End-to-end service availability support: Theory and application
Abhaya Asthana, Robert S. Blake, Richard D. Jordan, Reza Shafie-Khorasani, Daryl J. Steen · Bell Labs Technical Journal · 2010
To ensure that Alcatel-Lucent solutions deliver the end-to-end service availability and quality expected by service providers, new capabilities are required to model, measure, and evaluate the robustness and effectiveness of the solutions over their lifecycles. This paper describes the implementation of a proactive end-to-end service availability support platform that meets the needs above for network technologies and services such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV). Key innovations include a model that predicts end-to-end service availability across an entire solution, near-real time secure collection and centralization of all available network and service data, and a data model that derives the critical end-to-end service availability metrics from this data. These three elements were combined and implemented. The platform enables operations staff to receive early warning indications of impending issues with each service. It also helps technical assistance centers to rapidly troubleshoot critical problems. We present lessons learned from practical application of these methods to IPTV solutions.