The following list quickly addresses some of the commonly asked questions regarding Cisco Prime™ Multivendor Service Orchestration (MVSO) 1.0. For more information on the product, refer to the data sheet.
Q. What is Cisco Prime?
A. The Cisco Prime™ portfolio of IT and service provider management offerings empowers organizations to more effectively manage their networks and the services they deliver. Built on a service-centered foundation, Cisco Prime supports integrated lifecycle management through an intuitive workflow-oriented user experience, providing A-to-Z management for evolved programmable networks, mobility, video, cloud, and managed services.
Q. What is Cisco Prime Fulfillment?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment is a comprehensive, end-to-end service fulfillment solution that drives highly efficient coordination of business and operational processes for service design, creation, and delivery. The solution converts customer orders into live services through efficient resource management and communications with systems, partners, and other entities within today's highly complex telecommunications service ecosystem. Cisco Prime Fulfillment also facilitates optimization of the entire product lifecycle management process - from initial design to the provisioning of the new product or service. It is designed to drive continuous improvements in operational efficiencies to help service providers achieve their business goals while meeting demanding subscriber expectations.
Cisco Prime Fulfillment is provided in four different offerings, depending on your business needs:
• Cisco Prime Order Fulfillment
• Cisco Prime Active Catalog
• Cisco Prime Provisioning
• Cisco Prime Fulfillment Multivendor Service Orchestration
Q. What is Cisco Prime Fulfillment Multivendor Service Orchestration?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO eases insertion of Cisco® equipment into an existing Alcatel-Lucent network by minimizing integration effort, operating expenses, and changes to existing operations. Service providers can speed time to market by automating the provisioning of Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) services across Cisco/Alcatel-Lucent networks.
Q. Who should deploy Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO is designed for service providers that:
• Are looking to introduce Cisco networking equipment into a network containing Alcatel-Lucent equipment
• Require streamlined provisioning operations to reduce operating expenses and time to market for new Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) service offerings in a combined Cisco/Alcatel-Lucent network
Q. What benefits can customers expect from deploying Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO provides service providers with the following benefits:
• Significantly accelerates time to market for new services that span Cisco/Alcatel-Lucent equipment
• Reduces order-to-cash times by automating end-to-end service delivery
• Accelerates time to value of new Cisco equipment
• Lowers operational expenditure through automation of service delivery business process logic
• Increases customer satisfaction and reduces subscriber churn by streamlining and reducing errors in the service provisioning process
Q. What prebuilt components are provided with Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO 1.0?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO includes prebuilt components for discovery and provisioning of E-Line services across Cisco ASR 9000 Series and ASR 903 Series Aggregation Services Routers and Alcatel-Lucent 7750, 7710, and 7705 Service Routers, with easy extension to additional Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, and other vendor devices.
Q. How does the solution help a service provider accelerate time to market for MEF or other services (for example, Multipoint Label Switching [MPLS] Layer-3 VPN) besides an E-Line service?
A. The solution contains reusable building blocks that can be assembled into other services using the tools provided.
Q. What licensing method does Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO utilize?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO is licensed on a service access point (SAP) basis. For example, an E-Line service has two SAPs, one for each User Network Interface (UNI). Service access point licenses are sold in bundles of 5000 and 20,000. MVSO is also licensed on a vendor network management system (NMS) basis. Support for the Cisco Prime NMS is included in the base license, and an additional vendor NMS license is required for every other EMS that will be used. That is, a license is required to support Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, and an additional license would be required to integrate with another vendor's NMS. Note that only one license is required for the EMS irrespective of how many instances of that NMS are deployed.
Q. Are any other Cisco Prime products required to be deployed or integrated with Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO 1.0 ships with all required Cisco Prime products, including Cisco Prime Order Fulfillment 6.3 and Cisco Prime Provisioning 6.5.
Q. Which version of Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM does the solution support?
A. Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO 1.0 is designed to support Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM 10.0 R7 with easy extension to other versions.
Q. What other third-party software is required?
A. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle WebLogic Application Server 11g Release 1 are required.
Q. Where can I find more information?
A. For more information about Cisco Prime Fulfillment MVSO, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/mvso, contact your local Cisco account representative, or send an email to prime-fulfillment@cisco.com.