BharatNet Network Management System (NMS)

The mammoth BharatNet Fibre Network depends on C-DoT’s indigenous NMS platform to monitor performance and flag incidents

As one of the world’s world’s largest rural broadband projects, BharatNet aims to provide high-speed digital connectivity to every village and rural area of the country.

Its aim is to bring Internet and broadband connectivity to the 2.5 Lakh Gram Panchayats and cover 6 Lakh villages with high-speed communications networks. This high-speed digital connectivity will be the foundation for the digital economy. It will be provided over optical fiber backbones. BharatNet aims to make digital inclusion a reality and will transform rural India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy. The core technology that was deployed for the first two phases of BharatNet was GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network).

It is an access network technology, over which bandwidth is offered to Telecom Service Providers, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), LCOs (Local Cable Operators), and government agencies. so that they can extend their services from block to gram panchayats and beyond by providing other technologies like FTTH (Fibre To The Home), WiFi, etc.

Given the huge spread and complexity of the BharatNet Fiber Network, it is critical to maintain the network KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and ensure customer service continuity. CNMS (C-DOT Network Management Solution) is an indigenously designed and developed Network Management Solution from C-DOT that monitors, manages, and provisions TSP’s / ISP’s networks with Multi-Vendor, Multi-Technologies.

CNMS uses an indigenous CSMP (Customisable Service Management Platform) Framework, which is a readily available core engine from C-DOT to support the development and customization of OSS products.

BharatNet NMS and UNMS (Unified NMS) are the customized products from CNMS to provide end-to-end solutions to BBNL.

BharatNet NMS was implemented in Phase 1. It consists of GPON technology from multiple vendors and monitors the network operations in 1.25 Lakh Gram Panchayats.

BharatNet UNMS was implemented in Phase 2. It consists of State-led NMSs along with BharatNet Phase1 and satellite. It provides a state-of-the-art web interface to monitor multiple network technologies like GPON, MPLS, Satellite, and Radio covering Multiple vendors like ITI, UTL, Alphion, Tejas and TCIL, etc., that are involved in providing the services through the BharatNet network across India.

BhartNet UNMS keeps monitoring the PAN-India network continuously and presents a unified view of the entire network displaying the live status of the network with a location hierarchy so that the field operatives and NOC operators can view and take corrective action as soon as a fault data/alarm is presented in their respective location.

C-DOT has also captured all of this in a MobileApp that gives a view of the network status on the mobile. It automatically assigns the Trouble Tickets (Dockets) to a field operator, indicating network faults, fiber faults in their area so that the operator will take immediate corrective action and thereby reducing MTTR, OPEX, and maintaining the SLAs.

BharatNet NMS – Key Features

BharatNet NMS (CNMS) is a fully-featured, vendor, and technology-agnostic solution suite that supports the complete Service Fulfillment and Service Assurance capability. Standard REST APIs provide integration with the BSS (Business Support Systems) systems such as the Order Management system, Trouble Ticketing, Billing component, etc.

The CNMS Service Assurance Platform provides Fault Management and Performance Management capabilities, playing an important role in ensuring efficient operations. A key component in this is the topology-aware Root Cause Analysis module, which in tandem with Service Impact Analysis, rapidly identifies services that could be affected as a result of network outages. The Performance Management System along with the Service Quality Management System provides an efficient framework for service quality management and improved customer experience.

The CNMS Trouble Ticketing System is an ITILv3compliant Help Desk solution whereby an Alarm/failure can be tracked from initial reporting to a closure-driven approach to proactive issue identification and time-bound SLA-driven problem resolution.

The CNMS Dashboards and Reporting Management module provides various reports for Inventory, Fault, Performance, Service Provisioning & Activation, and Trouble Ticketing. The Web portal provides a single sign-on for NOC (Network Operations Centre) users to access the CNMS applications. CNMS can also be accessed via a mobile-based application on both Android and iOS platforms. CNMS uses an indigenous CSMP (Customisable Service Management Platform) Framework, which is a readily available core engine from C-DOT to support the development and customization of OSS products.

