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Product Overview
Copyright © JEDIS Limited 2001. |
| Introduction | |
| Product Description | |
| IT Application Architecture | |
| Host/Domain Implementation |
The PASCOLÒ product is designed and purpose built for the Telecommunications, Service Provider industry. PASCOL is an acronym for Provisioning : Activation & Service Configuration - On Line. Historically, an Service Provider (SP) will engage Information Technology resources to implement an array of computer systems for provisioning of customer related Telecommunication Services. Provisioning typically covers Billing, Order Management and Activation. The interaction between such systems can be automated. However, it is this interaction and implementation thereof that is a huge cost, be it primary and on-going to the SP. PASCOL simplifies this Provisioning interaction much less reducing costs by ;
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| Product Description | |
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The PASCOLÒ product is best described as an "Black-Box" application. That is to say, for most part there is NO Desktop client, interactive application to use. PASCOL consists of plugable off-shelf interface modules to External Client & Network Element systems, an Activation Engine and a Windows Desktop application used as an administration tool for core PASCOL. The same tool, GAT can also act as a client provisioning tool. An Open Source Framework subsists for the core interface componentry. |
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The
components of PASCOL are illustrated in the diagram left.
Move the Mouse pointer over a part of the diagram and then Click to "go to" the relevant PASCOL component notes. |
| The Activation Engine (AE) is a
suite of Unix ä or NTä
Server applications processing Telephony based Service Requests (SR) . An
SR originates from an array of Client system Plug-In Interfaces. The AE
delegates the SR to servant components of the AE which in turn interact
with Network Element(s) or other core, intra AE components. The Server
based applications collectively are bound to a designate operating
environment referred to as a domain.
There can be several domains running on a specific host platform or spread over an array of host platforms. The AE offers a variety of SR in : Network Element Management, Telephony Service Configuration, Client and NE Plug-In Configuration come inherent Translation properties, Telephony Service (TS) Requests via a Service Order or explicit TS implementation type. The AE positions itself to take advantage of this multi domain/host framework in offering ; |
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CRM/OMS & Billing Plug-In Interfaces to the Activation Engine.
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The Client system Plug-In Interfaces to the AE are purpose written for PASCOL and are supplied as off-the-shelf components. Each Plug-In is installed on the client server system or on the PASCOL host platform(s) for whatever domains are specified. The Plug-In interface covers TS Requests; configuration thereof and in a bi-directional mode |
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Network Element Plug-In Interfaces to the Activation Engine.
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The Network Element
(NE) Plug-In Interfaces to the AE are purpose written for PASCOL and are
also supplied as off-the-shelf components. The NE modules are either TMN
compliant with associated Q3 interfaces or purpose built for PASCOL, for a
given NE Technology and relevant software revision.
For TMN, the component modules can be supplied by the NE vendors or 3rd party software suppliers. The important issue is they're purpose ready to go, available on a range of hardware platforms.
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| Microsoft
Windows 32 bit Desktop applications.
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PASCOL provides
desktop application(s) that ;
This application is called Generic Activation Tool (GAT). GAT has in-built user/user-group TS functionality as if a Client Plug-In. The presentation layer for the end user is generic to any TS independent of NE.
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| Published
Open-Source interfaces.
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PASCOL, through its CORBA IDL framework, publishes interfaces for ;
These interfaces can be used for either WEB and/or Wireless based applications.
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The PASCOLÒ product IT architecture is based on a distributed, Object Orientated component model. At the core of PASCOL is a CORBAä hub, providing a messaging abstraction layer for hardware and software language interoperability. PASCOL by default is written in C++ with MFC extended for the Windows Desktop. The default CORBA ORB is OmniOrbä licensed from ATT Research and Oracle. However, PASCOL is written for Object Request Broker (ORB) independency and other ORBs such as Orbix from IONA or Visibroker from Inprise can be substituted on demand. |
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PASCOL has been ported to the following UNIX platforms :
Also, PASCOL will run on Microsoft NT, releases 4 & above. |
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PASCOL core infrastructure |
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Move the Mouse pointer over a part
of the diagram and then Click to "go to" the relevant notes.
