Rapidly expanding telecommunications market requires a carrier to be extremely flexible and ready to handle the ever growing network traffic. Time and again, frequent modifications and monitoring of the network elements configuration appear to be necessary.
Efficient software, extending capability of Network Management Systems and allowing a broad and methodological approach to the network planning, is required to cope with challenges emerging in the mobile networks.

Purpose

Network Configuration Planner is designed for 2G/3G mobile networks to supervise the processes of planning changes in the network configuration and parameters upload to net-work elements. The system enables global planning regardless of the network logical structure, technology of the network elements and Network Management Systems (NMS).
The system does not act as or replace NMS but extends its reconfiguration planning capability for the purpose of network usage optimization and systematical network adjustment to the changing conditions such as new services (MMS), new technologies (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS), roaming services, interconnects, mass events or changes in the structure and volume of customers traffic demands. Configuration adjustment enables to better use the existing network resources, which leads to significant savings on new equipment, as well as to accelerate and reduce cost of work in operators’ Network or Planning Departments.

Planning

The system enables to design several different configuration options, so-called plans, which describe the planned changes in the net-work element parameters. This allows making alternative proposals and choosing the best of them for implementation. The users are given the possibility to compare and track configuration changes and to make the required analyses and simulations. The system stores the history of configuration changes, which enables the users to go back to previous settings.
The action is automated by defining plans’ sequence in which they are supposed to be implemented. The system follows the required sequence based on the relations between the objects allowed for in the plans. The system traces as well any contradictory dispositions, inhibiting the possibility to change parameters modified in other plans. The automatic and immediate notification of all users about the changes made to the plans turns to be a very useful mechanism as well. This way the system cares for data synchronization and their coherence. The application automatically draws up reports or descriptions of changes, which reduces the user’s workload and eliminates errors.
 
Auditing

An audit is carried out to reveal incompatibilities between the actual configuration of a network and the present network configuration stored in the system. It enables to find out which plan orders haven’t been executed or to detect an unplanned change made to the network element configuration. An audit can be carried out either at any time on demand or automatically according to a previously defined schedule. Classes of objects and groups of their attributes, as well as net-work elements to be compared within the audit can be defined on case-by-case basis.
The actual network configuration must be previously imported to the database for auditing purposes. The user does not communicate with the network equipment, therefore does not obstruct its operation. The system is fitted with a scheduled, configurable interface to NMS of any supplier. The data importing process can be configured for a new type of equipment and the commands can be individually modified every time the version of software managing the network elements changes.

Organizing

The system allows using uniform terminology and observing uniform object creation rules in all network elements. Consequently, the description is coherent and uniform, which makes it easier to detect possible errors and defects, as well as areas where there is room for possible improvement.
The system is fully ready to handle new types of services, equipment and new network techniques, which is of vital importance considered the ongoing technology changes and the fast implementation of new network solutions. The system embraces catalogues of reference objects, which may be used and modified, or completed by new elements.
Data presented and processed in the system can be individually classified. The authorization checking mechanism enables to define individual sets of classes and attributes that every user is entitled to modify and the ones they can only view.