Service Modelling

What does service modelling entail? Is it simply recording meta-data about a service such as how it is delivered, configured and monitored or is it something more?

Recent discussions with a client highlighted how confusion over terminology about products and services can lead to product development chaos. We resolved the problem by coming up with an agreed set of terms that could be used consistently throughout the organization. The problem stemmed from the different perspectives held by billing and network engineering. Billing thought in terms of products. Network Engineering thought in terms of services. These are the definitions we developed and they may help your organization navigate the product development maze.

Product

This is what is sold to the customer. When a customer purchases a particular product they are provided with a standard set of services and equipment. Products have specific billing rules associated with them. For example: A product could provide a customer with DSL and phone services.

Service Type

This is standard class of service that includes attributes that define each service. You can think of a service type as a service template. Each service type has service qualification rules and should be manageable in terms of a defined set of business processes for service qualification, delivery, monitoring, change and charging (billing). For example: DSL and Phone are service types with attributes.

ServiceType Service


{


    Username;


    Password;


    DSL_Type; /* ADSL, SHDSL, VDSL */


    Line_Speed; /* 512Kbps, 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 8Mbps, 12Mbps, 24Mbps */


}


 


ServiceType PhoneService


{


    PhoneNumber;


    CLI_Active; /* {True, False} */


    Call_Waiting_Active; /* {True, False} */


}



Service



A service is an instance of a service type and is provided to a customer in response to the customer purchasing a product. Continuing the example above: The customer may be assigned a username to uniquely identify their DSL service and a phone number to identify their phone service.



When we look at service modelling, we tackle it in the following way:




  1. We describe the unique characteristics of the service such as interface types, line speeds and features;


  2. We then separate these features into the those that the customer is interested in and those that the service provider is interested in. There will obviously be some overlap;


  3. We then look at the processes for qualification, provisioning, assurance, customer care and billing and the information associated with these processes.



From this we can build up a complete model of the services we need to support.

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