Customer Service Management: An Information Model for Communication Services

Abstract

Abstract. Customer Service Management (CSM) offers a management interface between customer and service provider, which enables customers to individually monitor and control their subscribed services. In order to model Customer Service Management for communication services, this paper proposes a protocol and technology-independent information model, which incoporates the individual quality of service parameters (QoS parameters) that are specified in customer-specific service level agreements (SLAs), and the logical infrastructure that is used to implement the communication service. The information model is validated for a real-life management environment.

A case-driven methodology for applying the MNM service model

“…Service primitives, protocols and (where necessary) physical connectors are represented by these interfaces. In the same way the functionality was split up into usage and management functionality, the interface is split up into a usage interface, called Service Access Point (SAP), and a management interface, called Customer Service Management Access Point (CSM A P ) [9], where the corresponding management functionality is accessible. Customer Side In most cases some equipment is needed on the customer side to access the service functionality.…”