Device Management

Device Management

As carriers and service providers provide advanced broadband and convergence services, they are faced with the need to manage a multitude of devices at their subscriber's homes and businesses. In addition, new types of devices are constantly added to their service, making it extremely costly to integrate, deploy and maintain.

Friendly's Device Management Solution

Friendly's device management solution allows service providers to remotely manage multiple CPEs types (e.g. IP STB's,) even when they are located behind a NAT device. The solution features remote mass firmware and settings update of groups of devices as well as configuration of a specific device for a specific service.

Update group and individual devices

Using Friendly solution the operator can virtually split its network to network segments. For each segment a different policy rule can be applied.
Network segments can be defined according to:

• CPE type
• Customer type (Biz/Residential)
• Service Type (VoIP, Data 1M, Data 5M)
• Location (city center, rural area)

Firmware management

Friendly's remote firmware management features mechanisms for version identification, file download initiation (ACS-initiated downloads), and notification of the success or failure of a file download. The update of firmware can be sent to a single CPE or a group of CPEs.

Automatic Group Policy Enforcement

The solution features the ability to automatically and remotely enforce policies such as the time interval for CPE to connect to the ACS or the ability of the user to manually change the settings. These policies are automatically applied to the CPE as it connects for the first time. The CPE management policy can be updated in the CPE automatically by the ACS server.

Ongoing Monitoring and Event Triggering

Friendly's device management solution offers the ability to remotely monitor the CPE's operation and health status. The solution includes triggering of notifications and other workflows upon events. For example, if the user changes a CPE parameter that violates the carrier/xSP policy, an event can be triggered to restore the parameter setting to its authorized value.

Inventory Management

Friendly's solution manages the inventory of devices per customer. The system offers a variety of views and filters. Important parameters from the user's information and/or device information are used for filtering and sorting. The report can viewed on the screen based on columns selected by the administrator, and can be exported as a CSV file.

Seamless Integration of New Device Types on a Single Platform

Thanks to its unique "Smart Layer" technology, Friendly eliminates the need for costly development and integration efforts when adding new device types. This feature dramatically reduces the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by eliminating the need to study in-depth device management protocol, develop complicated scripts, and integrate to OSS and other systems. All the various devices are managed on a single platform.

Management of devices with no TR-69 support

Friendly's device management solution can also allow remote management of non-TR-69 devices. It offers migration of CPE's to support TR-69, by adding a firmware update that will enable the TR-69 protocol. Alternatively, the solution supports remote device management via SNMP and configuration files.