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Broadband Operational Support System (OSS) Market Research
By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your
feedback
is important to us!)
Created:
March 23, 2002This paper made use of
OSS Vendor Listing which is available from Birds-Eye.Net.
Readers who use this information for investment purposes do so at their own risk!
Opinions expressed are just that and not based on insider information or information
otherwise obtained illegally.
Document:
The following is a detailed analysis of various broadband Operational Support System
(OSS) vendors. This analysis compares leading broadband OSS vendors by company, history,
markets, functionality, and features. Birds-Eye.Net provides this comparison as a service
to broadband operators looking to purchase a new OSS for their business. OSS vendors who
would like to be listed on this analysis are encouraged to contact Birds-Eye.Net to
coordinate an interview.
Broadband OSS Company (vendor) Information:
| Company: |
In Business: |
Broadband Customers: |
Specialize/Strength: |
Platform: |
Alopa
Networks
435 Indio Way
Sunnyvale, CA 95054
Tel: 408-331-1750
Fax: 408-331-1755 |
Since 9/1999 |
Adelphia,
Alameda Power & Telcom, ECC, GCI, Suscom, WorldCom, WOW |
Protocol servers, PacketCable |
Alopa MetaServ Platform
Supported on: Solaris(SPARC), Linux (future)
Requires: Oracle |
ADC
2555 Route 130 South
Cranbury, NJ 08512
Tel: 609-655-2292 |
Since 1990 |
Adelphia,
Bell South, Combined
Telecom Inc., Comcast Corporation, ConnectSouth Communications, Conversent Communications, Edge2Net, Focal
Communications, ITC DeltaCom, NetworkPlus, NewSouth
Communications, Qwest Communications, SBC Communications, TDS
Metrocom, Verizon Communications, ViaTel, Inc., World Access/Star Telecom |
Service Activation, Order
Fulfillment, Network Management and Enterprise TeleManagement |
FastFlow® Suite (svc fulfill)
Singl.eview (cust mgt/billing)
Metrica (svc assurance)
Routing Optimization (AROS)
Local Code Admin (LCAS)
Macstar Supported on:
|
Ceon
Corporation
720 Bay Road
Redwood City, CA 94063
Tel: 650-817-6300
Tel: 650-817-6300
|
Since 9/1999 |
Charter Communications, WINfirst |
Service fulfillment (from days as
a telco vendor) |
Ceon Integration &
Provisioning Suite Supported on:
NA |
Cisco
Systems
170 West Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
Tel: 408-526-7208 |
Since 1999 time
in OSS area |
Not available |
CNR was most widely accepted
broadband DHCP as it was circulated with Cisco's first generation CMTS. |
BPR
CSRCSupported on:
Solaris(SPARC), Linux |
Core Networks
155 Chain Lake Drive, Suite 19
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3S 1B3
Tel: 902-468-6397
Fax: 902-481-5799 |
Since 1998 |
Advanced Cable Communications, Antietam Cable Television, Cox, EastLink, Liberty Cablevision, MetroCast Cablevision, San Bruno Municipal Cable TV, Seren Innovations, TelstraClear Ltd, VIACABOCOM |
Cable modem and CMTS diagnostic
and reporting tools |
CoreOS Broadband Provisioning
Solution Supported on:
Solaris(SPARC), Linux |
Dorado Software
15 Plaza Drive
Folsom, CA 95630
Tel: 916-673-1100
Fax: 916-673-1044 |
Since ? (newer
company) |
Accelerated Networks, Corona Networks, Extreme Networks, IP
Communications, Lantern Communications, Southern Skies Entertainment, Terayon, World Wide
Packets |
Point solutions for provisioning
and element management |
Redcell
OwareSupported On:
Solaris(SPARC), Windows NT |
Emperitive
260 Charles Street
Waltham, MA 02453
Tel: 781-663-1200
Fax: 781-663-1275 |
Since 1998 |
Cox Communications Middle-America
Systems, |
Workflow management |
ProEn Optical
ProEn Cable and CMX
ProEn DSL
ProEn WirelessSupported On:
Solaris(SPARC), Linux |
JacobsRimell Limited
24 Chiswell Street
London EC1Y 4TY
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20-7786-4000
Fax: +44 (0)20-7786-4004 |
Since 1997 |
Cable
& Wireless, NTL, Omne,
Telstra, TimeWarner Cable, |
Interactive Television related
OSS capabilities |
APS
RACCSupported On:
Solaris (SPARC), Linux, Windows 2000
|
Incognito Software Inc.
