Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia renewed and extended the terms of an operations support systems interoperability initiative (OSSii) agreement that is designed to simplify the integration of mobile network management systems.
In separate, related, statements, Ericsson and Nokia announced that an updated memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the three vendors extends the scope of the OSSii into the fields of management and orchestration (MANO) interfaces, IP multimedia subsystems (IMS), and virtualised network functions (VNFs).
Ericsson explained that the new MoU builds on the terms of an agreement signed by it, Nokia and Huawei in May 2013 that was designed to promote interoperability in OSS equipment produced by the three vendors and other equipment manufacturers. Such interoperability aimed to deliver benefits to service providers including simpler network operations, lower overall integration costs, and faster time-to-market for new services.
Deals signed by the founding partners since 2013 mean that the OSSii today includes ZTE, Ascom, Cisco, Netscout, and Anite among its participants.
Bhaskar Gorti, Nokia Applications and Analytics president, explained that the vendors expanded the scope of the OSSii "to new areas so our customers, who run multi-vendor networks, are able to easily introduce IMS services and virtualised functions in multi-vendor OSS environments."
Ericsson's head of network analytics at its network management product line within its business unit Cloud and IP, Martin Sillen, also talked up the benefits of multi-vendor interoperability in the Swedish vendor's statement. He added that Ericsson is "committed to building on the success that the initiative has already achieved to help operators optimise their network operations and meet the demands of the networked society."
Information on the OSSii website reveals that the original MoU signed by Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei was based on the principles of openness, fairness, reasonableness, and non-discriminatory treatment.
The most recent deal covered by the initiative was signed by Huawei and Netscout in April, and saw the Chinese vendor open access to its OSS systems for Netscout's TrueCall geoanalytics platform.
For more:
- see this Ericsson statement
- view this related Nokia announcement
- read this OSSii backgrounder
- see this Huawei release
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