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Case Study

System Integration Initiative: "CCC" - A Major Telecommunications Service Provider

Wability and Our Client, a leading telecommunications service provider, created in a joint effort, an integrated business and operations/technical architecture. This architecture facilitates automated, reliable, and scalable enterprise management for its new business line. Our Client delivers local and long-distance telephone, Internet access, data, and multimedia services over its extensive fiber optic network.

To provide for its growing suite of IP data services, Our Client decided to launch an automated and integrated business support system and operations support system (BSS/OSS) IP-VPN using Wability's configuration architecture expertise. Based on this architecture, Our Client was able to offer its wholesale customers a secure IP-VPN solution in 2001, meeting the market demand. In 2002, Our Client will expand its IP-VPN product offering-by-offering multiple-site VPN connections with broadband, leased line, Ethernet, and dial-in access to its medium and large business enterprise customers based on this same proven platform.

The Architecture incorporates commercially available applications as well as legacy applications integrated with Our Client -specific business processes to create a solution customized around specific customer needs. Working with Our Client, Wability built an integrated BSS/OSS around the enterprise application integration (EAI) architecture provided by our alliance partner, TIBCO Software, one of the leading providers of real-time infrastructure.

By streamlining and automating business processes to deliver Our Client's VPN services, we helped our Client:

  1. Reduce costs
  2. Enable effective operations
  3. Eliminate error-prone manual processes
  4. Manage the validity of data objects and process sequences
  5. Enable controlled recovery and rollback

Wability offered a platform that could be customized to support customer service operation processes, service assurance processes, service level agreement (SLA) metrics collection and compliance processes, third-party installation management processes, reporting processes, advanced billing processes and presentment, and invoice legacy system integration.


Our Accelerated Approach To Systems Integration

Wability's solutions delivery approach to systems integration provides a multi-vendor systems integration architecture framework leveraging EAI, along with a proven implementation methodology and extensive asset base, to facilitate the integration of business organizations, processes, and systems. The architecture framework can help organizations define and integrate business processes across a variety of business functions by utilizing Wability's best practices, experience, knowledge, and asset repository.

Our architecture framework provides:

  1. Rapid definition, configuration, and delivery of differentiated services
  2. Increased ability to respond and adapt to change by allowing integration of new components and applications
  3. A workflow engine integration approach to control and track the flow of data across applications
  4. Our best practices for business process and technology integration
  5. Streamlined business operations delivery that can increase scalability and help reduce operating costs


Delivering a Customized Architecture To Meet Requirements

To support Our Client's need for workflow-based provisioning. We used our architecture customized for selected applications and specific business processes. Wability team reviewed the existing business architecture and developed the business requirements, order management, billing, incident management, and reporting process definitions. In addition, we developed a detailed design that included an architecture blueprint, workflow diagrams, process and task definitions, external interface definitions, and data object models.

This IP-VPN solution for Our Client uses the architecture framework and integration methodology along with the TIBCO EAI product suite to integrate BSS/OSS applications for order entry and management, billing, trouble ticketing, fault management, inventory management, reporting, and service activation. Wability integrated these applications to create an end-to-end solution through the use of adapters and flow-through service process overlays that build on our architecture core components and the TIBCO/InConcert workflow applications suite.

Process overlays spanned "order-to-cash" flow-through scenarios, as well as order-service-billing incident management capabilities. We also incorporated a Web-enabled B2B interface to facilitate automated work-order protocols with enterprise trading partners, as well as Web-based ordering, status, incident handling, and billing exchange with customers. In addition, Wability designed the customer support organization, including roles and responsibilities, staffing level analysis, and training plans, and provided production support, documentation, and knowledge transfer.


Focus On Accelerated Implementation And Rapid Results

By employing our Architecture approach to systems integration, we helped Our Client reduces the time required to integrate its enterprise architecture from two years to 12 months. With the backbone to support automated provisioning in place, Our Client could launch its IP-VPN Services product more quickly than services it introduced in the past. Using this platform and approach, Wability helped Our Client realizes the following benefits:

  1. Reduction of order-to-activation time from six to two weeks
  2. Market-unique customer ordering via Web/B2B connection efficiency
  3. Efficient trading partner management via Web-enabled B2B interfaces
  4. Accurate SLA metrics measurement
  5. Online billing information review based on automated billing
  6. Visibility into system performance, problem notification, and resolution monitoring
  7. Automated BSS/OSS workflow systems that enabled reduced customer-care-organization staffing levels

This new platform also positions Our Client to achieve faster time-to-market when launching future products. In addition, the new platform will support more robust product offerings by providing the necessary service-support capabilities. These include:

  1. Complex order handling/product customization
  2. Manual and automated processes step support
  3. Interrupts and rollback capability
  4. Resource leveling and scheduling capabilities
  5. Polling or condition-based processing
  6. Business rules-based interface or process customization
  7. Scalability for dynamic market growth
  8. Support for various event services

With the commercial pilot launch of IP-VPN in September 2001, and the full-service commercial launch in January 2002, Our Client has now established itself as the IP-VPN wholesale service of choice for the xSPs and small- to large-scale business enterprise market.