© 2017 TM Forum | 1
No green fieldsBuilding agility into the
existing OSS
Christoph Steck, Stefan BrockProduction Strategy
Swisscom
© 2017 TM Forum | 2
Building agility into the existing OSS
No green fields
▪ Convincing the C-level of the value of adopting agile methods internally
▪ Focusing on "quick" value and building our own network IT infrastructure
in an agile way
▪ Being able to follow the innovation and to obtain a maximum range of
possibilities and flexibility within the OSS
▪ Results achieved so far at Swisscom and what we plan on next
© 2017 TM Forum | 3
Agenda
▪ Making change happen
▪ Swisscom context
▪ Value generation
▪ Our vision
▪ Operators engine room
▪ Outlook
© 2017 TM Forum | 4
Making change happen
Precondition for change is
▪ Acceptance of need / existence of threat
▪ Management support on C-Level
▪ Fast and continued showing of value generation
© 2017 TM Forum | 5
Swisscom context
Swisscom as leading network and service provider
▪ New technologies – front runner
▪ High frequency of infrastructure
updates (security, feature rollout, …)
▪ Lack of COTS capabilities
▪ Experienced operations staff
▪ Agile roll-out according to regional
demands and partnerships
▪ Security needs on network edge side / security patches
© 2017 TM Forum | 6
Value generation
Value generation for operations
▪ Security level increased
▪ Speed to bring in new firmware
▪ Ease of use
▪ Support for the day to day operations
Value generation for the C-level management (measurable)
▪ Increased roll-out speed
▪ Reduced operations cost due to automation (less outpayments)
© 2017 TM Forum | 7
The best in the networked world – everywhere and all the time
Our Vision
▪ 85% of all Swiss homes/offices will
have an ultra-fast broadband
connection by end of 2020
▪ Starting April 2015 first customers are
surfing at speeds of up to 500 Mbps
even if they do not have an FTTH.
▪ First telecommunications company in
Europe to enable customers to use
standardized G.fast chipset
© 2017 TM Forum | 8
The best in the networked world – everywhere and all the time
Our Vision
▪ By 2020 investments in up to 120k
new mCANs (micro DSLAMs) - FTTS
▪ Partnering with five subcontractors to
place and connect the devices
▪ mCANs inventory and planning
databases
▪ In peak: rollout of plus 20k devices
per year
© 2017 TM Forum | 9
Net-Near-IT The agile DevOps team in network operations
Operators engine room
▪ Team was established Jan. 2015
▪ Cross functional team with strength in network engineering, operation,
software development and process engineering
▪ About 10 people located in Bern and Zürich
▪ Team is organized in Squads and Chapters
▪ Goal: to automate the network operation business
© 2017 TM Forum | 10
Need for highly automated fulfilment support
Operators engine room
Due to the huge amount of network
elements
▪ automate the whole workflow to
check, upgrade, inventorize and
update the planning DB
▪ fast reaction
▪ easy to use App
© 2017 TM Forum | 11
„Self Fulfilment App“
Operators engine room
▪ To check the fiber as well as the copper installations
▪ To check the consistency between the network and the inventory systems
▪ Due to the fact that Switzerland has several official languages, the app has to support at least German, French, Italian and English
▪ Traceability of all steps
▪ Documentation of all steps and to store all measured network parameter in a database as reference
▪ Increase the efficiency
▪ Simple failure detection within the whole installation process and give guidance to solve the problem
© 2017 TM Forum | 12
Methodology and Approach
▪ Agile methods and best practices we used are:
▪ The development started in Feb. 2016
▪ Gathered the customer requirements on site
▪ Regular on site visits to understand how the field technicians work
▪ First beta version with limited functionality was shipped in March 2016
▪ Gather feedback and improvements regular on site
▪ Rollout with the full functionality was in June 2016 (beta user group)
▪ Improvements and new features added cont
© 2017 TM Forum | 13
Regular on site visits to understand how the field technicians work
Operators engine room
© 2017 TM Forum | 14
Beta in march, rollout with the full functionality was in June 2016
Operators engine room
© 2017 TM Forum | 15
Key Success Factors – close to the users
Operators engine room
▪ Involvement of the field technician's
▪ Good beta users are worth a mint
▪ Fast delivery of new versions
▪ Continuous feedback and
improvement
© 2017 TM Forum | 16
Continuous Improvement
Operators engine room
▪ Due to the extensive logging
functionality
▪ Continuously improve the application
▪ Subcontractors take advantage of the
statistics and advise their staff
accordingly
▪ Offer for special trainings to improve
the quality and performance
© 2017 TM Forum | 22
Next Functions to be implemented
Operators engine room
▪ The health checks supports the monitoring team in their daily job
▪ technical parameters of the mCAN are shown
▪ Color coded values shows the operator which values are within the
allowed limits
▪ All measured values are stored and can be reviewed later
▪ The time stamp and operator, who executed the check will be logged as
well
© 2017 TM Forum | 23
Key Success Factors for Building agility into the existing OSS
Outlook
▪ Agility is a key to the sucess of a carrier
▪ Implementing agility needs change and transformation
▪ C-Level support is mandatory for keeping on track withtransformation
▪ Quick success stories are necessary
▪ Management does consider three month a long time
▪ Continuous story telling and value generation
▪ Include the users and bring value to their daily work
▪ Create a "fan-club of change"
© 2017 TM Forum | 24
Next steps
Outlook
▪ Roll-out of agility
▪ Merger from Dev and Ops Teams
▪ Build Bi-Modale IT
▪ Bring agility in service fulfilment and BSS
▪ Enlarge the foot print on DevOps in network and IT operations