Effective CPE management tool for service providers

NETvisor's Home Network Manager (HNM) is a comprehensive CPE management platform which enables broadband service providers to manage, configure, activate and upgrade these devices without customer interaction. The platform fully supports DSL Forum's TR-069 CPE management standard. Building on this standard the HNM platform provides the necessary and efficient management platform for the mass deployment of 3Play and next generation IP services on the xDSL broadband infrastructure.

Major services of HNM:

• Configuration management:   Unlimited number of configuration profiles can be created. Existing profiles can be modified; changes are replicated to every CPE associated with the modified profile. Bulk configuration changes are supported in an efficient and scaleable manner. CPEs are notified about configuration changes through TR-069 Connection Request messages. The platform automatically detects and corrects damaged CPE configurations caused by the customer or CPE firmware problems. Preserves configuration changes made by the customer. Only the parameters that specified by the service provider in the configuration profile are overwritten.

• Firmware management:   The platform supports automatic CPE firmware updates. More than one firmware version can be associated with a certain CPE type, the firmware is selected based on the associated configuration profile. This feature allows CPE firmware selection based on required features.

• Performance management:   Extracting diagnostic and performance monitoring data from the CPE is supported at the DSL, ATM and IP layer. Collected diagnostic and performance monitoring data can be accessed by external reporting applications.

• Northbound interfaces:   The HNM platform has a northbound interface that makes it possible to connect to existing BSS and OSS applications: customer care systems, provisioning automation systems and technical inventory data synchronization systems.

• Web based GUI:   Clean and ergonomic web based GUI for the easy administration of the platform. The GUI is based on the emerging AJAX technology that enables creating web based GUIs with rich client features and without the disadvantages of the current web technologies.

• Authorization and authentication:   The ANMS HNM platform has a fine-grained multi-level role-based authorization system. Operator authentication and authorization can be configured through an LDAP server. ANMS HNM has a scalable and robust multi level system architecture that can be efficiently scaled to any number of managed CPEs. High availability is provided through clustering and/or using virtual IP addresses. The platform was designed from the ground up based on DSL Forum's Multi-Service Delivery Framework for Home Networks initiative. The platform contains the following modules:

• Central management module: is responsible for the management of device types, configuration profiles and firmwares. The platform always contains one instance of this module.

• Device management module: is responsible for the management of the CPEs. It supports all of the functionality of the Auto Configuration Server defined in the TR-069 standard. The deployed platform can have multiply number of device management modules, which allows for various topologies.

• Supported devices:   ANMS HNM is a CPE vendor independent solution that allows for service providers introducing new CPEs in less time and effort, which in turn accelerates time to market with new next generation IP services. The ANMS HNM platform supports any fully TR-069 compliant CPE. Partially compliant CPE are also supported, but the development of integration plug-in could be necessary.