Telecommunications
Cable & Wireless
Tools Used:
IONA's Orbix®, Knight Fisk's GSB™, CORBA®, IIOP™
Problem:
Servicing a multitude of global markets through regional customer management centers, Cable & Wireless sought to provide more global customer reporting. Requirements for the system included the ability to handle large volumes of transactions, seamless interoperability between many diverse third-party systems, external access to the Cable & Wireless CLASS system via the Internet and 24 hour availability.
Solution:
Cable & Wireless Communications, one of the leading global telecommunications companies, will be using IONA Technologies' Orbix®, which conforms to the CORBA specification, in a new trouble ticket management solution. Through Knight Fisk Ltd., a global supplier of customized solutions to the telecommunications industry, Cable and Wireless will use Orbix to enhance their trouble ticket management systems service. Trouble ticket management systems are reporting mechanisms that allow telecommunications companies to monitor any disruptions or faults to their services. The new solution, known as Global Service Broker (GSB), provides a seamless link between Cable & Wireless Global Markets' trouble ticket system, called CLASS, and the heterogeneous trouble ticket systems of national PTT, customer and third party suppliers.
GSB uses IONA Technologies' Orbix to synchronize and distribute trouble ticket data across heterogeneous hardware and application platforms and ensures a homogeneous mechanism for seamless fault tracking. The open architecture of GSB allows Cable & Wireless to access customer and call data from their choice of computing environments, while external customers can connect directly to GSB via the Internet, using IIOP.
"Cable & Wireless' increased activity in international markets led to a greater level of complexity in terms of managing and maintaining a global customer reporting system," commented Vic Brashko, Director, Cable & Wireless Global Markets. "With easy internal and external access to our CLASS trouble ticket system via Orbix and GSB, the accuracy and detail of fault information has improved immensely. The most important feature is the improved response time to customer faults, a factor which will be of immense importance to us as we continue to expand our presence in the global market."
"Given the number and range of Cable & Wireless' requirements for their new trouble ticket system, we viewed an open architecture based on Orbix as the most suitable for this type of development," commented Basil Fisk, CEO of Knightfisk. "Using Orbix as the core technology of GSB, we had the complete suite of tools necessary for delivering a fully integrated system for seamless fault tracking. The Orbix product range, especially OrbixOTM and OrbixCOMet, will allow us to enhance the functionality of GSB into the millennium."
"Increased activity in global markets brought about by the reduction of trade barriers has posed a serious challenge for telecommunications companies' IT systems," commented Noel Toolan, senior vice president of market development at IONA Technologies. "Integrated global customer reporting systems based on proven technologies such as Orbix, have increased in demand as telecommunications companies seek to improve both the accuracy of and speed of response to fault information. Knightfisk's GSB is an excellent example of the type of robust and scalable application organizations can benefit from by incorporating an open, standards-based solution such as Orbix."
|