InNovation

Christos Georghiou / Fotolia.com

Network Services

Automated Configuration Management

for Radio Access Networks
The Configuration of the Mobile Networks especially of the Radio Access
Networks (RAN), is becoming even
more complex for the Network Operators, due to the introduction of new
technologies. Open solutions are
therefore essential, as they can be easily adjusted to new conditions and
they have in focus the most important
KPIs, like Time-To-Market, Network
Quality and Operational Efficiency.

The Network Operators are already

very well equipped with solutions in
the area of Network Assurance, Network Optimisation and Service Monitoring. These areas are covered very
well with standard SW provided by different ISVs (independent Software
vendors). But especially in the area of
Network Configuration there is a gap.
It is the basis for an efficient network
construction and extension as well as
the integration of new technologies
and therefore is the basis for an economic network with a reliable quality.
However the complexity and versatility
of the network configuration can hardly be mapped to a standard SW.
Although the Mobile Network technologies themselves are very much standardized within 3GPP (3rd generation
partnership Project a worldwide cooperation of standardization committees for the standardization on the
mobile Radio, especially for UMTS,
GSM, and LTE) they only describe an
abstract, vendor independent model of
the parameters and data model. If
there are about 100 to 150 parameters
in the 3GPP recommendations, a few
thousands would be required for the

configuration of network elements

from a specific network vendor. Many
vendors of equipment have already
tried to fill in this gap in different approaches. But vendor specific solutions
will never be able to handle the borders between different systems.
Therefore a configuration solution for
the entire network has to be able to
handle multi vendors as well as multi
technologies.
The pain with home-grown
in-house developments
Some operators fill in the gap themselves by counting on tools made by their
in-house IT-departments. These kind
of tools (very often based on excel and
hundreds of different scripts) are
mostly quite costly and very soon they
reach their limits in terms of productivity. The reason for that is mostly the
fast development of mobile technologies, for example the introduction of
new SW releases and features into the
network. Also with a swap of the RAN
vendor all these tools become unusable and have to be re-built for the new
equipment. Furthermore these solutions are often realized as pure oneway concepts, with the drawback, a

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InNovation

Network Services

Mobile radio still on the rise

Even high admissions from 700 upwards couldnt stop the stream of visitors to the Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona: A new record of 72.000 visitors from over 200 countries shows
the big and still growing importance of
the topic of mobile radio. One of the
central areas of growth is especially
the M2M-technology (machine to machine). According to a study, that was
released by the telecommunications
Cisco, the global mobile data communication will increase from 2011 to
2016 by an 18-fold to 130 Exabyte per
year.

Geographical view

configuration of the network is possible, but no recirculation of the consisting network information to the planning data is possible. Especially the
functionality of an overall Live-Network database is of an invaluable use
to ensure network quality. It makes an
alignment with the network planning
data and therefore the network configuration quality audit is possible at
any time. MicroNova succeeded in developing a Best-Practice-Solution with
CPCM, now for more than 8 years, always in close co-operation with the
customer. CPCM is versatile (MultiVendor, Multi-Technology), flexible and

independent of any network equipment provider (NEP). The software solution can be adjusted to the individual
needs and processes of the network
operator. Existing systems in the area
of radio and fixed network planning or
other OSS can seamlessly be integrated into CPCM. The solution unifies the
view on often heterogeneous regional
network and management structures
and allows the introduction of a central
database for overall data comparisons.
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Ingo Bauer

For further information please refer

also to the interview with Prof. Dr. Mathias Gabrysch.

