Network Inventory Consolidation

Strategic differentiator for effective & efficient operation of a CSP

Muthukumaravel S Lakshmi Narayanan Raju Mogan A B

Credits Director, O/BSS Delivery Associate Director, O/BSS Delivery Manager, Presales & Insights
 Growing demand for integrated inventory

Telecom companies have been seeking an integrated inventory strategy, which has historically been arduous to
develop. Integrated inventory strategy provides an all-in-one dashboard with an in-depth view of the network, thus
revolutionizing the way telecom assets are operated and maintained.

Integrated inventory strategies can be incredibly complex to develop and implement, discouraging most telcos from
attempting them. Although there is growing demand for this strategy, the logistics involved pose an impenetrable
barrier. However, the industry is changing radically. Consumers growing demand for quad-play, converged services and
the recent M&A trends of CSP’s have triggered the need for consolidation like never before.

In this insight on network inventory consolidation (NIC), MetaSolv is used as an example throughout. However, any COTS
based application can be considered for the NIC program using the accelerators & methodologies mentioned.

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 Three distinct scenarios to help CSPs evaluate the right kind of consolidation strategy

1-Retention of existing inventory system as a master

Inventory Inventory High throughput This scenario is applicable for any CSP,

Scenario 1
System-1 System… OPEX cost savings when any one of the existing system
Choosing Inventory System
Center optimization
an existing can be upgraded to support the current
Data integrity challenges with migration
system Inventory Inventory & future needs of inventory in a single
System-2 High time & effort
System-n instance.

2-Phased migration of diverse inventory system into a completely new master inventory system

State-of-the-art feature rich solution This scenario is applicable for any CSP,

Scenario 2
Inventory Inventory when none of the existing systems can
Choosing Choice of multiple vendor offerings
System-1 System… Inventory System Single source of truth be upgraded to support the current &
a new
Better customer experience future needs of inventory in a single
system Inventory Inventory High initial CAPEX instance.
System-2 System-n High maintenance costs (lacks features for new service launch).

3- SID compliant –E2E consolidation strategy most efficient for tactical planning & operations

TM Forum SID compliant views of inventory This scenario is applicable when a CSP
Order Access Flexible plug & play consolidation strategy

Scenario 3
Management Ordering
Network
Planning
Network Service Network doesn’t want to decommission the
Choosing Engineering Delivery Operations
User experience isolation from underlying data store existing systems considering multiple
a dashboard Sets up the IT stack for Divestiture
factors like cost, licencing, effort &
view Unified Inventory View Portal (Data Virtualization) Expensive to build and maintain timeline but would like to have a unified
Inventory Inventory Inventory Inventory Restricted capabilities may hinder powerful portal view.
System-1 System-2 System… System-n features available in native tools

*Pros *Cons

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 Key accelerators to advance the major phases of inventory consolidation

Following are the set of accelerators which helps in achieving network consolidation in lesser time frame. These accelerators are
only applicable to scenario 1 & 2 of the consolidation strategy discussed in previous slide. Scenario 3 involves consolidated
dashboard view with no changes in underlying inventory systems.

Source
1
Source Staging Target Business
Source 2 DB DB Logic
…

Phases Data Loading Data Cleansing Operational Rules

Accelo-Pro
Agile Cleansing
Accelerators Parser Agent
& Schema
Browser

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 Accelerators to expedite inventory consolidation – Agile parser

Spread sheets
& data sheets By using this generic parsing agent, various data feeds can be
RSS fetched from multiple sources like spread sheets, mark reader, bill
feeds book, data sheets and also from any other home grown inventory
Optical Mark systems.
Recognition (OMR) sheets

