Telcotec Professional Services
Telcotec provide support and consultancy services for MINSAT to Ericsson Charging System projects worldwide. As a major part of the original design and implementation team, and continuing to be intimately involved in the on-going development of MINSAT as a prime contractor, Telcotec are best placed to provide specialist support to Ericsson personnel.
Whilst Telcotec provides development, design and support expertise to the Ericsson Product Development Unit (PDU) in Karlskrona, Sweden, Telcotec Professional Services was formed to provide general consultancy support to the PDU, Marketing Units and other Ericsson divisions worldwide.
MINSAT is unique in the Charging System architecture. Its role as the Administration Node means it is the front-end to the rest of Charging System and interfaces to many other parts of the distributed Charging System. This means that issues originating elsewhere in Charging System, may actually manifest in MINSAT first. For this reason, it is critical to have the correct expertise on-hand to “drill-down” to the real source of the issue.
Telcotec works closely and integrates completely with the Ericsson project delivery process. The following services illustrate some areas where Telcotec has successfully supported Ericsson.
Support for Migrations
When Ericsson Customers migrate from other administration nodes to MINSAT in the Charging System, it can be a high-pressure time for all involved. The sales cycle is complete; the systems are installed and the customer is watching closely. The customer will require minimum downtime while the migrations are in progress, and insist his customer care ability is undiminished.
Telcotec provides specialist support for the MINSAT node, supporting the Ericsson project managers in planning the migration. Most problems in migrations can be mitigated by prior testing and analysis so this is immensely important for the success of the migration. Telcotec can then support the engineers during the migration either on-site or remotely. Having this support to hand, lessens the risk that an issue could cause the migration to be rolled back and re-scheduled.
Support for Installations, Upgrades and Expansion
The lifecycle of a MINSAT node within Charging System is that it is initially installed and upgrades are applied as required. The MINSAT node within Charging System is carefully specified to support a particular number of subscribers so if it reaches the limit of its initial configuration it must be expanded to support the next level of subscribers.
Telcotec provides specialist support for the MINSAT node, supporting the Ericsson project managers in planning the installation, upgrade or expansion and then supporting the engineers during the activity either on-site or remotely. Telcotec can help ensure that new MINSAT installations are ready to meet the customers “go-live” or “cutover” date. Telcotec Professional Services can help ensure that upgrades and expansions require the absolute minimum downtime. Telcotec can also help ensure issues are resolved within the downtime window and so minimising the risk of having to roll-back and re-schedule.
Support for Performance Analysis and Audit
The pre-paid market is different in every country and each operator uses MINSAT differently. Telcotec can analyse how MINSAT is responding to the operator’s environment and ensure it is tuned and configured to respond optimally.
For instance some operators have a heavy provisioning requirement, others have reporting as a priority, and others have specific DR processing requirements.
Sometimes an operator does not have specific requirements but wants to ensure his MINSAT node is operating correctly, for example to assist in capacity planning. Telcotec can provide a full audit of the system and produce a comprehensive report.
Support for Monitoring
Issues that cause major outage of a MINSAT node usually do not happen instantly; they build up over a period of time. Most operators do not have staff trained to monitor MINSAT daily and so these issues can be missed.
Monitoring of the MINSAT node by Telcotec engineers can identify issues before them become critical. Then Telcotec can recommend remedial measures to be taken while the issues are still easy to fix.
Monitoring can be implemented to cover any important customer activity; for instance, a sales promotion where subscriber activation is expected to be high. As the subscriber base grows, it’s important to see that MINSAT is coping with the increased load.
Monitoring can also provide vital information for capacity planning allowing the customer predict when an expansion is required, rather than trying to react as the system becomes overloaded.
Remote System Management
A logical complement to Monitoring is Remote System Management. While Monitoring can highlight issues with MINSAT and Telcotec can make recommendations to resolve these issues, some operators do not have the skills in-house to implement these recommendations. Busy Ericsson account managers and project managers may find themselves under pressure to release skilled engineers from other tasks. By working closely with Ericsson engineers, Telcotec can help them deliver excellent support to their customers.