CreanordEchoNEWS aims to keep you informed of the latest developments at Creanord andin the fields of automated Ethernet service delivery, SLA assurance andOperations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM).

Creanord EchoVault 4.8, to be released in August 2010, introduces new valuableAdd-on modules providing our customers even more tools for reducing customerchurn and improving QoS measurements. In this issue of Creanord EchoNEWS welook more closely into two of these – EchoVault Event Dashboard, enablingCustomer Experience Management (CEM) for Events and Throughput Meter forscheduled and on-demand throughput measurements.

EchoVault Event Dashboard
All Service Providers have occasional problems within their networks andservices. The key for maintaining the customers trust in such a situation is toact fast. Fixing the problem is of course first priority but proactivelyinforming the customer how the problem solving is proceeding is greatly valuedby the customer. A happy customer equals reduced churn. Moreover, well plannedcustomer communications reduce unnecessary contacts to helpdesk and NOC(Network Operations Center). This is welcomed by the busy professionals who areable to focus on the job at hand instead of answering frustrated customerenquiries.

To be able to achieve this goal is not as hard as you might think – EchoVaultEvent Dashboard provides a quick view to the latest events and alerts for bothService Provider and Customer. Both the customer and the Service Provider arealso able to comment any event. This is useful for example when providingbackground information about the event.

The EchoVault Event Dashboard displays alert details and relatedcomments for both Service Provider and customer.

For the NOC professionals smoothly operating support systems are imperative. Byutilizing latest Web 2.0 technologies the EchoVault Event Dashboard dynamicallydisplays new events without page refresh. No more slow browser load times andflickering screens in NOCs.

EchoVaultThroughput Meter (centralized RFC 2544 Testsuite)
We discussed about the Ethernet Services birth certificate in the December 2009EchoNEWS issue. The most questioned character of a new circuit is itsthroughput. Customers are always interested to know that they are receiving theamount of bandwidth per quality class they have purchased. The Throughput Meterintroduces centralized and automated circuit turn-up verification andtroubleshooting via IETF RFC 2544, the industry de-facto standard forthroughput measurements.

The EchoVault Throughput Meter enables automated testing & reporting of Ethernet and IP OAM (Operations Administration and Maintenance) parameters (on the service VLAN), such as Frame Delay, Frame Delay Variation, Frame Loss, Frame Loss Rate (FLR), Throughput and Availability.

Ensuring the Ethernet service quality, performance and SLA adherence right after the installation strengthens the customer relationship. Customer knows that the service implementation and hand-off is done professionally.

The Throughput Meter comes with aeasy to use wizard like user interface that guides the user in the measurementand report creation process. First, user associates the measurement to thedesired customer, selects the time for the test, source and target destinationsand finally chooses one of the pre-configured RFC 2544 Test Suiteconfigurations. The Throughput Meter report is provided either in PDF or RTFformat and delivery methods include email, SCP* and EchoVault Portal.
Throughput Meter reports are saved for future reference toEchoVault Report Catalog that can be also viewed in read only mode throughEchoVault Portal. For the Service Provider the Throughput Meter provides easyre-run of the tests with ‘Play Again’ button.