1 Introduction

Oracle Communications ASAP equips telecommunications service providers with a single platform for automated service activation. ASAP receives service requests from any source and transmits the required service activation information to any destination network device.

ASAP's core architecture isolates business semantics (rules and behavior) from technology semantics (interface implementations and protocols). This architecture allows ASAP to handle multiple, heterogeneous network technologies and supports various interfaces, including:

• SOAP/XML

• HTTP/S

• TCP/IP

• Telnet

• SSH

• FTP/SFTP

• CORBA

• LDAP

• TL1

• SNMP

• OSS through Java

Because ASAP complies with accepted international standards, ASAP supports all convergent technology domains with a flexible and customizable repository of service definitions and business semantics. ASAP can activate services on network elements or element management systems.

ASAP offers the following characteristics:

• Flow-through activation – You can enable ASAP's automated flow-through capability directly at the source of the service request. Service providers can eliminate manual hand-offs and provisioning fallout. ASAP allows the configuration of flexible service definitions and business rules. It allows rapid queries of network inventory and access to other operations support systems (OSS) to collect information required for uninterrupted activation. ASAP can handle a range of error conditions to provide flow-through and resilience to service order fallout.

• Convergent activation – ASAP activates convergent service offerings with a combination of Wireline, Wireless, IP VPN, xDSL, and other services. ASAP coordinates bundled service packages with full transaction control. ASAP supports:

  • Heterogeneous requests for service – Service requests can originate from a variety of sources and customer interfaces, including interactive voice recognition, the Internet, kiosks, and customer service agents. For each service request source (including new customer interfaces), ASAP can use the same service definitions, ensuring consistency across all sources.

  • Heterogeneous network support – ASAP concurrently supports multiple types of network elements and multiple software loads within each specific network element. This ensures support for evolving network topologies.

• Transaction control – ASAP transaction control ensures the coordination of requests that consist of multiple services. Transaction control ensures that the service request is activated in the correct sequence on all required network elements. ASAP provides an audit trail of all transactions related to each service request.

  Transaction control is equipped with a rollback option. In case of a failure, you can roll back the changes to restore the network to a known state.

• Intelligent horizontal deployment – ASAP can be deployed to support multiple services in multiple network domains. In a single ASAP system, service providers can expand the number of interfaces to service-originating systems and to network elements. Consequently, ASAP eliminates the need to implement multiple activation systems for different service and network domains.

• Data-driven architecture – ASAP enables rapid introduction of new services and technology. New services, business rules, and network elements can be introduced quickly. ASAP provides a set of APIs and interface development toolkits. ASAP also supports numerous transport and application-level protocols and standards. These capabilities simplify the development of OSS interfaces.

• High availability – ASAP has been deployed in high-availability environments, where service activation operates 24/7 with minimal downtime. Support for these HA environment are built upon intelligent ASAP processing logic that provides automatic process recycling and failover. These ASAP features, along with real application clustering (RAC) integration, minimize downtime.

ASAP Activation Processing Features

ASAP's activation processing features are:

• Flexible error processing – Various return states can be defined for specific network conditions (for example, soft-error processing, retry logic, or delayed errors). A combination of script-driven interfaces and soft-error processing logic allows ASAP to handle different network conditions automatically. This feature reduces fallout that is caused by inconsistent data.

• Scheduling, order relationships, and prioritization – Service requests can be scheduled immediately or for a future date or time. ASAP manages and resolves parent/child relationships to control dependency and activation sequencing. ASAP's built-in prioritization allows for efficient scheduling. Prioritization can expedite requests through ASAP when customer service agents are activating services in real time.

• Network element routing and connectivity – ASAP routes requests to destination network elements and executes the corresponding script on the destination network element through a connection that is automatically established, or through a dynamic connection if required. Connectivity to network elements is based on user-defined communications devices and their parameters, including connection thresholds.

• Audit trails, statistics, and reporting – ASAP maintains detailed logs, audit trails, and statistics of all processing, both system and user-initiated. A reporting option allows the service provider to report against operational, statistical, and configuration data maintained in ASAP. Service providers can use the reports supplied or custom-developed reports.

ASAP Management Components

ASAP's flow-through activation and activation processing features are managed by the following components:

• Activation fallout management – Support for activation fallout management is provided through the Order Control Application (OCA) Client. The OCA Client can be deployed as a standalone application or within a Web browser as an applet.

• ASAP operational configuration – ASAP supports a command-line mode using XML configuration files to configure, update, and view the ASAP operational configuration. This configuration includes ASAP process distribution and network topology. The network topology specifies details of network element IDs, activation routing, communication devices and parameters, and thresholds of automated and transparent connections to network elements.

• ASAP monitoring and control – ASAP enables telecommunications operational centers to configure operational parameters, including ASAP events and alarms. These centers can monitor and manage ASAP operations including ASAP process run-time status, process startup and shutdown, communications device status, and connectivity to network elements, pending requests, and event/alarm acknowledgment.

• Localization capability – ASAP provides the capability to translate ASAP to one or more western languages represented by the 8-bit character set. Items that can be localized include:

  • Activation messages

  • Service command descriptions such as Common Service Description Layer (CSDLs), Atomic Service Description Layer (ASDLs), and so on

  • Operational parameter descriptions (events, alarms)

  • Graphical user interface screens and labels

  • Time, date, and number formats

  The Localization Toolkit is an optional ASAP component.

  
  

  Note: The OCA SDK enables you to localize the OCA client.