1128 Hornby Street 3rd Floor
Vancouver B.C. V6Z 2L4 CANADA
Tel: 604-688-4332
Fax: 604-688-4339
|
Since 1992 |
NA |
DHCP and DNS Software |
DNS Commander
IP Commander (includes DHCP, ToD and TFTP)Supported On:
Solaris(SPARC), Linux, Windows 2000 |
Interactive Enterprise Ltd.
7 Riverwalk,
National Digital Park,
Citywest Business Campus,
Dublin 24, IRELAND.
Tel: + 353 1-449-1900
Fax: + 353 1-449-1901
|
Since 1998 |
Cable Atlantic, Electrabel,
iesy, Singapore CableVision, Telint Global |
|
Conexon Supported
On:
NA |
Sigma Systems/Liberate
55 York Street, Suite 1100
Toronto, ON
Canada M5J 1R7
Tel: +1.416.943.9696
Fax: +1.416.365.9227 |
Since 1990 |
AT&T Broadband, Comcast, Cogeco, Cox Communications, Essent Kablecom, Rogers Cable, Shaw Cable, @Home
Benelux, @NetHome Japan |
Business flow engine |
ServiceBroker
Service Profile Manager
Service Creation Toolkit
Service Diagnostics Manager
Self-Service Manager
Service Management PortfolioSupported On:
Sun(SPARC) |
Possible Newcomers:
Telution
65 E. Wacker Place
Suite 600
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Tel: 312-201-6600
Fax: 312-201-6601
Lemur Networks, Inc.
703 Broad Street
Suite B201, Franklin Common
Shrewsbury, NJ 07702
Tel: 800.732.8990
Fax: 732.450.9699
Imagine Broadband
11951 Freedom Drive, 6th Floor
Reston, VA 20190
Tel: 703.947.2107
Fax: 703.947.8606
Lucent Technologies -- still not sure if they have anything more that
QIP
Broadband OSS Company History:
Broadband OSS Company Businesses Breakdown:
Index: Blank=No currently demonstrable deployment ready
product, X=working product that is shipping
Markets for broadband OSS:
| Market |
Data Service |
Voice Service |
Video Service |
iTV |
Online Gaming |
Wireless |
| Canada |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| China |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Europe |
200 million (YG) |
|
|
|
|
|
| United States |
100 million (KS) |
50 million (KS) |
10 million (KS) |
|
|
|
Broadband OSS Servers Offered by Company:
Index: Y=Included with software, N=Not
included with software and requires additional vendor
Functionality of Broadband OSS by Company:
| |
Creation (modeling) |
Selection |
Activation |
Mediation |
Assurance |
| Vendor |
service |
package |
business |
experience |
product awareness |
qualification |
intellent offering |
open access |
DOCSIS |
legacy |
MTA |
cablehome |
STB |
billing |
CRM |
Inventory |
EMS |
NMS |
diagnostics |
| Alopa Networks |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Y |
Some |
Some |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
| ADC |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
Y |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Y |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
| Ceon Corporation |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
| Cisco Systems |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
N |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Some |
Some |
N |
|
Core Networks |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
| Dorado Software |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
N |
Y |
Y |
N |
| Emperitive |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Some |
Y |
N |
| JacobsRimell Limited |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
| Incognito Software Inc. |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
| Interactive
Enterprise Ltd |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Some |
Some |
N |
N |
| Sigma
Systems/Liberate |
Y |
Y |
Y |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Index: Y=Included with the software, N=Not
included with the software and requires additional vendor, Some=Limited
support
Analysis:
| Vendor: |
Negatives: |
Positives: |
| Alopa Networks |
Uses adapters (see note below) as
primary means external interfaces - otherwise API set is very limited. Lists JDBC support
but can only support Oracle. All in one OSS that wasn't meant to be broken apart - any
point (single purpose) solutions still contain/require the entire platform. Any one piece
of solution too weak in functionality and performance to stand alone and compete with
other best of breed solutions. Limited home-grown DHCP server that uses a text database
and a surplus of IP addresses to impliment its failover. |
Likely the
first end-to-end OSS provisioning solution offered to broadband operators. An OSS with
some enterprise management capabilities. Uses OEM client CD that is fairly integrated to
solution. Offers multiple installation options: csr, self, tech, CD-retail but must use
its web interface to exploit these. |
| ADC |
Combines provisioning system
acquired from BAS CMTS with a workflow manager acquired from ComTech. Problem is ADC is
not an application software company rather mainly a hardware vendor so it has been
difficult to achieve the desired product fit between these two applications. Relies
heavily on LDAP (see note below) as the principle means of data storage. |
Metrica along
with Singl.eView provide good combination of service assurance and mediation capabilities
especially in the area of SLA management - even though this combination has been slow to
catch on in the cable industry. |
| Ceon Corporation |
Lacks service assurance
capabilities and their implementation of the DHCP clustering on the network edge (within
the distribution hub) can be limiting. |
A BEA based OSS
system that uses commercially available IT systems integration software to combine OSS
capabilities. First vendor to successfuly deploy a triple play OSS overing for voice,
