IP Scope Management

A common issue for cable operators is ensuring sufficient IP/DHCP scopes for each CMTS/DHCP server, so new customers can be provisioned efficiently. When a DHCP server exhausts its scopes, new customers cannot get an IP address. The field tech performing the onsite installation contacts a call center agent who opens a service ticket and assigns it to IP Provisioning production support. The production support staff then goes through a series of steps to check the master repository for available scopes and adds one or more scopes to the target DHCP server. Since it takes about an hour to complete the scope addition process, the tech typically waits around at the customer’s site. About a third of the time the process takes more than two hours, so the tech leaves, telling the customer that he will be back the next day.

The company referenced in this example dedicated eight full time equivalent (FTE) staff members in production support ($800K annually) and two FTEs in the call center ($100K annually) to managing IP scopes. Additionally, they wasted about 36,000 hours of field tech time every year related to insufficient IP scopes ($1,440K annually).

Fortunately, they decided to use Optinuity’s technology to implement an Autonomic Policy to self-manage this issue. This Autonomic Policy continuously monitored the availability of IP addresses at each CMTS/DHCP server and tested the results against a predefined threshold. When the threshold was crossed, the Autonomic Policy logged into the master IP scope repository, determined which scope(s) to add to the deficient CMTS/DHCP server, added the scope(s) to the target server, verified that the scope add was successful, and updated the master IP scope repository. In the rare cases where scopes could not be successfully added to the deficient CMTS/DHCP server, the Autonomic Policy automatically created a service ticket with an embedded log of the actions that had been taken.

Results:

• Reduced new installation failures by more than 90%
• Improved field tech productivity
• Achieved savings of more than $2M annually