The Soapstone Networks PNC framework is designed to automate the service lifecycle for carriers and enterprises by providing a comprehensive state-of-the-art multi-layer, multi-vendor dynamic resource and service control plane to manage the complexities between service offerings and applications and the underlying transport equipment and technologies.
One of the primary concerns for a customer is the speed of turning up a new service and managing it through its lifecycle. One of the key capabilities of the PNC is predictability of a service through the entire lifecycle including initial feasibility (i.e., can this service be constructed using available resources) to monitoring (i.e. is the service implemented per the contract). Based on the Quality-of-Experience service parameters, the PNC makes certain the service SLAs are pushed down as a requirement to the transport network.
There are several ways the PNC can be managed:
Although tasks such as configuration and provisioning can be performed through CLI and TL1 commands, most operators require automation. Ideally they would like tasks such as service provisioning to be automated as easy as selecting two end-points, providing the parameters for the service and finding the most optimal way for the service to be implemented. This type of automation delivers a dynamic, service-ready network that can be used to generate new sources of revenue.
Soapstone Networks also provides through its Transport Resource Abstraction Controller (TRaC), an intuitive graphical user interface for customers to manage services (create, enable, disable, remove), examine the state of the network (a visual representation of the multi-vendor topology) and manage individual network elements. TRaC provides graphical software tools to manage and bring operational ease of use to every facet of service provisioning, monitoring and repair, performance, optimization and planning.
One of the key features of TRaC is the ability to discover all nodes available/usable for service construction. It utilizes this data in navigational panes to allow operators to create, unlock (enable), lock (disable), and remove a service through a series of simple steps. These windows include trees and graphical representations of the multivendor nodes, links and paths. The available elements that can be used to create a service are provided in simple to read tables that can be used by the customer. TRaC provides the status of all equipment, paths and services, and conveys the information to the operators through graphical and tabular views that include event and log views, colored status icons on graphical views, status and summary reports.
From this view the user can create, unlock, lock or delete a service at any time as they see fit. create a service profile, define service parameters, monitor topology, and initiate switch maintenance requests. TRaC provides ease of use for provisioning, monitoring, repair, and performance optimization; bringing centralized control to transport through a comprehensive control framework.