R a d io
Planning
Too l

Con figu ration ch an ge s

Eith er via GU I or im port
inte rfa ce

V end or spe cific

configura tion
file s (xm l or
m m l)

CPCM
CPM
C om m o n N etw o rk
Plan n in g M an a ge r

C o n fig
A rch iv e

S m a rt
D e lta

C o m m o n N etw ork
C on figu ra tio n M a n ag er
Live n etw ork
c on figu ra tion

G SM , U M TS,
LT E

Tran sport Pa ra m eters to

be prov ision ed to Ra dio
De vice s

Inve ntory /T ransp ort C onfigu ration

RAN
Ele m en t
M an a g er

CCM

O ptim isa tion

u pda te s
S ele cte d Tra n sport
Pla nnin g Pa ra m eters for
con sisten cy c he cks

Ingo.Bauer@micronova.de
www.micronova.de/
netzmanagement/
loesungen/cpcm

N etw ork O ptim isation

3 GPP Ra dio
plan nin g
p ara m eters

Network Services

T ran sp ort
C o nfig u ration
T em p la te s

InNovation

Network Services

Interview with Prof. Dr. Mathias Gabrysch from Huawei

on Radio Network Configuration Management
InNOVAtion: Mister Gabrysch, in
your position as Director Wireless Marketing Western Europe at Huawei you
speak to diverse Communication Service Providers (CPSs) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), in Europe.
Sure Radio Network Configuration Management is a frequent topic. Which
challenges do your conversational
partners see in this connection and
how do you handle these?

unification of the network parameters

across different technologies to simplify the configuration. In this way we
could harmonize the configuration management of the network, no matter if
it is 2G, 3G or 4G.

Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: One of the biggest challenges is without doubts to

launch new technologies like LTE in
wide areas as fast as possible and in
good quality and simultaneously modernise and manage legacy network
technologies like 2G and 3G. We can
assume that every network operator
conducts at least one software update
per technology in a year, so 2G, 3G
and lately also 4G. As most operators
have at least two vendors in the radio
access domain, these are about six
Software-Releases per year. Each release has first to be tested and then
integrated into the existing network
architectures by different interfaces.

Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: New releases

should get into the network as fast as
possible to activate important features
from which the mobile radio network
operator expects competitive advantages. Existing parameters changes and
new ones occur with each softwarerelease. This had an impact on the different systems, that are in connection
with the network-equipment through
interfaces. To make everything work
smoothly after a software upgrade, a
lot of systems have to be able to communicate precisely. Therefore a very
good project management is needed
on all sides. Every parameter, which is
being changed in a network element,
means development effort for the connected systems of MNOs and the
Third-Party-Solutions. Huawei has
been working continuously and in
close cooperation with different MNOs
and MicroNova on a simplification and
stabilisation of these interfaces. Developers at MicroNova and Huawei have
been for example exchanging ideas via
videoconferences to identify difficulties
already in the process of development
and not only during the test and to get
these out of the way. Therefore the
test cycles could be held short and the
costs low.

Thus it is evident that operators constantly have to rebuild, reconfigure and

optimise their mobile radio networks.
At a certain network size this becomes
very difficult if not impossible without
efficient tools, as the amount of configuration parameters and dependencies are not manually manageable any
more.
In any case the complexity is increasing. This is even more the case, if
there are high requirements towards
network quality, which is becoming
more and more important for operators not only in Europe but in many
other markets as well. In the last years
it has become a trend to choose one
vendor for all technologies, from 2G to
4G, per geographic region. Huaweis
trend-setting SingleRAN network architecture allows to speed up further
time-to-market. At the same time we
have permanently been working on a

InNOVAtion: How important is the

cooperation between the particular
vendor, Huawei and MicroNova in this
context?

InNOVAtion: The LTE-Standard promises significant simplifications for the

configuration of mobile radio networks
thanks to so called self-organizing networks, short SON. Where do you see
the limits for SON and the necessity of
a continuous configuration Management?

Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: Self-organising

networks allow for an increase in efficiency making it possible to manage
more complex networks with the same
or reduced staffing level. If we have a
look at todays mobile networks, we
will find 2G and 3G networks almost
everywhere and in many countries
even commercial 4G networks. Other
than estimated a few years ago the
2G-network lives on. Many operators
have even been doing a modernisation
of the legacy 2G-network in the past
few years.
Therefore the network architecture
hasnt really simplified, and the complexity has even been increased with
the introduction of LTE. Instead of two
parallel operated networks, the providers have to handle three networks.
But technology doesnt stop after the
introduction of LTE: To cope with the
increasing demand for data bandwidth, many operators are already introducing small cells; these are smaller radio cells, which supply the mobile
users with bandwidth at Hot Spots
like city centres, shopping malls or at
major costumers premises.
In addition to the existing Radio-Access-Technologies like 2G, 3G and 4G,
different layers or levels like Macroand Microcells are added. The architecture is getting more complex all
the time, but still has to be as efficient
as possible. SON features will play a
more and more important part in the
future, to relieve the network operators from routine work, for example
the care for the relationships between
neighbouring cells. However we have
to be aware of the fact, that SON can
only replace certain standard operations for many others we will still need
the experiences of operators. SON is
currently still concentrating on the 4G
network, although there are already
approved standards to expand the
SON functionality to 2G and 3G. Limitation might appear if system borders
are crossed, like for example to configure parameters consistently between

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InNovation

2G, 3G 4G and across the borders of

the different network equipment providers (NEPs).
InNOVAtion: Which advantage will
arise for the operator with the use of a
Multi-Vendor Configuration Management System?
Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: Independent
Multi-Vendor Configuration Management Systems allow for example to
perform consistency-checks over system borders. Each vendor is excellent
to configure his part of the network
and control for example the consistency of parameters but as soon the operators have to carry out adjustments
above the system borders, for example Hand-over-parameter between 2G
from vendor A to 3G from vendor B,
inconsistencies which might have negative impacts on the network quality
can occur easily. The same also applies
for borders between geographical regions, for example region south of vendor A and region north of vendor B. A
Multi-Vendor solution makes a consistent view on the parameters possible,
no matter if they are from vendor A or
vendor B.
In addition to quality improvements a
vendor independent tool allows for the
fast and network wide setting of parameters. It supports the operators in
the efficient conversion of specific actions like the Re-Homing of Base
Stations between different controllers
or the exchange of network elements
of two different vendors, the so called
SWAP.
InNOVAtion: Nowadays MSPs are facing a very tough competition between
each other. The cost pressure includes
all sectors and levels. This also has an
impact on the network infrastructure:
Existing and installed hardware and
transmission capacities have to be
used at their maximum. Which challenges does this pose for the configuration management?

Network Services

Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: The demand for

data required by smartphones and in
general by mobile internet access
seems to have no limits. Many operators want to make usage of their investment into spectrum and dont
want to waste a single Kilobyte of possible data capacity. Its logical that a
network has to be optimally configured, to ensure a maximum of data capacity.
However, it is not easy to identify possible capacity bottlenecks early enough
to take counteractions such as optimisation of the existing capacity or adding new hardware. Operators need
efficient tools to monitor possible
shortages in time.
InNOVAtion: The technological development in the area of the mobile radio
network is going faster and faster. At
the moment the mobile radio operators are still busy with the rollout of
the new LTE technology and at the
same time LTE advanced is already
looming. Which arrangements do the
operators have to take in your opinion,
to integrate the next step of technology in their existing processes?
Prof. Dr. Gabrysch: Despite of the
ongoing technological developments I
dont expect drastic changes in the
network architecture in the next three
to five years. New technologies like 4G
replace the existing ones like 2G only
very slowly, if at all. As a consequence
there will be even more technologies
in parallel, which can be managed at
the best with a constant or even reduced staffing level. This is only possible
with an increase in efficiency with the
help of the right tools and processes.
We see this trend already with the introduction of LTE: Operators that have
invested into an efficient tools chain
will have competitive advantages for a
faster and efficient rollout of new technologies, because here also counts:
The early birds catches the worm.
Time to market is essential in this
competitive environment.

Prof. Dr. Mathias Gabrysch

Director Wireless Marketing Western
Europe Huawei