A Business Continuity Solution for Telecommunications Billing Systems
Andrew McCormack · ePublications at Regis University (Regis University) · 2008
The billing system is a critical component in a Telecommunications service provider's suite of business support systems - without the billing system the provider cannot invoice their customers for services provided and therefore cannot generate revenue. Typically billing systems are hosted on a single large Unix/Oracle system located in the company's data centre. Modern Unix servers with their redundant components and hot swap parts are highly resilient and can provide levels of availability when correctly installed in properly managed data centre with uninterruptible power supplies, cooling etc. High Availability clustering through the use of HP MC/ServiceGuard, Sun Cluster, IBM HACMP (High Availability Cluster Multi-Processing) or Oracle Clusterware/RAC (Real Application clusters) can bring this level of availability even higher. This approach however can only protect against the failure of a single server or component of the system, it cannot protect against the loss of an entire data centre in the event of a disaster such as a fire, flood or earthquake. In order to protect against such disasters it is necessary to provide some form of backup system on a site sufficiently remote from the primary site so that it would not be affected by any disaster, which might befall the primary site. This paper proposes a cost effective business continuity solution to protect a Telecommunications Billing system from the effects of unplanned downtime due to server or site outages. It is aimed at the smaller scale tier 2 and tier 3 providers such as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) and startup Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) who are unlikely to have large established IT systems with business continuity features and for whom cost effectiveness is a key concern when implementing IT systems.