We ZTE, as a vendor also provide same type of solution for our customers
(operators), our softswitch scalability and seamless migration to future
standards and applications, robustness in terms of MVI(multivendor
integration) standardized IOT (inter operatability testing) compliancy and well
suited support platforms such as O&M, NMS, EMS , OSS, BD (billing domain)
are directed in the same business line.
I went through the job description many times and also compared the
products that you are currently providing, I feel quite confident in offering my
technical consultancy, skills , expertise and experience in this area to take
your company’s brand name to another level in EU market.
I came across your product/projects ranking and several top tier installations
throughout the world, indeed I must say broadsoft has well recognized
reputation in VoIP industry and a bright future in terms of IMS capabilities and
total solution provisioning. Considering installations at UK environment which
would be mostly SMB midsized tight schedule projects and unsurprisingly a
one man show, I can totally picture the amount of pressure, work ethics, type
of tasks to perform in order to get the system up in earliest possible time.
Technically speaking, floor planning, network designing (in order to configure
VLAN over Cisco switches, defining subnets, configuring router for output
ports , configure pix firewall for NAT , VPN, VLAN to meet the best applicable
settings for the Voice service and its relevant protocols SIP/H323), then
server installation (if hot back up , or hot stand by ,1+1 , 1+n , n+m
redundant service configuration then installing High availibity HA software
over linux/solaris system , defining floating IPs, plugging relevant NICs,) then
finally testing dual plan LAN configuration with two or more switches /
routers/ firewalls for hot back up in terms of network failure (that could be
also configured for load balancing depending on the proposed architecture),
then finally installing broadworks app over the linux cluster/single node
through command line that would be compiling package(if binaries are not
given) installing, configuring linux for optimum usage (that is disabling
default services which are not required), installing any other O&M servers if
you have a separate entity for this (in our case it is). Installing CDR server
(for parsing, collecting re formatting CDRs prior to sending it to the
BD/OSS(billing domain) over FTP). Final task would be testing the
environment at commercial scale prior to provisioning.
Going a little more in technical details here, I have notice that your solution
does not include Media gateway , billing domain, Online charging system
(OCS) and several other entities of required for carrier class deployment,
since being ignorant about much of commercial partnership understanding of
your business portfolio, I can only predict that you have compliant interfaces
with your technology partners providing billing solution, signaling gateways,
media gateways. Since if software is working in a commercial environment ,
would generate CDRs that needs to be parsed, analyzed prior to BD delivery,
or if it’s a prepaid NGN/IMS solution then softswitch / CSCF entities need to
have a DCC (diameter credit control request) protocol feature to interface
with the OCS.
Fears of operators to be dependent for a the life time over a single vendors
have a given rise to multivendor integration compliancy, where many
challenges from the commercial aspects of the market are being faced, such
as vendors reluctant to disclose their technical specification of their
interfaces, causing a huge headache to new entrant in an already established
infrastructure of a given operator. Therefore, having skills, experience,
knowledge and nonetheless, contacts throughout the industry plays pivotal
role while integrating new solutions. In that aspect I hold ZTE, Huawei
product experience and well versed technical industrial contacts to shorten
the integration delivery time.
Our engineers (including me) has to work under high pressure due to the
eleventh hour delivery schedules and lack of proper technical installation
documentation, since each product has undergone continuous development
inside out (interfaces and internal implementation) so available technical
manuals lag behind in terms of updated features (which is a common practice
in all companies like NSN, Ericsson, Huawei). Therefore, being a part of
dynamic and aggressive industry one has to rely on his experience,
anticipation of new functionalities, features and changes. Especially in my
case, I also had to sometime write a whole installation/delivery manual after
completing the installation as each product is customized in terms of
commercial licensing, features availability and product requirements.
Therefore, on most of the occasions, there are just few technical
specifications (CLI arguments, folders to create, interfaces to open,
configuration) given by test engineers from R&D which will finally turn into a
whole manual specifically compiled for a given project. I have been in this
practice a lot and this gives me ability and understanding of technical
training delivery and product demonstration.
I believe in creativity and innovation are the main features of any position
regardless of its technological aspect, since telecom/wireless industrial
standards are aggressively changing at very rapid pace therefore, having a
specific appetite to learn new standards/technologies/process to comprehend
the challenges of business plays a vital role in a team. I am also a learner and
I believe in team spirit. I hope, this opportunity to have discussion with you
regarding this position would be fruitful at all levels. I am personally a sole
believer of individual efforts as well, therefore, if this goes well, you will be
proud of being my team manager for the service delivery at Broadsoft very
soon.
Regards,
Zeeshan