Friday 29 February 2008

eTOM - Business Process Framework for Telecom



I’ve been craving to write for long on Telecom as I understand it from my experience in the domain over the past (close to) 1 year.

The Telecom Business has two aspects to it:
1: Services – Connecting people and providing High Quality common services to ALL Members of the society at a low cost.
2: Equipment – The Network Elements eg: switches, wires, handsets etc

There has always been a guiding principle to run any Business. That guiding principle is a Business Model / a Framework so here I reproduce information about eTOM that I have come across.

The eTOM:

The NGOSS (Next Generation Operations Systems and Software) Business Process Framework is represented by the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map, also known as (eTOM). The eTOM Business Process Framework is the ongoing TM Forum initiative to deliver a business process model or framework for use by service providers and others within the telecommunications and related sectors of industry.

The eTOM Business Process Framework represents the whole of a service provider’s enterprise environment. The Business Process Framework begins at the Enterprise level and defines business processes in a series of groupings. The Framework is defined as generically as possible so that it is organization, technology and service independent and supports the global community. At the overall conceptual level eTOM can be viewed as having the following three major process areas:
1: Strategy, Infrastructure & Product covering planning and lifecycle management
2: Operations covering the core of operational management
3: Enterprise Management covering corporate or business support management

The process structure in eTOM uses hierarchical decomposition, so that the business processes of the enterprise are successively decomposed in a series of levels. Process descriptions, inputs and outputs, as well as other key elements are defined. The eTOM process modeling depicts process flows in a vertical swim lane approach that drives end-to-end process and process flow-through between the customer and the supporting services, resources and supplier/partners.
The Framework also includes views of functionality as they span horizontally across an enterprise’s internal organizations. For example, managing customer relationships spans an enterprise from marketing to ordering to billing to after-service support and follow-on sales.
In particular, eTOM provides the Business Map for NGOSS and is a prime driver for business requirements to feed through from the NGOS Business View to the System View and eventually intothe NGOSS Implementation and Deployment Views. The focus of eTOM is on the business processes used by service providers, the linkages between these processes, the identification of interfaces, and the use of customer, service, resource, supplier/partner and other information by multiple processes.
The eTOM Business Process Framework can be used as a tool for analyzing your organization’s existing processes and for developing new processes. Different processes delivering the same business functionality can be identified, duplication eliminated, gaps revealed, new process design speeded up, and variance reduced. Using eTOM, you can assess the value, cost and performance of individual processes within your organization.
You can facilitate your relationships with suppliers and partners by identifying and categorizing the processes you use in interactions with them. In a similar manner, you can identify the all-important customer relationship processes and evaluate whether they are functioning as required to meet your customers’ expectations.

Thursday 28 February 2008

21 Days!! Are U Ready??

He is handling more than half a dozen businesses right from telecommunications to entertainment from energy to wireless services and yet has Fitness marked Bold in his agenda. Anil Ambani is my MAN of the MOMENT!

And why?? you ask, cause he is the only soul who has enabled me to wipe out that myth saying “I have a job to do and I am way too busy to have fitness as a part of my daily routine”

None of us normal professionals has more on our plates than he does – so wasn’t it reason enough for us to feel motivated to set out time to trim those waist lines pump in some energy and get enthusiastically started out with the ME TIME 1st thing in the morning! There’s more to it than just being able to run a marathon I’m sure.

I’ve felt the energy levels soar, my spirit being uplifted, that sudden spring in my walk and that freshness resonating from my complexion and yet I have allowed my exercise regime to be discontinued owing it to the variations in temperatures and a 17 other things which are truly irrelevant.

Like they said “Where there’s a Will there’s a Way!!” But the will goes missing in 2 weeks and so does the way! I get back to my lethargic self trying to get on with a mechanical way of doing things and blaming it on circumstances that I do not find time – when the truth always is - all my time was spent oversleeping!

So here I pledge –

“I am going to take great pains for the next 21 days starting tomorrow the 29th of Feb to 20th of March to wake up each morning, put on my fitness gear and hit the ground running!”

Why 21?? Well it’s got nothing to do with Ganesha! J It takes 21 days to develop a Good Habit. If you can do it 21 days in a row you can do it for all days beyond that. Persisting for 21 days is a challenge and I have taken it up --- Have You??

Wednesday 27 February 2008

WebSphere Message Broker

WebSphere Message Broker is a powerful information broker that allows both business data and information, in the form of messages, to flow between disparate applications and across multiple hardware and software platforms. Rules can be applied to the data that is flowing through the message broker in order to route, store, retrieve, and transform the information.

WebSphere Message Broker offers the following features:

Universal connectivity
– Simplifies application connectivity to provide a flexible and dynamic infrastructure. Routes and transforms messages from anywhere, to anywhere.
– Supports a wide range of protocols, for example, MQ, Java Message Service (JMS) 1.1, HTTP(S), Web services, file, and user-defined protocols
– Supports a broad range of data formats, for example, binary (C/COBOL), XML, industry (SWIFT, EDI, HIPAA, and so on), and user-defined formats
– Supports interactions and operations that allow you to route, filter, transform, enrich, monitor, distribute, decompose, correlate, and more.

Simple programming
– Message flows process and route messages. A message flow contains a series of connected nodes that have the required integration logic that is used to operate on messages as they flow through the broker.
– Message trees describe the data in a format independent manner.
– Transformation options include graphical mapping, Java, extended SQL (ESQL), Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), and WebSphere Transformation Extender.
Operational management and performance
– Extensive administration and systems management facilities for developed solutions
– A wide range of operating system and hardware platforms supported
– Performance of traditional transaction processing environments
Support for adapters
– A collection of software, application program interfaces (APIs), and tools in WebSphere Business Integration Adapters that enable applications to exchange business data through an integration broker. WebSphere Business Integration Adapters rely on JMS messaging.
WebSphere Message Broker contains a choice of transports that enable secure business to be conducted at any time and any place, providing powerful integration using mobile, telemetry, and Internet technologies. WebSphere Message Broker is built upon WebSphere MQ and therefore supports the same transports. However, it also extends the capabilities of WebSphere MQ by adding support for other protocols, including real-time Internet, intranet, and multicast
endpoints.