| issue
highlights |
June 9, 2008 | A Penton
Media, Inc. Publication |
feature
Using KPIs to optimize the network
June 9, 2008, by Rich Karpinski
More than ever before, service providers need to treat their network --
and its performance -- as a competitive asset that needs to be mined
and
exploited for all it is worth. That means not only monitoring and
maintaining the network for optimum performance, but also generating
data on network and service performance and passing it along to sales,
marketing, finance and customer service to help improve the overall
business and drive new service innovation and revenues.
An emerging best-practice approach for making the most out of network
monitoring and optimization is to identify, measure and manage to key
performance indicators (KPIs) at both the network and service level.
One approach to KPI-driven management, according to Gaurang Kalyanpur,
director of service marketing at test vendor Tekelec, is to focus on a
measure-manage-monetize model for network operations. Operators must
first identify, along with key operations and business stakeholders,
the
most important KPIs for not just optimizing the network but overall
profitability as well. Processes must then be put in place for
collecting and validating that performance data. Finally, the KPI data
must be shared across the organization to help improve the business.
Click here or scroll down to read more of this
feature
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Using Key Performance Indicators
to Improve Your Business
A critical step in managing and evolving your network and business is
to
identify and measure the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The
purpose of KPIs is to give an operator quantifiable metrics deemed
important for long-term profitability from operations. Tekelec’s
Service Management solution is being used by operators worldwide to
monitor their multi-vendor, multi-protocol networks.
Learn more.
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Leveraging Signaling Information to Alleviate Many of the Problems
Confronting Operators Today
Operators can leverage network wide monitoring systems to collect
signaling information for the purpose of generating “xDRs” -
Call/Transaction/Session Detail Records. TDRs offer a wealth of
information that service providers can turn into lower costs, higher
margins and improved network performance. Learn more by attending
Tekelec’s “Using KPIs to Optimize the Network” webinar.
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June 9, 2008
Telephony talked with Patrick Kelly, analyst at OSS Observer,
about how service providers can best leverage key performance
indicators
(KPIs) and key quality indicators (KQIs) to better monitor and manage
network performance.
Click here or scroll down to read more of this
interview
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June 9, 2008
Measure-Manage-Monetize Model: Let the three Ms drive you. Identify the
most important metrics; fine-tune network instrumentation and
collection
processes; share data across the organization to impact business -- not
just network performance -- results.
Click here or scroll down to read more of this
sidebar
|
Best Practices for Monitoring Hybrid Networks
It is increasingly difficult for operators to manage performance data
from individual systems to get an end-to-end view of QoS and subscriber
experience. Tekelec’s Performance Management solution supports all of
the requirements for monitoring hybrid networks: KPIs; multi-protocol
and multi-technology; real-time and historical data gathering;
drill-down capabilities; end-to-end network visibility and call/session
tracing. Learn more.
|
June 9, 2008
More than ever before, service providers need to treat their network --
and its performance -- as a competitive asset that needs to be mined
and
exploited for all it is worth. That means not only monitoring and
maintaining the network for optimum performance, but also generating
data on network and service performance and passing it along to sales,
marketing, finance and customer service to help improve the overall
business and drive new service innovation and revenues.
An emerging best-practice approach for making the most out of network
monitoring and optimization is to identify, measure and manage to key
performance indicators (KPIs) at both the network and service level.
One approach to KPI-driven management, according to Gaurang Kalyanpur,
director of service marketing at test vendor Tekelec, is to focus on a
measure-manage-monetize model for network operations. Operators must
first identify, along with key operations and business stakeholders,
the
most important KPIs for not just optimizing the network but overall
profitability as well. Processes must then be put in place for
collecting and validating that performance data. Finally, the KPI data
must be shared across the organization to help improve the business.
“As networks evolve and subscriber demand for new services grows, the
key thing to do as a service provider is to get a view on the
end-to-end
quality of your services -- is my network behaving properly?” said
Kalyanpur. “That’s today’s key business problem: How do I supply
the best customer experience and make the most money from the
network?”
Because most networks are made up of equipment from multiple vendors,
too many operators have a “keyhole view” on network and quality of
service, Kalyanpur said. “An individual piece of equipment is looking
at ‘How am I doing?’ and ‘How am I performing?’ and not how the
network is doing as a whole.”
Indeed, without KPIs in place, operations lacks the early detection
system they need to understand what is really happening on the network.
Once a node is flashing, a link is likely already down -- the only
solution is purely reactionary: take corrective action.
To counteract that view and put an early warning detection system into
place, operators need to build and manage to networkwide key
performance
indicators. Those KPIs need to be driven not just by traditional
network performance metrics, but rather must be an integral part of
what
the business wants to derive out of these KPIs.
