About Swisscom

Swisscom is Switzerland's leading mobile communications provider, offering more than 4 million NATEL® customers a top-quality mobile communications network, high-quality support and superior services.

Business Challenge

New Services

Swisscom's subscriber base is growing year by year; new services like public wireless LAN (PWLAN) and UMTS have been introduced to the market. In order to facilitate these services Swisscom had to adapt their existing CDR-Processing-Environment, partially through replacement.

Test Scenarios

In order to verify full functionality and correct configuration of the production systems Swisscom decided to provide the implementation teams with comprehensive Test-CDRs which would reflect real-life usage scenarios in all possible aspects.

Detailed Requirements

• Creation of Test-CDRs for all involved CDR-formats, configurable by individual users.
• Concurrent administration of multiple different test-scenarios.
• Fully configurable parameterization of CDR's field content.
• Support for CDR analysis.
• No custom development.
• Repeatable process.
• Standard Software Package.
• Little cost and ramp-up time.

Initial CDR-Formats

• Ericsson R7 (ASN.1)
• Ericsson R9 (ASN.1)
• Nortel 3GPP 32.015 (ASN.1)
• Nortel GGSN GPRS 2.0
• LHS BSCS UFIH
• Portal Software Infranet Rating Pipeline (former SOL42 format)
• Swisscom GPRS in-house format

Additional CDR-formats should be configurable on demand and without development.

Solved with EDR Workbench

Together with the ENTEREST service team, Swisscom decided on a set-up for the test-scenarios which was configured and tested on-site in a few days.

One Configuration for all Scenarios

Instead of having separate configurations for each test-scenario and CDR-format, Swisscom chose to have all possible test-scenarios within one set-up. This approach allowed Swisscom to gain a quick overview over all parameters. The screen-shot on the lower-right shows the actual set-up and overview for all CDR-formats and manipulations. All configuration was done via drag-and-drop and a couple of property– and configuration dialogs.

External Parameterization with Excel

EDR Workbench provides various methods on how to consider external parameters to be included in CDR-generation / -manipulation (e.g. database or flat-file).

Swisscom opted to maintain all their parameters within an Excel-list which could be easily modified. For Test-CDR generation the list is fed into EDR Workbench which then generates the corresponding Test-CDRs within seconds.

Automated Patching of CDR-content with openBSL®

To automatically apply the content modifications as defined by the Excel parameter-spreadsheet, Swisscom made use of EDR Workbench's built in scripting language openBSL® (open Bot Scripting Language). This language allows you to access any CDR-field while it is being processed. It features all elements of a modern scripting-language such as object-orientation and events. 

Special methods enable you to create CDRs and batches on-the-fly, duplicate or dump records, split streams, filter records, analyze and modify content etc. There is virtually no limit to what you can do using openBSL®.

Results Analysis

Once the Test-CDRs have been processed, it is equally important to analyze the results of the monitored operation. EDR Workbench enables Swisscom to extract the Test-CDRs from their normal processing output and interactively view and analyze them using the GUI.

Interactive Editing and Extension

EDR Workbench distinguishes interactive and automated operation modes. While both produce the same results, interactive mode allows Swisscom to modify the content of individual CDRs via the GUI.

Depending on the underlying grammar definition for the CDR format, individual fields or blocks may be added or dropped (e.g. for dynamic CDR formats); regardless of whether Swisscom is dealing with ASN.1, complex binary or hierarchical ASCII formats.

Real-time Simulation

Moreover the interactive mode grants a real-time experience of the individually configured set-up. This mode is also used to view the running configuration in a step-by-step mode, thus simulating all configured actions.

Summary and Result

Using EDR Workbench enables Swisscom to create Test-CDRs just-in-time. What used to take weeks can now be done within seconds. All existing and future EDR/CDR formats are supported by configuration, allowing Swisscom to change them instantly whenever required. After testing, results of the scenarios can be analyzed using the unmatched browsing and analysis capabilities of EDR Workbench. Given this ability, Swisscom is able to speed-up the test-processes of new systems and service implementation which in turn saves cost, further shortens Swisscom's time-to-market and increases overall processing quality.

Swisscom now uses EDR Workbench as the standard application for CDR browsing, analysis, creation and manipulation.

Best of all: Deployment and configuration was a matter of days and did not require any custom-development.

Testimonial

"We … chose to use EDR Workbench within our billing replacement project and billing operations for testing purposes because of its great flexibility, ease-of-use, and competitive cost/performance-ratio."

B.S., Program Manager