OSS-as-a-Service: Managing Operations for Results

A Proven Transformation Approach for Centralized Operations

OSS-as-a-Service is a business and delivery model that offers holistic OSS capabilities through a services partner relationship with CSPs over the term of a multi-year contract. 

A well integrated OSS suite that processes high quality operational data enables CSPs to increase automation and business agility, resulting in improved operational efficiencies, reduced OPEX, faster TTM and enhanced customer experience. Yet, as crucial as they are to CSP operations, the only two viable OSS sourcing options available to CSPs to date were to either purchase a COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) software package and complimentary support services to address back-office fulfillment and assurance processes or, to undertake their own in-house OSS development.

By 2013, Software as a Service (SaaS) had already been growing in popularity within the global IT industry and many industry sectors, but concerns about security and scalability was preventing its widespread adoption in the telecommunication domain. Then in 2014, leveraging on the overall success of the generic ‘as-a-Service’ model and the new  advancements that were being made in access technologies, security features, hosting techniques, analytics and cloud networking, Huawei defined and developed its novel ‘OSS-as-a-Service’ model. OSSaaS now presents CSPs with a very viable and risk-free third option: to swap their OSS solutions from on-premises deployments to this new cloud hosted service delivery model.

OSS-as-a-Service

OSS-as-a-Service is a business and delivery model that offers holistic OSS capabilities through a services partner relationship with CSPs over the term of a multi-year contract.  Huawei’s OSSaaS comprises three layers: The Business Model layer outlines the potential business values that will be generated and defines how those values will be manifested in terms of operational efficiency, customer satisfaction and CAPEX and OPEX reduction.  The Use Case layers elaborate business applications that will address the CSP’s pain-points, so as to create the values defined in the Business Model layer.  Each Use Case provides the means of resolving one or more pain-points and is based on a series of componentized logic that will be delivered through a centralized delivery process. The Cloud OSS layer delivers the OSS software capabilities through private, public or hybrid cloud.

Despite the fact that OSSaaS is still in its infancy, the telecommunications market in general and CSPs in particular are now actively investigating its potential business benefits, operational advantages and cost savings.

As confirmed by leading CSPs, the following values are already being realized through OSSaaS:

• Increased agility to accommodate the specific requirements of new service requirements - A service driven approach accelerates the co-design and co-development cycle of use cases for new service requirements. Additionally, Huawei can often leverage its own Use Case library to rapidly replicate the specific requirements.
• Reduced duplication of investments - a centralized OSSaaS operation and governance model enables the local subnets of large global and/or regional CSPs to share the use of common OSS services and operational processes.
• Predictable investment - the last five years has seen all large CSPs engaged in organization-wide cost reduction projects to maximize operational efficiency and reduce the large CAPEX investments associated with network upgrades and expansions. OSSaaS shifts the software cost to a subscription model, spreading the spending out over the lifetime of the network, scaled to suit the individual deployments. Initial studies suggest that a 15-20% overall cost reduction can be realized through OSSaaS.
• Greatly reduced upgrade cycles - software upgrades are effected either directly within the vendor’s servers or on the cloud and end users are switched over to the latest versions within hours or days rather than weeks and months as is the case with the current legacy model.
• Rapid and elastic scaling - OSSaaS allows CSPs to expand their OSS architecture along with an ever expanding network and to do so quickly and cost effectively.
• Adaptive to new technology - CSPs experimenting with new digital services will need to quickly instantiate new network and OSS functions to support these services without having to make a large CAPEX investment. OSSaaS allows the CSP to quickly bring a new digital service to market for PoC testing and, if needs be, efficiently scale up the operation or fail the service at a minimal cost.
• Software maintained by the vendor - the software remains in the hands of the experts that built it, which allows the CSP to access the invaluable expertise of the vendor’s systems architects.

From Concept to Operations

OSS-as-a-Service has already been offered and deployed globally to several large telecom groups on different continents.

A leading telecom group with 20+ SubNets has selected the Service & Network Performance component of Huawei’s OSS-as-a-Service for all its SubNets across the Middle East and Africa. In this As-a-Service offer, Huawei, applying its comprehensive global practices and use cases, has transformed the customer’s legacy systems to a centralized private OSS cloud that Huawei manages. OSS-as-a-service is helping this global CSP customer improve efficiency and service quality throughout their regional SubNets, reducing capital and operational expenditures while completing the multiple-site transformations in less than 12 months. 

The above-mentioned global customer offered the following comments: ”Creating a distinct customer experience is a main objective for our telecom group. We strive to improve network performance quality and enlist the best partners to help us achieve this," “Huawei is a strategic and reliable partner, and we are delighted to extend the collaboration between Huawei and our Telecom Group from purely communications technology (CT) to also IT. The Huawei OSS-as-a-service really fits our demands through its holistic approach.”

What more can be done

Huawei has created its OSS as a Service solution to cater to CSPs’ requirements for lower total cost of ownership. Deployed as a centralized solution and offered on an ‘as-a-Service’ model, it provides end to end service level management, enabling CSPs to optimize the performance on their networks. The solution also features a development platform on which CSPs can build their own use cases, allowing for a more flexible use of OSS platforms to facilitate the broadening of their services portfolios.

Arguably, the OSS-as-a-Service model provides CSPs with new operational capabilities. Furthermore, its service-driven approach is well suited to accelerate the transformation of OSS to IES (Infrastructure Enabling System), the Next Generation OSS, since the intermediate step to OSSaaS will have already put in place most of IES’ prerequisites in terms of OSS features, processes and skill sets, including:

• deployment of DevOps methods for service development and operations;
• on-going SOA integration of OSS/BSS and IT management systems;
• on-going network integration of existing and virtualized service operations to use common, virtualized ICT infrastructure;
• acquisition of new Enterprise Architect and Development skills

Huawei’s OSS solution is in the unique position of being the first to provide OSSaaS services on the large scale required by CSPs. Its large enterprise cloud data centre network, extensive experience in the area of managed services and large installed base of OSS and BSS customers, position Huawei well for the fast approaching world of OSS As-a-Service.