Having crossed the “10 years’ experience” milestone working in the telecom industry, with the biggest part of my time in Operations and Maintenance (O&M) department, i can effectively summarize that the main responsibilities of any Telecom O&M Engineer rotate around these six generic core roles and functions.
(i) Alarm and Fault Management
With the help of network monitoring tools (SNMP based tools), the O&M engineer should be able to quickly and effectively identify, handle, resolve or escalate any system faults. System alarms can either be minor (non-service affecting), major (partially service affecting if not dealt with) or critical (service affecting). System log capture and analysis is another way to proactively lookout for network faults. Fault/Alarm handling forms a daily routine of the Telecom O&M Engineer responsibilities.
(ii) Network Performance Management
With the help of specialized data collection and analysis tools (KPI counters), the O&M engineer should be able to effectively measure the performance trend of the telecom network. In this way the O&M engineer is able to quickly pick out issues that lead to service degradation. This helps the O&M engineer in keeping tabs on the network and should be able to generate performance reports that could be; daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly.
(iii) Configuration Management
This is a crucial role for any telecom O&M engineer and it ensures smooth operation if handled effectively. Configuration Management involves backup and restore of network element configuration files. Backups can be; daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the frequency of configuration changes. Configuration management is also a crucial part of disaster recovery management especially if offsite backups are performed. Offsite backups means the configuration files are FTPed off the network elements and saved on remote site servers or cloud servers.
(iv) Software Version and Release Management
It’s the role of the O&M Engineer to ensure that all network elements are running the latest recommended stable and supported software versions according to the software life-cycle and vendor’s road map. This is important because new software release from the vendor is meant to address bugs, security vulnerabilities and in some cases add new features and functionalities. It’s also important update software to avoid running software that has reached EOL or EOS.
(v) Inventory and Spares Management
Should there be any failure that requires a component of the network element to be replaced such as a disk, memory, module, line card or processor board, the O&M Engineer should be able to handle the replacement in the shortest time possible by reaching out to the network spares and inventory. Therefore the O&M Engineer is responsible for stocking and keeping track of all the necessary spare parts need to effectively handle component failures.
(vi) Network Element Security Management
The O&M Engineer should be able to protect the network elements from intrusion by outsiders and insiders. Intrusion can be physical or remote, and the O&M Engineer needs to ensure that mechanisms to control and restrict physical and remote access to network infrastructure are in place. The O&M Engineer should also be able to monitor and detect and unauthorized access by checking system operator logs and access control logs.
The above roles and functions form the six corner stones of an effective O&M team or department and if perfectly executed ensure a smooth operation and maintenance of a telecom network.