Mark Correct/modify data entities at source & target side systems to

Reader QR code reader, surveys normalize the data sets. For e.g. field level update at source system.
sheets, assessments and It's not just combining attributes or unification of equipment's
Agile evaluations sheets various parameters; it’s all about normalizing the data.
Parser
Order entry form, bill Key benefits of parser
Manual book form
Bill Book
MS Excel sheets,
Quality Provides the Home of truth:
converted CSV data enhancement on ability to Decision made
Home Grown source and target seamlessly based on
Inventory From bespoke, data to avoid integrate new qualified data
Systems monolithic systems & data related lines of business with no
prototype models etc.. fallouts into inventory anomalies

A generic parser with ability to read data from multiple domains in any format is key for accelerating inventory consolidation

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 Accelerators to expedite inventory consolidation – Data cleansing agent

Major areas considered for data cleansing in MetaSolv are shown below

Circuits & Network

Equipment Inventory Order As part of data clean up activity, data assessment activity will be
Inventory Inventory performed. The assessment report contains data which violated
predefined standards; with the help of audit reports & existing
MetaSolv procedures, Data cleansing will be performed on the
Data
Ceansing incorrect equipment associations.
Agent
Cleansing agent helps in identifying
Staging Area Translation/ Mapping Business
Reference Tables
Cleansing
& Validation Rules
Scenarios which has data discrepancy issues during status
Rules
Rules correction.
Associations exists to cancelled or disconnected service
Network template and network design mismatches
Cleanse, Cleansed & Transform, Network components, equipment and circuits assigned under
Enrich, Translated Map &
Transfer Data Validate an inactive exchange or network location
Identification of the working path for optical network
Shared components between multiple networks with different
topologies
Rejected Error Rejected Error
Data Log Data Log

Cleansing audit report helps in making cognitive decisions by network planning & engineering team and also supports in innovative business solutions.

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 Accelerators to expedite inventory consolidation – Accelo-Pro

‘Accelo-pro’ is a tool majorly used during the migration of inventory data from one MetaSolv Solution (MSS) version to
another MetaSolv Solution (MSS) version, however it can be enhanced to support non-MSS based tools with customization.

Standalone consolidation
scripts for NIM entities
Operational Inventory Equipment
Rules System-1 Site Circuit

Inventory
Accelo-Pro
System-2
Shortens
Transformation Schema Browser Development
Inventory
Rules Time
System…
Entity
Rule Shortens
Inventory
Analysis Time System-n

Inventory System -
Consolidated

Key Accelerators: Schema Browser, Accelo-Pro, Reusable Consolidation Scripts (30% Faster Conversion)

Schema Browser Accelo-Pro

- Study the data & its relationship recursively - Decomposing elementary level DB & domain level objects
- Identifying master table dependencies by greatly reducing analyzing time - Set of reusable scripts, specific for inventory migration
- In-house development tool, takes less development time

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 Recommendations for efficient inventory consolidation exercise

Best Practice

Fallout Mitigation Pending Order Agile Vs. QA Validation

Strategy Strategy Waterfall Strategy

Established SLA levels based
on business criticality of fallout
Dedicated Level-2 & Level-3
support
A clear handbook for handling
erroneous orders quickly
Escalation matrix for
expedited support on fallouts
Volumetric analysis of pending
orders by type
Pending order conversion
automation
Flexibility to change order
queue size dynamically helps to
strategize pre-processing &
post processing of order flow
Manual retrigger support strategy
for migration orders from point of
failure in lower volumes
Waterfall model of execution
works best, in simple system to
system migrations
Agile frameworks like scaled
agile is useful with increasing
complexity of migrations
Execute Systems Integration Test
(SIT) at pre & post conversion
based on business scenarios
Have CSP business units
to execute & validate user
acceptance test (UAT)
Performance test is critical for
bulk data load and for mission
critical systems

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 Business & operational benefits

Benefits of accelerators during migration phase

90% reduction of manual effort during analysis phase More accurate

migrations

40% reduction in development effort Faster

migration

Benefits of post inventory consolidation

Lesser impact
on business
70% reduction in system downtime

More visibility/controls
90% reduction of efforts in reports generation on the project

Drives down
80% reduction of efforts in fallout management overall cost

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