• Dashboard

A dashboard is a tool presenting the network information of equipment status. It keeps track and informs whether the systems are “up” and working or “down” and out of service. It flags the reasons for equipment being “down”. Tickets are raised and tracked. Graphs, charts, and reports, with time series and trend analysis help visualize the status. (An illustration below, based on dummy data)

• Fault Management System

C-DOT Fault Management system is an IT system for managing network failures. This state-of-the-art tool quickly identifies, isolates, diagnoses, and helps to resolve all critical network issues that are affecting the network performance. This aims to ensure that services are up and running continuously without interruption.

C-DOT Fault Management System is based on TMF e‐ToM standards and is useful for all telecom technologies like Optical, IP, MPLS, wireless, etc.

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• Trouble Ticketing System

C-DOT Trouble Ticketing System is an ITIL-compliant docket management system that provides a mechanism for raising tickets on Network Faults, QoS Faults, and SLA Violations in the system. The system tracks and manages the life cycle of all the dockets/tickets for faster resolution and restoration of the faulty conditions in the network.

• Messenger

Messenger is a product that effectively and instantaneously sends network faults and performance conditions as and when they occur to network operators/concerned persons via various communication channels ( SMS and Email ) so that corrective measures can be taken and network effectiveness is restored.

• Fiber Management

The fiber Management system is an application to efficiently manage and monitor fiber links, joints, and splitters in optical networks. It has features for configuring, provisioning, fault monitoring, and reporting on fibers. It raises tickets on fiber faults/alarms.

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The fiber Management system is also used to Configure End to End Fibers (OLT to ONT) along with the configuration of passive elements and represent them in a graphical display for ease of management at the operator's end. It also does root cause analysis for identifying probable segment’s fault. The operator can configure required fiber details using this application.

• Network Services Management System

Network Services Management System provides a centralized monitoring and management framework for the telecom network services provided by TSPs to their B2B and B2C customers. It provides a generic framework where telecom network services can be modeled/designed and configured for services of access networks, core networks, and backbone networks.

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• Performance Management System

C-DOT Performance Management system is aimed at a wider audience, from small LANs, SMBs (Small to Medium businesses), and large corporations. The software focuses strongly on monitoring the performance of infrastructure and services.

• Telecom Asset Management System

C-DOT TAMS (Telecom Asset Management System) is an application to manage any type of telecom equipment life cycle i.e from their purchase to disposal. It manages the end‐to‐end life cycle management process from procuring physical assets through Purchase Order to installing & commissioning, verification, re‐location, Operation & Maintenance, AMC, and repair/scrap.

• Business Enterprise Bus

C-DOT Business Enterprise Bus is an application to provide a central access point for managing enterprise APIs, providing a mediator between internal and external services, systems, and devices. It gives an abstraction layer for the O&M data which simplifies and facilitates interaction and integration of systems for business processes.

Business Exchange Gateway (BEG) is an abstraction layer that simplifies and facilitates interaction and integration of systems for business processes. It absorbs the changes and provides conversion and generic modeling of data exchanged between systems. The data producer can extend available APIs as per their syntax, semantics, and processes.

The consumer system gets data as per the requirements of O&M and maps it to their own user interface. It can also cater to business logic that an enterprise wants to bring in during data exchange insulating both its NMS and third-party systems from integration issues.

• BharatNet MobileApp

BharatNet Mobile App is a Mobile Application that is a lightweight smarter NMS solution to reduce the OPEX of the network. The Mobile App helps the field operators to view all the pending tickets for which the operator is responsible, as soon as the ticket is created and enables them to take corrective action at the earliest. This will reduce the Operational delays and help in the faster restoration of faults to keep the MTBR lower.

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It provides a bird’s eye view of the network status to the higher management with complete drill-down features. The higher management will be able to get the required status faster along with the failure reasons if any.

Dr Raj Kumar Upadhyay1

By Dr. Raj Kumar Upadhyay

Dr. Raj Kumar Upadhyay, Executive Director, C-DOT

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