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As consumers and businesses alike come to adopt more advanced network services, and come to demand more “self-serve” options for getting the services they want (and modifying the ones they already have), network technology is becoming increasingly complex. As such, today’s network operators are greatly challenged to monitor and troubleshoot their networks in order to deliver quality to their customers. As networks become more “hybridized,” as the software stack gets taller, and as there are more and more network devices to keep track of, network management has become a difficult, if not daunting task for a service provider or other customer service organization to handle in-house.

Nevertheless it is critical for network operators to constantly monitor network performance and to troubleshoot and repair problems – hopefully without any disruption to customer service – as the network is now truly their lifeblood. In the “old days,” accomplishing this often required an expensive team of IT experts, coupled with an expensive team of field service technicians, and usually there would be an expensive “truck roll” every time a repair needed to be made. But with today’s advanced networks, many types of repairs and “tweaks” in network performance can be handled remotely from a central office, and in near-real time, thus reducing the need for costly on-site repairs. Through advanced network technology such as, for example, FPGAs, (field programmable gate arrays), and other remotely configurable network devices, network operators now have new levels of control over network performance and thus can better serve their customers.

But for today’s network operators, staying on top of network performance is a multi-faceted task that involves a lot more than just monitoring data as it passes along the network to the customer. It requires a whole ecosystem of solutions – from software patches that are automatically delivered as soon they’re released; software upgrades that are automatically delivered out at key times of day (perhaps when network performance is less likely to be affected); adjusting and optimizing network performance based on the fluctuating amount of traffic and using analytics to predict trends in network usage; monitoring billing systems and other back office systems to ensure they’re in sync with the rest of the network; ensuring that customers are getting the services that they requested; and building a database of network activity to carry out analyses and predict future trends and proactively act on them are among the myriad of tasks that service providers must carry out to ensure high customer satisfaction.

Because of the high cost of dealing with all this in house, it’s really no wonder that there is a growing demand for support automation services. Simply put, support automation is a third-party delivered solution comprised of a mix of software and services used for detecting network problems and then issuing fixes, mostly automatically. It is of particular use to service providers, as they maintain very complex networks -- networks which their customers rely on to maintain the quality of their daily lives (phone, television, Internet) and which the provider relies on to stay in business. “Outsourcing” support automation services, if you will, means network operators turn the bulk of this responsibility over to a third party which is well versed in the art of detecting network problems quickly and addressing them through automated systems. This not only enables network operators to detect and fix a network problem before the customer even knows there is one, it also helps them achieve a lower “mean time to repair” -- in other words, it cuts the time it takes, and thus the cost of, detecting, troubleshooting and repairing problems. Basically, it takes a huge load off the operator’s shoulders. With support automation services -- such as those offered through NextNine (News - Alert) -- operators don’t need to focus as much on monitoring network performance, fixing problems, and doing preventative maintenance, instead they can focus on more important aspects of their business, such as meeting customer demand for new services and finding new sources of revenue. In addition, support automation solutions can be integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) systems and network management systems (NMS), and thus can be used to generate detailed reports to management regarding network usage and tallying problems and incidents that were solved through automation (or the occasional truck roll). They can also be used to ensure compliance with service level agreements as well as compliance with industry regulations. As you might imagine, all kinds of network operators with "customer facing" networks (not just communications services providers) can benefit from support automation

NextNine, an industry leader in the field of support automation, yesterday announced that two of its key customers, Allscripts, a leading provider of electronic health records and clinical software, and a leading cable operator, had reported increased network uptime and immediate ROI following their investment in the NextNine Service Automation platform -- the only software solution to incorporate automated, proactive, remote support features on a single platform.

According to a press release, Allscripts has seen a 66 percent reduction in critical issues within one year. In addition, within the first 90 days of deploying NextNine Service Automation, 50 incidents of downtime were prevented, and the company has significantly reduced deployment and installation times for software service updates. With NextNine's Virtual Support Engineer installed at all customer sites, support teams can now prevent system malfunctions and downtime, even when caused by incorrect configuration changes made by the customers themselves. This is done before the problem reaches critical levels, as symptoms are diagnosed and resolved long before outages occur.

Meanwhile the cable operator reported a significant reduction in SLA penalties. In addition, in a single instance it saved $135,000 by shortening a service outage. The cable company also observed a reduction in the length of customer service calls by up to 25 percent, with more than 5 percent of calls prevented entirely, through the implementation of a customer self-service solution.

"Enterprises have a strong need for proactive, secure remote support, and only the NextNine Service Automation platform is fully capable of addressing their demands," said Gil Levonai, vice president, marketing and strategy, NextNine, in the press release. "For years, we have offered enterprises the means to provide their customers unparalleled support and high-level of care to which they are entitled, and I find it very encouraging that globally-recognized brands, such as Allscripts, are finding significant value in their NextNine deployment."

For more information, visit www.NextNine.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.