Project Planning

Network Engineering
Network design, documentation and maintenance - Design and modify your network using sophisticated rule-based network design and editing tools. Work order creation, management and reporting - Create, amend and delete work orders including state transitions. Work print and automated reporting capabilities - Plot and publish maps describing network facilities. Power tracing and analysis functions - Employ Network Engineer's advanced tracing and graphics capabilities to trace paths between connected facilities, to modify connectivity attributes between facilities, and to isolate problem areas in the network. Complete connectivity management - Manage complement, port and strand connectivity from customer service point to the central office

Requirements Gathering
This segment consists of a several actions. Before moving on to actions, it is important for Ariel LLC know that if we don't understand what the client wants, we will never build the right system.

Discover Business Processes
Here our analysts gain an understanding of your business processes, by interviewing the Operations manager or a knowledgeable client-designated person and asks the interviewee to go through the relevant process-es step-by-step Perform Domain Analysis The analyst interviews the person with the knowledge of the major entities in the client's domain. During the conversation between the person and the analyst, another team member takes notes.

Identify Cooperating Systems
Early in the process the Ariel LLC team finds out exactly which systems the new system will depend on, and which processes will depend on it. A system engineer takes care of this action.

Discover System Requirements
In this action Ariel LLC goes through its first Joint System Development (JSD) session. This session brings together decision makers from client's organization, potential users and the members of the development team. A facilitator moderates the session. The facilitator's job is to elicit from the decision-makers and the users what they want the system to do.

Present Results to Client
When the Ariel LLC finishes all the Requirements actions, the project manager presents the results to the client.

Analyst's
Ariel LLC will now drill down into the results of the Requirements segment and increases its understanding of the desired functionality. In fact, some of the actions defined during the Requirements segment are already in place.

Understand System Usage
In a JSD session with potential users, the development team works with the users to discover the process that initiate usage from the Requirements JSD session, and the systems they affect.

Flesh Out Use Cases
Ariel LLC continues to work closely with you. The objective is to analyze the sequence of steps in each use case.

Analyze Changes of State in Objects
We closely monitor the changes to see if any processes are affected that were not thought of during the JSD session. (See Quality assurance bellow)

Define the Interactions Among Objects
At this moment our development team has a set of use cases and refined stream-line diagram.

Analyze Integration with Cooperating Systems
Our system engineer, proceeding in parallel with all the preceding steps, uncovers specific details of the integration with the cooperating systems. What type of communication is involved? What is the network architecture? If the system has to access databases, and if which are the types of databases.

Design
In this segment, our team works with the results of the Analysis segment to design the solution. Design and Analysis should go back and forth until the design is complete

Develop Component Diagrams
In this action programmers also play a major role. The task here is to visualize the components that will result from the next segment and show the dependencies among them.

Plan for Deployment
After completing the component diagrams, the system engineer begins planning for deployment and for integration with cooperating systems. Created diagram shows where the components will reside.

Design and Prototype User Interface
This involves another JSD session with the users, continuation of the prior JSD sessions. This is a typical indication of the interplay between Analysis and Design. An analyst works with the users to develop paper prototypes of screen that correspond to groups of use cases.

Quality Assurance
Ensures that products are of the quality required for their intended use, incorporating Business compliance testing and regulatory requirements. Ensures that quality and regulatory procedures and policies and systems, including a document control system, are developed and implemented. Ensures that training of appropriate personnel in the application of these procedures, policies, and systems takes place and that all procedures, policies, and systems stay current. Interacts with technical departments, customers, suppliers, and regulatory agencies (i.e., Vendors & Contract firms) in the review of issues and data. Ensures that process, equipment, and cleaning validations are in compliance with approved (BRD's) Business Required Document. Input and review validation protocols and reports. Actively participates on the Management of Change committee and ensures that corrective actions from the Business Master Plan are completed in a timely fashion.

Complete Documentation
During the development segment, documentation we work towards the completion of all documentation.

Deployment
When development is complete, the system is deployed on the appropriate hardware and integrated with the cooperation systems.

Plan for Backup and Recovery
This action can start long before the development segment begins. The system engineer creates a plan for steps to follow in the event of a system crash.

Install the Finished System on Appropriate Hardware
This step performs the system engineer's.

Test the Installed System
After installing the software on appropriate computer(s), the development team tests the installed system. Does it perform as it's supposed to? Does the backup and recovery plan work? Results of these tests determine whether further refinement is necessary.

Inventory Management
To help ensure fast response to customer demands for new service or repair, IT companies stock extra inventory for switching, transport, and other network functions at field and intermediate warehouse locations. It is not unusual for up to 20% of a company's inventory assets to be sitting idle in a warehouse or field location. A significant portion of a company's capital network investment may be unused, damaged but repairable, obsolete, or simply forgotten. In today's competitive marketplace, companies need to cut expenses. At the same time, the amount of inventory needed to support provisioning processes is growing exponentially and the investment in these electronic devices is rapidly increasing. Ariel LLC can help companies reduce the costs associated with excess equipment. The IT industry poses a unique inventory challenge. Unlike the consumption inventory model used in other industries (i.e., once built or sold, inventory management is complete), the IT industry uses a re-use model (i.e., inventory is re-used requiring continuous management). To respond to new service requests, spare inventory is dispersed throughout various field locations, central offices, Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs), cell sites, bay stations, maintenance garages, large customer equipment closets, and trucks. This requires inventory to be managed locally and interactively.