By Scott Sumner

Reflecting is not usually the way my day begins, unless I’m camping and waiting for coffee to boil. I usually arrive at the office to a queue of e-mails and tasks, and usually the rest is a blur. But it was a different kind of start Tuesday morning at the VON Conference in Miami: Our panel of three talented, industry thought leaders had plenty of insight on tap. They squared up the state of affairs in Service Assurance (SA), and shared hard-won experience that make the most of substantial investments into service management, performance monitoring and back-office systems of all kinds. By “substantial”, we’re talking millions, an ongoing expense providers pour into their platforms: sometimes just to keep their heads above water, but increasingly to gain a strategic advantage over less organized operators.

So how does an operator monetize and maximize its investments in SA? That’s what we set out to explore, and let me tell you, an hour is scant time for such a subject. We covered the highlights and then some in double time, here is the wrap-up.

Making Money

Generating revenue is always a popular subject, and Matt Herdlein, executive director of Telcordia’s service management portfolio, pointed out that monitoring quality of service (QoS) can lead to new value-added services. By trending performance over a period of time, Herdlein explained, providers gain confidence in their ability to deliver premium, SLA-grade services. Repeatable QoS data seems to be what some providers need to take the leap into a premium services portfolio. Such services are known to deliver 25 to 60 percent more profit to a provider, depending on the level of commitment: Ultra-low latency, jitter and high availability command a higher price than simple packet-loss and basic uptime assurances. Grant Kirkwood, founder and CTO at Mzima, echoed this observation, adding that not only does SA let a provider discover their strengths and develop new products, trending data acts as a powerful track record that shows new customers you’ve got what it takes when courting their business.

Information Is Everything

Having data is good, but real-time reporting and finding the needle in the data haystack is a key to SA delivering on its potential. Rick Schmaltz, VP Business Development at CA, highlighted a subscription Web support and data-mining service offered by Verizon Business that lets customers drill down into their network and application transmission data to perform ad-hoc reporting. Since its introduction, significant uptake shows that enterprise IT departments are willing to pay extra for more information, using insight gained to optimize traffic flow, plan network and data center upgrades, and evaluate and maintain per-application QoS.

Having a real-time customer portal is a differentiator, but proceed with caution, says Kirkwood, since giving customers access to too much data can backfire. He points out that each customer has their own view of what matters, so portals should reflect their needs. So while you would report per-second latency performance to a financial firm, it may not make sense to highlight jitter performance as you would to a video-oriented customer. Even data that shows you’re doing a great job might cause issues. For example, if your SA portal shows rapid switchover to a protected route, a provider would be proud: It’s great to show your network stays up even with a fiber cut. But to some customers, just knowing that protection was required is unsettling, and can even be misinterpreted as a service outage – even if not a single packet was lost.

Portals Save Cash

Although you have to publish with precision, Kirkwood is a firm believer in the customer portal, “The difference between two great providers is often reporting.” A differentiator, but also a path to savings: Customers who know what’s going on log fewer trouble tickets. Since most WAN performance problems originate within the enterprise itself, helping IT staff isolate issues to within their own network can easily cut support costs in half.

If knowing what to report is important, knowing what data to collect from a myriad of network elements, operation support systems, monitoring platforms and databases is critical. As service assurance platforms can be overwhelmed by data, Schmaltz says it’s key to determine up front what metrics are required from the different departments within the provider’s organization, then plan accordingly.

Focus on Integration

Another way to maximize SA investments is to get systems talking to each other. Mzima went through a painful, multiyear, outsourced integration project that exposed the value of focus. “We had 10 systems to integrate, and got nine out of 10 done ten percent of the way,” said Kirkwood. Now the focus is on one project at a time, at least 90 percent complete before further integration is planned.

Schmaltz agrees. “You can’t boil the ocean. You need to stick with the high-revenue projects and deliver results. Providers need to focus on ‘Time to Value’.” Which project first? Kirkwood says Mzima takes a cross-functional approach, where marketing, operations, support and finance review their needs each quarter, and projects are selected that provide tangible returns to the most departments.

While focused objectives are required in the short term, long-term commitment drives even further SA value. Herdlein underlines that in the beginning, building an effective SA platform means getting the basics in place. Building on this framework brings substantial benefits over time, and this is where SA vendors and integrators come into their own and bring out the synergy in the parts.

Getting Our Bearings

So what’s the future of SA? Herdlein says combining consolidated reporting with actionable response will be key as systems and networks grow in complexity. Kirkwood sees a need for long-term trending tools to complement real-time reporting. Schmaltz points out that all of this has to happen from the application layer downward, focusing first on the customer experience, then drilling down through the layers, replacing the network-centric view many operators work from today.

It’s certain that SA is evolving, bringing transparency and intelligence to operators and their customers. Overall, there are many different avenues to making the most out of SA investments, most requiring patience, planning and ongoing effort. Operators that follow this path report countless benefits; SA becomes a strategic advantage that creates revenue, streamlines operations and wins new business.

Scott Sumner is vice president of marketing at Accedian Networks, which provides Packet Performance Assurance solutions that enable carrier-grade, packet-based applications over wireless and wireline networks.