The End of OAM: Alerting & Alarming in the Cloud

The growth of virtualization technologies, supported by cloud services, is radically transforming the way communication networks are delivered and managed. These emerging developments (virtualization and the cloud) are destined to replace traditional solutions in much the same way as IP telephony will ultimately replace traditional phone services, and has led to the creation of new services (unified communications (UC) for example) not initially foreseen.

The advent of network-management services delivered in the cloud lies among such trans-formative, emerging developments.

New technology comes with new terms. When the new language leaves us feeling lost, left out, or left behind, it helps to realize the updated vocabulary often refers to things we are actually quite familiar with — making them sound more fashionable, modern and, well…cooler.

What we used to think of (simply) as an Internet application, hotmail for instance, became software as a service (SaaS), and now…cloud services.

The Edge has come to mean… all the networking devices, functions and capabilities located between networks:  for example, the demarcation region between a service-provider network and a the subscriber network (corporate LAN)— in other words: customer-premise equipment (CPE).

What was once known in networking as an element management system (EMS) is now (a part of) edge orchestration.

And so on.

(Actually, edge orchestration is much bigger than just element management. It incorporates network management tools, automated CPE and service provisioning, and especially, intelligent automatic up and down-scaling of network capacity — plus a lot of other stuff we won’t go into here — all delivered as a unified, cloud-resident service platform.)

Still, as Burt Patton, EVP at Patton Electronics, put it:  “Virtualization and SDN [software defined networks] are re-defining the way network operators deliver services and operate their networks.”

In the current market climate, operators are replacing their traditional network architectures with software-defined networks (SDN). The centralized network operations center (NOC) is fast-approaching extinction, as are dedicated hardware-based, subscriber-premise monitoring devices.

By providing automated subscriber on-boarding and provisioning as part of its full-service, life-cycle orchestration solution, the Patton Cloud, is one engine pulling that train into the next station.

Patton Cloud makes conventional element management systems obsolete by delivering virtualized OA&M (Operations, Administration and Management/Maintenance) services.

Recently expanded and enhanced with element status, statistics, faults, alerts, and alarms, all these services can be delivered from the Patton Cloud to technical support teams wherever they are and on any device:  be that in a car, at a desk, on a tablet or mobile phone, or working in a NOC or telco central office (CO).

Quoting Mr. Patton again…

Now, Patton layers alerting and alarming onto its edge-orchestration solution,  making the edge even smarter.  A smarter edge means near-instantaneous actions and reactions can be performed in response to to real-time data.  The Patton Cloud can monitor any parameter of a smart edge device and any aspect of a service that traverses the edge.  All the functions and services the cloud provides an be automated, including alerts, alarms, monitoring reports, and  network responses to such real-time data — including automatically re-configuring devices and network elements in real time.

By replacing costly NMS, EMS, alarming, monitoring, and troubleshooting systems with a comprehensive, virtualized solution, the Patton Cloud lowers capital expenses and operational overhead otherwise incurred when rolling out and running an All-IP communications or UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) offering.

WATCH the VIDEO TUTORIAL:
Patton Cloud Alerts and Notifications

Need to back up a little?
You can learn about the Patton Cloud in this video introduction:

What do you think?

• How has the advent of cloud-based element management changed the game for telco service providers?
• What do you consider the most valuable aspect of a cloud-based tool for All-IP carriers?

About the Author: W. Glendon Flowers, Product Marketing Manager at Patton Electronics Co. Glendon is responsible for creating corporate marketing and technical content including press releases, web copy, white papers, case studies, educational and tutorial pieces as well as other publications. He serves as editor in chief for Patton’s email newsletter and other outbound communications.