The uSEP™ Platform
AmberNet was founded to capitalize on the Service “revolution” that is taking place as a result of three main contributing factors:
- Ubiquity of broadband networks (fixed and wireless),
- Network convergence, and
- Convergence of Telecommunications and Information Technology.
The convergence of telecommunications networks into an all IP network is already well underway. This convergence is making it possible to think about networks in terms of the services they provide, rather than the capabilities of the underlying switching and signaling elements. At the same time, the Information Technology industry is excited about Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) due to the ease with which it is possible to implement complex business processes to support new applications and services. When the network becomes another service or set of services, it is possible for a telecommunications service provider to rapidly design, develop, trial, and deploy a multitude of new, innovative, and differentiated services that generate new revenue streams. In this new world, the Services that are possible are only limited by the provider’s imagination. Service Providers will be able to create new services tailored to each geography, demographic, culture, religion, ethnicity, etc. Instead of one killer service or application, there will be many successful applications over time. The killer application won’t be the service itself, but the software and infrastructure that will make this possible. In response to these opportunities, AmberNet has created an innovative Service Fulfillment platform. AmberNet’s Universal Service Enabling Platform (uSEP™) is an extensible platform that is targeted to solve the Service Fulfillment problem in an industry neutral fashion. It is targeted at Communications Service Providers (CSPs) and IT Infrastructure Providers implementing virtualization solutions using vmware technologies. It must be noted that due to the convergence of IT and Telecommunications many CSPs are already offering virtualized IT services.
uSEP™ is a pioneering Service Fulfillment system that consists of the sub-components: uCare, uProvisioning, and uActivation, with supporting modules for Service Inventory (uSIM), Resource Inventory (uRIM), and Product/Service Catalog (uCatalog). uSEP™ empowers customers and dramatically improves customer service by providing a Rich Internet Application (RIA) accessed using any Web browser, ensuring that the services and required resources are available, and delivering requested services in real time. This results in significant convenience for your customers, dramatically reducing operating cost, all while accelerating your service revenues.
A Complete Turnkey Solution!
AmberNet’s uSEP™ solution ensures that you create and deliver your services in a consistent, flexible and reliable manner. The solution provides complete customer care, service provisioning, and multi-technology service activation. A highly intuitive GUI allows you to maintain, manage, and monitor your: Product and Service catalog; Orders, including but not limited to Customer Orders, Product Orders, Services Orders, and Activation Orders; Service and Resource Inventory; and system-wide business processes. Open interfaces allow easy integration with existing applications and network technology domains.
A Highly Flexible, Scalable and Adaptive Platform
uSEP™
Comprised of highly scalable and adaptive modules which can be deployed individually or all together. Based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles, each component exposes a Service that simplifies integration. Integration into legacy architectures is also supported through plug-in connection cartridges. uSEP’s major components include:
uCare
Provides both CSR assisted as well as external customer access for universal service ordering and account management using an RIA accessed via any Web Browser. Supports flexible/customizable Business Process Management (BPM) for Customer Ordering, defined using uSEP Designer & managed through the uSEP Console.
uProvisioning
Provides flexible and adaptive order management and workflow orchestration using a catalog-driven approach. The Order Decomposition & Aggregation (ODA) sub-component utilizes various catalog mappings to flexibly decompose/aggregate higher level orders into lower level orders and vice-versa. uProvisioning allows rapid definition and management of provisioning business rules, defined using uSEP Designer & managed using the uSEP Console, and assists in reconciling jeopardy and service fallout conditions.
uActivation
Provides real time activation of downstream network elements, element management systems, hosts, or virtual machines using adaptive PacketDriver cartridges. Provides flexible and adaptive activation orchestration of commands across multiple downstream elements. Activation orchestration is defined using uSEP Designer & managed using the uSEP Console.
uCatalog
Provides easy to use templates to define, browse, modify and maintain individual products & services that are being offered. It provides the ability to bundle multiple services into specific and unique product offerings. It defines the mappings between various Product, Services and Resource specifications and characteristics.
uSIM
Provides the database of record for all services and maintains a complete history of all service activity by individual customer.
uRIM
Provides the database of record for all network inventory and resource allocations such as IP addresses, VLAN’s, switches, and ports.
uSEP Console
Provides a GUI for uCatalog, uSIM, uRIM, all flavors of Orders and Processes, Manual Tasks, and Fallout Management.
uSEP Designer
Provides a GUI interface for designing and deploying custom business processes, specific to the product or service being provisioned.