 The lifecycle phases can be reduced to the following five: 1. Service design and development. (a) Model a new service. (b) Deploy the OSS infrastructure. Preferably, the service provider's existing OSS infrastructure would be sufficiently flexible that "deployment" of OSS infra- structure for a new service would merely involve reprogramming, installing plug-in OSS modules or extending OSS modules using APIs. (c) Service import/export. (d) Define service level objectives. 2. Negotiation with prospective customers and sales, including definition of SLA for customer(s). 3. Execution, including service level monitoring. 4. Re-assessment. 5. Repeat the previous four steps. Implementing SLM involves more than integrating a technology solution with existing OSS systems. It also involves creating business processes. We will identify aspects of SLM that need to be considered. In addition, we will provide some pointers on how to ensure a successful implementation with reference to several industry initiatives. 7.2 The SLA universe There are three areas associated with the application of SLAs to an operator's business. Internal SLAs formalise day-to-day matters such as how long people at the NOC expect a field technician to take to reconfigure a switch. As shown in Figure 7.2, internal SLAs are most often focused on managing components of the service delivery K. Misra et al. (eds.), OSS for Telecom Networks © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2004 OSS for Telecom Networks Customer Product mSureTM Supplier/ Business ServiceAssure Partner Internal Supplier Network Figure 7.1 The SLA universe. Operation's Domain S/P SLA Perf Data Objectives Supply Chain Supply Chain Capability Dev & Change Performance Mgmnt Mgmnt Managemen Managemen KQI/KPI SLA Reqs Mapping etc Requirements Target Target Target Product Service Resource Actual Resource Product Service Dev. & Dev. & Offer Quality Retirement Retirement Collection Analysis & Rp Actual Customer Templates Order Violations QoS/SLA Handling Mgmnt Customer / Marketing Domain Manage Inter