video, and data. |
| Cisco Systems |
Generally inflexible in
supporting various device types. Software specifically targets upper tier operators
but does not have any enterprise management capabilities. Very little of the software was
developed in house -- rather its acquired through purchase of companies and glued together
which results in a confusing array of commands (e.g. configuration still uses American
internet corporation commands [AIC...] even though that software was purchased 4 years
ago). Only works with Netscape LDAP. Not a full featured or tightly integrated platform
and requires additional vendors/partners to deliver a complete OSS solution. |
Good
installation based of servers working in the field and various development and
standardization labs. First release was given away with its first CMTS product as a
relatively easy to use provisioning solution. Began charging for additional licenses and
code updates after installation base was established. |
| Core Networks |
Leverages open source code (see
note below) isc-dhcp. Software also
heavily uses CGI (see note below). This combination limits the scalability of this OSS and
makes it less flexible to handle new capability unless they branch off from the open
source and begin developing their own software -- however this would effectively eliminate
the few benefits of using open source. Not a full featured or tightly integrated platform
and requires additional vendors/partners to deliver a complete OSS solution. |
Great
provisioning solution for smaller and mid-tier MSOs. Offers a rich set of provisioning and
diagnostic tools built around a fairly easy to use interface. Great understanding of
cable OSS requirements learned directly from initial development on site with its first
customer. |
| Dorado Software |
Does not have an cable operator
focus. Most all customers are network (e.g. metropolitan fiber) or bandwidth
providers some are even hardware manufacturers. Offers service creation or modeling
capabilities but for an element management (see note below) system not a full fledged
customer device provisioning solution. A complete Dorado software solution for broadband
would in most cases would involve multiple products that may require on-site integration. |
Good handle on
niche products that can improve existing (deployed) solutions without upgrading or ripping
out and replacing. Differs considerably from other vendors in this space by apparently not
pursuing Tier1/2 cable MSOs. |
| Emperitive |
Claims solutions for cable, DSL,
and fiber optics but lacks sufficient experience and customer wins in any of those areas.
DHCP server and IP address management capabilities are fairly recent adds thus largely
unproven. Not a full featured or tightly integrated platform and requires additional
vendors/partners to deliver a complete OSS solution. |
Capability to
handle sophisticated transactions with dependencies. Has beginnings of sophisticated
modeling environment but its not integrated across all its products. |
| JacobsRimell Limited |
Technology is built upon LDAP
(see note below). Creation of services involves scripting (see note below). Not a full
featured or tightly integrated platform and requires additional vendors/partners to
deliver a complete OSS solution. Only began actively marketing and selling products in US
in 2001 -- support for product in North America is absent. |
Has significant
experience working with iTV and iTV application and content providers and its service
management software is gaining attention in US. |
| Incognito Software Inc. |
Stand alone products provide a
component based approach (see note below) to OSS for broadband. TFTP, TOD, and
registration server are recent additions and are 1-3 years behind competing mature
products. Not a full featured or tightly integrated platform and requires additional
vendors/partners to deliver a complete OSS solution. |
As stand alone
products, dhcp and dns servers provide some of the most convenient features among existing
providers. GUIs are flexible and though they require knowledge of what all needs to be
configured to run the server they do provide convenient access to these configurations. |
| Interactive
Enterprise Ltd |
missing significant
experience to form an opinion |
missing
significant experience to form an opinion |
| Sigma
Systems/Liberate |
Mainly a workflow and mediation
engine with little experience or product maturity in the customer facing lower protocol
layers of OSS. Currently developing or supporting its first generation protocol (DHCP,
TFTP, TOD) servers. Bulk of its experience is with telephony industry so products take on
the characteristics of that industry. Not a full featured or tightly integrated platform
and requires additional vendors/partners to deliver a complete OSS solution. |
Was former
partner with Excite@Home where it developed its workflow and mediation capabilities under
the direction of Excite@Home. Significant number of broadband operators still using this
platform. |
Things to watch out for when evaluating OSS vendors:
| Item: |
Cause for concern: |
| Adapters |
An adapter can be a great way for a single application to
communicate with multiple devices with various interfaces (CLI, API, etc.) that utilize
various methods of interactions (r-shell, HTTP, RPC, etc.). However well hidden within
these obvious benefits of the adapter lies the challenge of exploiting unique features
supported by various hardware and applications through any kind of standardized interface.
