White Papers

SwitchTerm^TM by CyberAccess, Inc.
A family of solutions for telecom operations portals
By William D. Vasu
bvasu@cyberacc.com


For more than a decade, CyberAccess has been the leading provider of enterprise portals used to access telecom switches (super computers that connect local and long distance calls) and operations support systems (OSS’s)(computers that maintain and monitor the health of the network between switches). Our original product, SwitchTerm, has become the de facto standard in the mission-critical network operations centers (NOC’s) of essentially all of the major wireline telecommunications service providers in North America.

CyberAccess’ SwitchTerm software provides access to and automation of complex step-by-step procedures required for the 24/7 operation of the telecom switches and OSS’s. It does so with unmatched speed, accuracy and stability. Users can automate complex administrative tasks using SwitchTerm’s powerful scripting language and function key mapping features. The resulting captured processes create libraries of legacy access protocols (best practices) available for use throughout the organization. Another unique feature of the SwitchTerm platform is its convenient workgroup policy administration which allows custom configuration of the features and options available to a group or subgroup. The result is a desktop toolset specifically focused for each task worker.

SwitchTerm has over 15,000 licenses issued to date. It is sold as both a standalone product to North American telecoms and, under OEM contract, as a front-end for network equipment supplier systems sold worldwide. The platform for our original SwitchTerm product is the X Window System under AIX, Solaris, HP-UX and Linux. While still generating sales, it has begun to approach the end of its life cycle because 1) it is already dominant in its market, 2) it is stable and essentially bug free, and most importantly 3) its platform limitations do not permit the enhancements needed to drive significant additional value in new releases.

Several years ago we recognized that a broader base of client platforms would be needed in our target market. To keep pace with these changes, CyberAccess retooled its code base, rewriting it from the ground up utilizing platform-independent Java^TM technology. We accomplished this while still maintaining our powerful and familiar interface. Particular research and attention was given to maintaining the same Quality of Service (QoS) for which SwitchTerm has set the standard. The result is SwitchTermJ^TM, which permits switch and OSS access through any network-connected Java-equipped device, anywhere in the world. Because it can be easily deployed as a server launched applet, SwitchTermJ is also an ideal component application for the IBM Service Delivery Platform architecture currently being deployed in the telecom vertical.

CyberAccess’ final step in bringing its full SwitchTerm vision to market is now being completed with the migration and integration of SwitchTerm functionality into NOCPilot^TM. This product embeds SwitchTermJ functionality in the heart of IBM’s new Workplace Managed Client (WMC) being introduced in the telecom industry in the next few months. In this new framework we can, for the first time, fully enable the productivity gains associated with combining “systems access workflow” with the “human process workflow” now available via the collaboration tool API’s. Bidirectional access to both types of data and methods allows true “integration-on-the-glass.” In this powerful environment, the user can preconfigure a personal layout of role-based applications and make it available at any enterprise seat regardless of display device. This powerful meta-desktop is a perfect fit to administer the agile, ever changing enterprise that telecom has become.

Our vision is to establish this meta-desktop as an industry standard. Within this framework, network element and OSS providers can enable their particular control interfaces to be effortlessly integrated, on demand, into the larger business architecture of their customer’s service delivery needs. At an even higher level, the Managed Client API framework and shared services stack can be written to and exposed within these interfaces if customer demand drives a requirement for such very tight integration. NOCPilot integrates with the full suite of IBM Workplace collaboration tools and, through such tools as Activity Explorer, enables a new level of transparency throughout the enterprise.

In the early 1990’s SwitchTerm facilitated a paradigm shift for our customers. We moved them from command line green screens to workstation GUI’s with integrated and process enabled legacy system access. In like manner, NOCPilot introduces the rich power and capability of the IBM Workplace Managed Client platform to the mission critical NOC desktops. This new NOCPilot environment permits human processes to be fully integrated and mappable in concert with machine processes. The resulting fully-orchestrated workflows allow telecom professionals to create a new generation of best practices protocols. Business process measurement and monitoring tools, as they are surfaced in the IBM Workplace Managed Client, will make the package an even more valuable choice. This represents a quantum leap in productivity and performance for NOC’s and has potential to be deployed, with compelling ROI’s, beyond the NOC’s throughout telecom.