As networks move towards a virtual environment, it’s increasingly important to associate equipment with physical assets. Proactively creating these relationships allows providers to better understand and troubleshoot the network during planned or unexpected events.

During network interruptions, a provider first logs in to many vendor-specific Element Management Systems (EMS) applications to retrieve data about equipment. Then employees wade through documentation to interpret how the EMS data correlates with the patch panel – and eventually outside plant assets – to create restoration plans for network events. Oftentimes this process is made more difficult because documentation isn’t updated every time changes are made, and doesn’t accurately represent reality.

This ultimately results in longer down times and an enormous manual effort to determine what assets and which customers are affected. Meanwhile, frustrated customers are calling in every minute. In a worst-case scenario, these manual processes and inaccurate data result in costly Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations.

Now imagine if the same provider had a reliable, real time solution for managing equipment inventory from EMS applications. It detects when new equipment is added and tracks when existing equipment is moved or disappears. The solution also connects equipment to outside plant assets to show a digital model of a fully functioning fiber network.

Once this model of the network is created, central office personnel or OSP engineers correlate equipment ports with service endpoints to quickly understand who is affected from equipment alarms and other network events.

With greater network visibility, providers are empowered to solve network issues faster, and reduce their reliance on “single points of failure” in the organization. By automatically updating equipment inventory data and proactively connecting the physical and logical aspects of the network, providers can also rest assured that downtime won’t jeopardize SLAs or customer satisfaction.

 

Interested in connecting your physical and logical network data? Want to see how M4 and Calix can help you proactively manage network events? Contact us today to learn more!