All adapters must converse with the same upstream or downstream application (which ever
one they are adapting to). For example an application that supports three different CMTS
vendors would host three different adapters. The only thing common among these three
adapters would be the core set of operations (calls) these adapters make with the upstream
application. The cause for concern is that adapters limit how much one can exploit from
any one device as for it to work with different devices the core set of operations would
need to be compatible across all devices. Since this is tuff to do, it limits how much
capability one can extract out of ones hardware without revamping the core set of
operations the adapters support. Suffice to say adapters are handy but not all they are
jacked up to be. |
| CGI |
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) provides a rapid development
environment for web based user interfaces and web based applications. These applications
can be written in various formal programming languages like C, C++, etc. or even be
scripted using the likes of Perl, Python, etc. The problem with using CGI for application
development is scalability. CGI scripts run off a web server force the operating system to
fork a new process to handle the CGI application instance. If your running multiple users
your forking multiple instances of the same application on the server. This causes large
portions of resources (memory, CPU, disk, database, etc.) to be used to handle each
instance. While this is fine for small numbers of users, large numbers of users can easily
overwhelm the box and cause it to either go down or block the request. Thus, CGI is not
considered an enterprise level application. |
| Component-based |
There are two ways to deliver the require broadband OSS
functionality. Component-based approach and tightly-integrated based approach. Component
based approach claims multi-vendor compatibility but fails to deliver meaningful
functionality out of the box. Component-based approach requires significant integration of
disparate components on site which limits future capabilities. It also suffers from
expensive long lead times for enhancements which can typically span multiple vendors and
unnecessarily complicate new service rollout. Tightly integrated approach places more
reliance on a single vendor but history has shown this trade off more than pays for it
self -- all major OSS vendors are moving to a tightly integrated approach if they are not
there already. |
| Element Management |
Element management can be mis-interpreted as a form of
device provisioning. In reality, it is more like device management or a very slimed down
version of network management - but at a very low level. An element manager acts as a kind
of translater, processor , or interpretor for one or more devices on a network. One would
use an element manager to insulate ones business (backoffice service processing) from
becoming reliant or hard-coded to a single hardware vendor. By adding an element manager
one can make generic calls to a device via the element manager - the element manager takes
these generic calls, translates them into device specific calls, carries out the
communications with the device and then forwards the response back to the originator in a
translated (generic) fashion. Provisioning is a much higher level (intelligent) process
involving numerous dependencies and other interactions -- the result is a device is
activated (which is similar to element management) but what happens in between is beyond
the scope of capabilities of an element manager. Adapters for a full-fledged provisioning
system are in some ways similar to element managers. |
| LDAP |
While in theory Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP) databases boast unbelievable speed and scalability, in practice they have failed to
deliver. LDAP works best for pieces of data
that can be written once and read many times. OSS has very few items that meet this
criteria and have actually complied quite a list of data that must be updated frequently.
For LDAP to update a field it must perform a read and a write. Problem is each write
impacts the server's speed and efficiency to do reads. Historically, most OSS vendors who
use LDAP start out with a great plan, but by the time they roll actual broadband operator
requirements in they end up doing many more writes then they envisioned and this causes
LDAP to slow down. Oracle, while generally more expensive to maintain, is perhaps the best
tool for the general purpose data storage needs for OSS applications. |
| Open source code |
Open source code is becoming increasingly recognized as an
reliable source of software for the business community. However, not all business stand by
or will bet their survival on it and there are still support issues surrounding its use.
Vendors that incorporate open source software into their products rarely follow the latest
revision of the software, contribute to the software's future, and generally tend to add
their own stuff to it. This process impacts/clouds the concept of using open source. These
products are also difficult to integrate with other products because they are overly
generic in their approach to interfacing. |
| Scripting |
Scripting can be a terrific option for OSS, but it can also
be a nemesis. Whenever OSS supports a scripting interface it opens the door for the whole
platform to be unstable, susceptible to constant tweaking, and generally requires a higher
overall skilled person to operate. It also can limit the software's shelf life and ability
to easily adapt to new services. Scripts are also very slow. Performing an application
call-out to a script can cost an OSS operation precious time cycles -- especially if the
script performs tasks with other external servers or components. It can also stall the
process, consume valuable resources on the server, or do something unknowingly adverse to
the OSS or operating system. Scripting interfaces can also create loopholes in the all
important inventory management capabilities of OSS and create problems down the road in
trying to reconcile these issues. |
This paper made use of OSS Vendor
Listing which is available from Birds-Eye.Net. Readers who use this information for investment purposes do so
at their own risk! Opinions expressed are just that and not based on
insider information or information otherwise obtained illegally.
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