Use Case: Oracle Unified Assurance Implementation, Administration, and 24x7 Support for Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC)

1. Customer Profile: Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC)

Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC) is a member-owned telecommunications cooperative based in Conway, South Carolina. As the nation's largest telecommunications cooperative, HTC provides a wide range of services including high-speed internet (through their geographic areas largest fiber-optic network), video, home security, voice and mobile services to residential and business customers across Horry, Georgetown, and Marion counties.

Key Characteristics:

  • Diverse Services: Offers a broad portfolio of services, leading to a complex network environment with various technologies (fiber, video, voice, mobile).
  • Member-Owned: As a cooperative, HTC is deeply focused on providing reliable service and value to its members, making network uptime and quality a top priority.
  • Large-Scale Network: Operates a large-scale, continuously expanding fiber-optic network, requiring robust and scalable monitoring solutions.
  • Commitment to Innovation: Actively invests in technology to stay at the forefront of connectivity, which necessitates a flexible and modern network management platform.

 

2. The Challenge: Network Complexity and Management

HTC's extensive and ever-expanding network, coupled with its diverse service offerings, presents significant operational challenges. Various network systems make viewing network health more complex.This complexity can result in:

  • Siloed Monitoring: Separate monitoring tools for different network segments (e.g., fiber, voice, mobile) and services.
  • Delayed Outage Detection: Lack of a unified view and event correlation can slow down the detection and root cause analysis of service-impacting events.
  • Inefficient Trouble Ticketing: Manual processes for creating and updating trouble tickets based on alerts are prone to error and delay resolution.
  • Scalability Issues: As the network grows with new fiber deployments and member services, a traditional, manual management approach becomes unsustainable.
  • Inconsistent Performance: A lack of proactive monitoring and analysis of event data can lead to degraded service quality that impacts member satisfaction.

 

3. The Solution: Oracle Unified Assurance (UAS) with AccuOSS Services

AccuOSS has implemented, administers, integrates, and provides 24x7 support for the Oracle Unified Assurance (UA) platform to provide a single, comprehensive view of HTC's entire network and service delivery. This partnership has transformed HTC's network operations from a reactive, siloed approach to a proactive, integrated one.

AccuOSS Scope of Work:

  • Implementation & Integration: AccuOSS has deployed Oracle Unified Assurance and integrated it with all of HTC's relevant network elements, servers, and applications. This includes, but is not limited to:
    • Network Elements: Routers, switches, optical network terminals (ONTs), and other fiber-related gear.
    • Service-Specific Systems: Voice-over-IP (VoIP) platforms, video head-ends, and security monitoring systems.
    • External Systems: Integration with HTC`s existing trouble ticketing system and other business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSS).
  • Customization & Administration: AccuOSS has configured UA to meet HTC's specific operational needs. This involves:
    • Event and Alert Rules: Creating and tuning rules to filter out noise and prioritize truly service-impacting events.
    • Correlation & Root Cause Analysis: Implementing a robust correlation engine to group related events into a single incident, significantly reducing time to identify the root cause.
    • Dashboards & Reporting: Designing custom dashboards that provide real-time, role-based views of network health for different teams (e.g., Network Operations Center, Engineering, Management).
    • Enrichment: Automatically enriching events with key information such as asset data, location, and member impact to accelerate incident response.
  • 24x7 Managed Support: AccuOSS provides continuous, round-the-clock support for the UA platform. This includes:
    • Proactive Monitoring: Monitoring the health and performance of the UA platform itself to ensure it is always running optimally.
    • Issue Resolution: Troubleshooting and resolving any issues related to UA, its integrations, or data flows.
    • Maintenance & Upgrades: Performing regular maintenance, patches, and version upgrades to keep the platform secure and up-to-date with the latest features.
    • Ongoing Optimization: Continuously analyzing event data to refine correlation rules and improve the overall efficiency of the system.

 

4. Benefits for HTC

By leveraging Oracle Unified Assurance and partnering with AccuOSS, HTC has realized significant benefits:

  • Improved Service Reliability & Uptime: By proactively identifying and correlating events, HTC can reduce the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) service issues, leading to higher network uptime and improved member satisfaction.
  • Enhanced Operational Efficiency: The automated correlation and enrichment capabilities of UA will reduce the workload on HTC's NOC team, allowing them to focus on resolving critical incidents rather than sifting through thousands of raw events.
  • Clearer Visibility: A unified dashboard provides a single pane of glass for monitoring all services, eliminating monitoring silos and giving a comprehensive view of network health.
  • Cost Reduction: By identifying and resolving issues faster, HTC can avoid costly service interruptions and reduce operational expenses associated with manual troubleshooting.
  • Improved Decision-Making: Advanced reporting and analytics provide valuable insights into network performance, helping HTC to make data-driven decisions about future network expansions and service offerings.