DISA/DITCO/PAD, 5111 Leesburg Pike, Room 9187A, Falls Church, VA 22041

D -- PROVISIONING OF SERVICES OVER SONET, ATM, AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES POC Contact: Peter G. Smingler, Contracting Officer, 703-681- 1235 Synopsis number 95110. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) hereby issues a Request For Information regarding specific telecommunications practices in providing telecommunications services to customers. DISA is interested in gaining a general understanding of typical customers, the types of services provided, and current and planned business practices. DISA is particularly interested in concepts on provisioning of service over SONET, ATM, and other emerging technologies. The objective of this effort is to develop a concept for defining a target process, a set of support tools, and a migration plan. The desire to gain information on the best industry practices with the goal of implementing an effective model. To this end, we have developed a set of questions concerning ''New Service to Customer'' and ''Network Modifications'' for industry review and comment. In addition, DISA is interested in meeting with telecommunications service providers who provide substantive responses to the set of questions. 1. NEW SERVICES TO CUSTOMERS A. Inputs from Customers 1. What are the typical characteristics of your customers? (a) How does your customer identify requirements to you? (b) What kind of feedback does the customer expect and when? 2. What types of services are your customers requesting? 3. What are the typical characteristics of the services you offer? 4. How do you market your services? 5. What level and types of resources do you invest to support customers making decisions about the services they will purchase? 6. What is your network configuration? 7. What network equipment and technologies do the services require? What other network resources (e.g., bandwidth) do the services require? 8. What services and technologies require provisioning in your network? 9. What are the competitive alternatives for your services? B. Provisioning Process 1. What is your service provisioning process? (a) How are your customers informed of the provisioning process? (b) What are the lead-times for the different types of service? (c) How are your customer requirements tracked, i.e, from customer identification to customer acceptance of service? 2. How do your provisioning approaches to routine service requests and to complex service requests differ? 3. How wide ranging is your responsibility? Is it end-to-end or something less (e.g., transport only, application, premises wiring, station equipment, etc.)? 4. If your responsibility is less than end-to-end, how do you manage the communications environment at the end-user locations? 5. What is your process for helping potential customers make decisions? How early in their planning process do you get involved? 6. What specific inputs and data are required during the service provisioning process? Is some information needed sooner that other information? How is this information maintained and controlled? 7. How do you handle inventory required for provisioning a service (e.g., warehousing, just-in- time, leasing)? 8. What is the relationship of service provisioning with other network-management processes (e.g. service management, billing, work force activities, testing, etc.)? (a) How are they notified when a new service is provisioned and becomes operational? (b) What is done when another network management group modifies the network as a result of trouble resolution? (c) How do you handle interface with maintenance activities (e.g., trouble tickets, work flow processes, and maintenance contracts)? (d) What is your rate structure and how do you collect data for determining a customer bill? In particular, how do you determine rates for data user, VTC user, voice user and switched 56 kbs VTC user charges? What kind of data do you collect and how is it measured? (e) Do you have any plans to implement any dynamic rates and billings? 9. How are other network management groups involved in the service provisioning process (e.g., testing)? 10. What factors have caused you to do business in the manner you do? 11. How are you planning to change your processes in the future? When? C. Organization 1. How is your work force organized to provision services? 2. How is the work flow controlled? 3. Which work forces are centralized and which are decentralized? 4. What is your relationship with suppliers? Do you use a single-supplier or multi-supplier environment? D. Tools 1. What tools and systems support your service provisioning process? 2. Do you use supplier-specific network management systems? 2. NETWORK MODIFICATIONS A. Inputs from Customers 1. Who makes the decision that network modifications are needed? How do they decide? 2. How is marketing information used to plan for network or service modification or expansion; or the introduction of new technologies? 3. What information do you receive from network engineers when they modify the network (e.g., additions, rearrangements, removals)? 4. When do you receive this information (e.g., in advance (how soon?) or when it occurs)? 5. What information do your processes and systems require about network modifications? 6. What technologies are deployed in your network? 7. How do you find out what types of new services can be offered on the technologies that are deployed? B. Provisioning Process 1. What is your network provisioning process? 2. How wide ranging is your responsibility? Is it end-to-end or something less (e.g., transport only, application, premises wiring, station equipment, etc.)? 3. If your responsibility is less than end-to-end, how do you manage the communications environment at the end-user locations? 4. How do you introduce new services into your provisioning process so that they can be provisioned for your customers? 5. What specific inputs and data are required to initiate the network provisioning process? Is some information needed sooner that other information? How is this information maintained and controlled? 6. What is the relationship with other network-management processes? (a) How are they notified when network modifications become operational? (b) What is done when another network management group modifies the network as a result of trouble resolution? (c) How do you handle interface with maintenance activities (e.g., trouble tickets, work flow processes, and maintenance contracts)? 7. Are other network management groups involved in the network provisioning process (e.g., testing)? C. Organization 1. How is your work force organized to make network modifications? 2. How are you organized to update your processes and support tools (e.g., data bases) when new technologies are added to the network? 3. How are you organized to modify the provisioning process when new services become available? 4. How many and what types of resources are required for these activities? 5. Which work forces are centralized and which are decentralized? 6. What is your relationship with suppliers? Do you use a single-supplier or multi-supplier environment? D. Tools 1. What tools and systems support your network provisioning process? 2. Do you use supplier-specific network management systems? Service management systems? The technical point of contact is Mr. Dick Colver, Provisioning Team Leader, at (703) 681-1252. The contractual point of contact is Mr. Peter G. Smingler, Contracting Officer, at (703) 681-1235. Responses (original and 9 copies) should be mailed, no later than 30 April 1995, to: DISA/DITCO/PAD ATTN: Mr. Peter G. Smingler 5111 Leesburg Pike, Room 9187A Falls Church, VA 22041-3205 While this request does not constitute a commitment by the Government to purchase any system(s) or service(s), responses should provide sufficient information to allow for cost/benefit analysis on implementing practices on a wide scale throughout DoD. The timeframe of interest for implementation spans FY95 through FY97. (0088)

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