One way to construct a networkwide solution: deploy monitoring systems
that pull signaling data -- and not individual equipment performance
data -- from live calls traversing the network. Such monitoring systems
can generate call, transaction and session detail records that can be
used to calculate business-focused KPIs.
Some concrete examples can put the issue into focus. For instance,
it’s not enough just to set alarms to watch for traffic overloads on
a
particular SCP, or service control point. Rather, the operations,
customer service and business side need to understand when a traffic
overload is likely to affect the customer experience -- in this case,
most likely via a dropped call -- and instrument the network to provide
a clear indication of when network performance could trigger that
dropped call KPI.
Properly defined KPIs can even help resolve trickier business
challenges. For instance, consider the problem of improperly cloned
wireless SIM cards. To combat such a problem, an operator could set up
a
KPI that looks for higher than normal spikes in update location
messages
-- indicating that a particular user triggering that KPI is likely
using
the network improperly.
The key to such examples is that no one department -- and certainly not
just operations -- can define all the KPIs to address all the potential
business challenges and opportunities. Says Tekelec’s Kalyanpur:
“The entire KPI process flow has to be defined across the business
otherwise KPIs are of no use.”
In the end, monitoring by KPI is absolutely crucial for carriers to
thrive in today's more competitive environment.
"It might have been OK to offer Internet and possibly VoIP services at
the best of a service provider's ability in the past, since customers
are more tolerant of poor phone or Internet services. However with the
triple-play services coming into the scene, poor quality of IPTV is
simply not going to work," said Olga Yashkova, analyst at Frost &
Sullivan focusing on test and measurement. Today, "so-called 'reactive'
attitudes toward network performance issues are no longer
acceptable...KPIs should be one of the first business requirements
followed by the technical team to figure out how to meet them and
measure them."
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| in the spotlight
(full-length) |
June 9, 2008
Telephony talked with Patrick Kelly, analyst at OSS Observer,
about how service providers can best leverage key performance
indicators
(KPIs) and key quality indicators (KQIs) to better monitor and manage
network performance.
Is defining and optimizing for network KPIs a widely accepted best
practice today?
It is being done for the most part, based on my discussions with
service
providers, mainly internally and less so in terms of pushing KPIs out
to
customers they are supporting. There are a few exceptions, such as for
business data services, where metrics are needed to warranty the
service. But it’s more about ensuring an overall service for the
customer.
Who is defining and working with the KPIs?
Metrics mainly get viewed by operations, but the longer-term trend is
to
push that data into other parts of the organization, such as customer
care, so they can have visibility into the overall experience of the
customer and get ahead of potential problems. There’s also a push to
deliver that data right out to the customer, push it out to a Web
portal
so an enterprise, for instance, can see when certain cell sites are
down
and anticipate any problems. If they have access to that information,
they can push it out to their users and get fewer calls into the
support
center.
What are the KPI metrics that should be measured
The basic metrics are obvious and focused on the network: availability,
latency and overall performance. Going forward, there’s an interest
in
looking at the performance of the applications or value-added services
being offered. In that case, you need to develop new metrics beyond
those basic network KPIs.
What’s driving the market, beyond KPIs or KQIs, is the need to come
up
with ways to quantify the service being offered to a customer. The
bigger issue is really that when advanced services are introduced, the
components delivering that service are more complex. You need a way in
which you can collect the relevant data, put it in a format that is
usable not only by operations but, via a drill down-style dashboard, by
other parts of the organization as well.
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June 9, 2008
Measure-Manage-Monetize Model: Let the three Ms drive you.
Identify the most important metrics; fine-tune network instrumentation
and collection processes; share data across the organization to impact
business -- not just network performance -- results.
Start Small: Pick a manageable set of services and a subset of
the customer base. Define the metrics that matter to those customers
and
begin managing to those KPIs. Then expand to more services, more
customers, more sophisticated metrics.
Bring In the Business Side: Bring in marketing, sales and
customer support on the front-end to help define key service-oriented
KPIs; then, figure out a way to flow that data back to them to complete
the service quality loop.
Focus on End-to-End Service Performance: Multi-service networks,
run on equipment from multiple vendors, tend to create silos of
performance data. Operators need to collect data from across the
network
to optimize service performance (the alternative is to over-architect
the network, thus increasing costs).
Key Metrics: For measuring in-network performance, key
indicators
include: Answer Seizure Ratio (ASR), Network Efficiency Ratio (NER) and
Average Length of Call (ALOC). Also measure partner SLA performance in
the form of interconnection performance indicators and application
performance trends.
KPI Don'ts: What characterizes a "bad" KPI?
Things such
as:
-
not managing to sufficient level of detail
-
not managing network-wide
-
not managing across departments
-
not being proactive, triggers should anticipate both
problems and
opportunities
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Using KPIs to optimize the
network
