reduction of time and cost of telecom network planning

The best possible optimization of cable run

Early detection of possible conflicts between mutually exclusive plans

Planning based on always up to date information about current status of existing network

Service Inventory

What is Service Inventory?

Service Inventory is used to collect, process, and share information about services provided by the operator in order to support service sale and maintenance processes. The solution enables service modeling in compliance with TM Forum recommendations so that the telecommunications operator can record all aspects and parameters of its services (both in terms of clients and hardware). Service Inventory provides a web service interface allowing for integration with other systems, in particular with CRM, Resource Inventory and Workflow.

Physical Resources

Verifies whether given service can be provided at a specified location or between specified locations
Registers services sold to a customer, and locks network resources used for the service
Provides technical parameters needed to activate given service in a service activation process.

Services associated with selected network elements

Shows services related to selected network element
Each set of services can be easily found by using the selected text phrase, name of the customer, service status

Service mapping on logical and physical resources

Each service can me mapped on logical and physical resources
Recording and reporting of indicators showing the quality of services
The history of the services' availability in time

Benefits

Quick check whether a service is possible at a given point

Fast deployment of new services

Lowering the costs of service maintenance

Centralization of information about services

Inside Plant Inventory

SunVizion Inside Plant Inventory is an advanced application designed to document and control telecommunications network devices and components. It offers hierarchical decomposition and visualization of network elements and their parameters, e.g. amplifier in cabinet, splice in a manhole, room in a building, etc.

Telecom Inside Plant Inventory

SunVizion Inside Plant Inventory comes with a libraries of most commonly used devices for different types of networks and underlying network
technologies including fiber-optic, coax, copper, radio lines, SDH, PDH, IP, WDM, GSM, UMTS, CDMA, HSPA, LTE, WiMAX, and others.

Inside Plant Inventory

Location of service termination points within a building structure (apartments and rooms)
Positioning and connecting network elements (symbols) located inside the building
Possibility of simple replication of network segments among buildings (stairways, floors, apartments, and rooms, cellars).

Telecom Inside Plant Inventory

Shelf View

Presentation of object location in network infrastructure (e.g. amplifier in cabinet, splice in a manhole, room in a building)
Advanced visualization providing single view of both logical and physical network aspects

Equipment View

Device view presenting sub-elements and structure (e.g. router, card, downstream, ports)
Libraries of pre-modelled network elements for different types of network technologies
Presentation of auxiliary documents associated with an object (possible integration with external repository)

Sunvizion inside plant inventory

Floor plan view

Presentation of network elements on floor plan views
Hierarchical decomposition and visualization of building and network elements and their attributes, e.g. stairways within a building, apartments and floors within stairways, splitter location a building, amplifier in a cabinet, etc.

Benefits

Direct access to all information
about telecom resources
located in buildings

Faster deployment
of new services

Quick veryficationof service
availability at specific
adress point

Automatic failure
impact analysis

Workflow

Through integration with Workflow, SunVizion Network Inventory can support and automate business processes using data about network resources. These are, for example processes related to network maintenance, network planning and development, reservation and service activation, resources availability verification.

Workflow Process Designer

Graphical interface for defining tasks and relationships, also defining flow between tasks
Easy management of processes related to network infrastructure and sales of the services (such as the device installation process, repair process, network expansion process, service activation process etc.)

Processs management web interface

Assigning user's task to selected employees or roles to departments or other organizational units
Detection of errors and inconsistencies in the stage of design process, before turning on the process into operation

Rollout project dashboard view

Monitoring of network design status progress and key parameters of the investment
Prevents inefficiencies resulting from repeated data entry, data inaccuracy, inconsistency and under-utilization

Benefits

Decreasing the time for the order-to-bill cycle

Integration of all relevant operations in one complete enterprise system

Reduction of investments processes delays and costs related to them

Seamless collaboration of different actors and departments

Reduction of time and cost of devices modifications, optimizations and adjustment

What is a Network Inventory System?

Network Inventory Systems are the tools used by network operators to itemise and manage the assets and infrastructure that the network is comprised of. However, the network inventory extends beyond the switches and routers that most people immediately think of.

Telecom Network Inventory includes:

Physical devices (switches, routers, multiplexers, modems, cards, splice cases, splitters / combiners, storage arrays and much more)
Logical and virtual infrastructure (virtual machines, firewalls, load balancers and more)
Containment (buildings, rooms, racks, ducts, pits, towers, poles and more)

What’s the difference between a network inventory system and an asset management system?

The examples above are network assets that are “nodal” in nature, just like asset management systems. However, the big difference between a typical asset management solution and telecom network inventory solutions comes down to the importance of “connectivity” and “associations” that only the Telecom Network inventory Solutions provide. These are fundamental to managing a network of any significant size and complexity.

Telecom network inventory solutions provide the “glue” using objects including:

Physical connectivity (cables, patch-leads, splices / connectors, radio links, etc)
Logical connectivity (virtual circuits, virtual private networks, end-to-end circuits that link other network segments like the physical connection types above)
Network Associations (customer to circuit, IP address to port or device, service identifier to physical / logical connection, field workforce to job and related spares, network devices to map locations, etc)

How network inventory facilitates Root cause and Service Impact Analysis (RCA / SIA)?

Network inventory provides connectivity and the associations (in the dot-points above) that allow root-causes to be identified from the consequential alarms / alerts. It’s also the network inventory solution’s connectivity and associations that allows a network operator to identify which services and customers are identified during an outage. It’s also this inventory network that helps provide network / capacity planners and other operations staff with an understanding of network utilisation trends. These activities help to ensure ongoing network health, optimisation and profitability.