A guide to mastering one of the most strategically critical aspects of any telecommunications, ISP, or ASP business Operational Support Systems (OSS) refers to the technical infrastructure that enables telecommunications companies, ISPs, ASPs, and CLECs to provide services directly to customers. In this important book, author Kornel Terplan draws upon his 25 years of experience as a top global telecommunications consultant to provide telecom operations managers and developers with the expert information and guidance they need to make strategic decisions about OSS in their companies. He reviews protocols and technology for service support, explores best practices for service development and provisioning, and provides expert guidance on tools and human resources for the technical service provider. Throughout, Terplan's approach to teaching OSS principles and practices is to present a real business problem and then walk you through the best solution.

In this era where data and voice services are available at a push of a button, service providers have virtually limitless options for reaching their customers with value-added services. The changes in services and underlying networks that this always-on culture creates make it essential for service providers to understand the evolving business logi

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Business Information Systems, BIS 2012, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2012. The 26 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions. They are grouped into nine sessions on business process discovery, business process verification, service architectures, collaborative BIS, data management, Web search applications, BIS in finance, decision support, and specific BIS issues. The volume is completed by an invited paper on "Information Systems and Business and Information Systems Engineering."

As a software architect you work in a wide-ranging and dynamic environment. You have to understand the needs of your customer, design architectures that satisfy both functional and non-functional requirements, and lead development teams in implementing the architecture. And it is an environment that is constantly changing: trends such as cloud computing, service orientation, and model-driven procedures open up new architectural possibilities. This book will help you to develop a holistic architectural awareness and knowledge base that extends beyond concrete methods, techniques, and technologies. It will also help you to acquire or expand the technical, methodological, and social competences that you need. The authors place the spotlight on you, the architect, and offer you long-term architectural orientation. They give you numerous guidelines, checklists, and best practices to support you in your practical work. "Software Architecture" offers IT students, software developers, and software architects a holistic and consistent orientation across relevant topics. The book also provides valuable information and suggestions for system architects and enterprise architects, since many of the topics presented are also relevant for their work. Furthermore, IT project leads and other IT managers can use the book to acquire an enhanced understanding of architecture. Further information is available at www.software-architecture-book.org.

Telecommunications service providers face increasing information assistance requests to help law enforcement while they simultaneously struggle with CapEx and OpEx reductions. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies face expensive telecommunication interface options for data collection as they battle with a growing backlog of subpoena requests.

This book is for everyone interested in systems and the modern practice of engineering. The revolution in engineering and systems that has occurred over the past decade has led to an expansive advancement of systems engineering tools and languages. A new age of information-intensive complex systems has arrived with new challenges in a global business market. Science and information technology must now converge into a cohesive multidisciplinary approach to the engineering of systems if products and services are to be useful and competitive. For the non-specialist and even for practicing engineers, the subject of systems engineering remains cloaked in jargon and a sense of mystery. This need not be the case for any reader of this book and for students no matter what their background is. The concepts of architecture and systems engineering put forth are simple and intuitive. Readers and students of engineering will be guided to an understanding of the fundamental principles of architecture and systems and how to put them into engineering practice. This book offers a practical perspective that is reflected in case studies of real-world systems that are motivated by tutorial examples. The book embodies a decade of research and very successful academic instruction to postgraduate students that include practicing engineers. The material has been continuously improved and evolved from its basis in defence and aerospace towards the engineering of commercial systems with an emphasis on speed and efficiency. Most recently, the concepts, processes, and methods in this book have been applied to the commercialisation of wireless charging for electric vehicles. As a postgraduate or professional development course of study, this book will lead you into the modern practice of engineering in the twenty-first century. Much more than a textbook, though, Essential Architecture and Principles of Systems Engineering challenges readers and students alike to think about the world differently while providing them a useful reference book with practical insights for exploiting the power of architecture and systems.

Places OSS software in the context of telecommunications as a business Gives a concrete understanding of what OSS is, what it does and how it does it, avoiding deep technical details Frequently relates OSS software to business drivers of telecom service providers