Figure 1 depicts the role change in 4G OSS to manage ‘smart’ devices.

This role change is required because the device is itself capable of processing and the OSS is responsible to ensure that the actions taken do not impact or create ‘knock-on’ situations within the managed  environment. 

Policy Management based OSS

A policy enabled environment provides functionality enabling decision criteria (and the decision itself) to be defined external to the system the decision affects. The incorporation of policy allows the application of external decision criteria to be applied to situations as they arise.    

Figure 2 shows this capability is positioned as an integrated but separate component of the OSS/ BSS system.

The principle artifacts associated with policy architecture are:

- Policy Decision Point (PDP): A PDP provides the functionality associated with making a decision. It retrieves the set of ‘rules’ associated with the decision and applies operational considerations to the rules and establishes [set of] actions that address the operational situation. 

- Policy Enforcement Point (PEP): PEP provides the functionality associated with rule execution. Rules specify [set of] actions established by the PDP. 

- Policy Repository (PR): A PR contains the policies, typically possesses the storage functionality.

Figure 3 shows how decision making is accomplished by using an external source.

It must be noted that the invoked processes (shown extreme right) are not aware of the classification criteria; they process only information relevant to their design. The association of a specific action response (OK, Alternative or NOK) is external and does not have any design impact on the application process, that is an application process is designed for a specific process and is ignorant of any ancillary condition or situation that may exist that is not directly relevant to their design.