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This diagram does NOT show the distributed host/domain features of PASCOL |
| The Client System Platform | The
Client Systems Plug-Ins' interfaced to PASCOL come in four different
architectural flavours ;
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| The PASCOL Platform. | The PASCOL Platform constitutes
the "Activation Engine" and appropriate NE / Client interfaces ;
Configuration of Telephony Services used both internally and externally,
Telephony Service Requests, General purpose Operation, Administration,
Event/Alarm and NE Management.
At the hub of the Activation Engine is a suite of UNIX or NT server programs. This suite is referred to as the Request For Service (RFS) Servers(s).
The RFS Server offers two forms of interface :
The RFS components are defined as :
PASCOL is CORBA aware and abstract for ORB product selection and IIOP request marshalling.. Various interfaces are published in Interface Definition Language (IDL). An Domain and Host manager components exist to manage intra Domain and Inter Host data deployment and appropriate migration. For performance, scalability and persistancy an Name Service/Load Balance controller component exists per host. PASCOL is database independant using implementations of either Sybase, Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. For Telephony Service configuration PASCOL abstracts data types not defined by database vendors. These data types are specific to PASCOL and are referenced by known data types when maintaining Telephony Service Requests. PASCOL data types, referred to as "Object Definitions" can be stored externally to the Database Vendor physical respositories, if so desired.
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| The NE Platform. | The Network Element Platform is
explicit to the each NE Vendor. PASCOL is designed to make use of Vendor
supplied interfaces in an off-the-shelf manner leaving the NE Vendor to
concentrate on core Telephony offerings without the need to fret over
Telecommunications software OSS implementation. PASCOL covers a full TMN,
Q3 interface as well as providing a feature rich development tool-kit and
work bench.
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| Open-Source Framework | There are three avenues of custom, IT bespoke interface to PASCOL. These exist at the Client Plug-In, the core Activation Engine and the NE Plug-In. All interfaces are abstracted by an CORBAä Interface Definition Language (IDL) framework. Supplement to the IDL is a suite of custom written code modules used by the actual client or NE system. This source is freely available in an Open-Source community framework. The PASCOL product maintains this source at a revision level ; should any development be undertaken care must be taken to reapply changes to the main-stream product suite. It is possible for "customers" to incorporate changes to the main-stream Client or NE interfaces. |
The PASCOLÒ product is designed for High Availability, distributed network implementation. Using the PASCOL framework several instances can be run in parallel ; each instance, referred to as a Domain can be used for explicit Client or Network Element interfaces. Each Domain is fully aware of each and every other domain. A Domain may span several Host Platform(s). A Host may contain several Domains. A Domain may share it's servant resources (eg Databases) with other domains irrespective of host(s). Generally, a single Development host will contain two or three Domains ; for development, System/Function Test and Pre-Production come Training. In addition another Production host will contain a single Domain. For continuation of operation, reduction of error in migration of new or updated Telephony Services, PASCOL introduces on-line migration of "service" between domains without incurring any Planned Outage. PASCOL also enables on-line access management of Network Elements across domains accommodating multi-point addressing and connectivity. A Client System Plug-In can address any domain and can be routed to servant domains automatically pending security and configuration. A Client System Plug-In can step through domains, host inclusive pending a Hardware related fault and/or O/S high-availability fail-over. A Client System application instance can be bound to a single PASCOL domain or be able to address many domains. Examples of PASCOL Host and Domain implementations follow. |
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Production : Single Host & Domain. Development : Single Host, Multi-Domain Single Client Plug-In, Multi-Domain addressing [ Multi-Host Cluster ] |
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Production : Single Host with Development Domain H/A. Development : Single Host, Multi-Domain with Production Domain Split Multi Client Plug-In, Multi-Domain bindings. [ Multi-Host Cluster ]
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| High Availability
The framework of PASCOL is built on an JEDIS product framework called J-FORCE® . J-FORCE® is designed using distributed, interoperative components irrespective of the target, implementation architecture(s). J-FORCE accommodates Hardware Vendor (eg. SUN, HP, IBM, MS) Operating System, High Availability (H/A) offerings by complimenting their products. J-FORCE thus PASCOL is written to leverage 7x24 H/A off such products as HP MC Service-Guard and SUN Cluster. PASCOL is written for true, 7x24 real-time High-Availability. |
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JEDIS
Limited Email: angela@jedis.co.nz
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