NICE, France -– Management World 2009 -- Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) says it's saving tens of millions of dollars per year in operational costs from having deployed a single, multi-vendor OSS that is helping to manage its U.S. and international fixed data networks.

Verizon's story, presented here this morning, is noteworthy because reducing costs by choosing and deploying new OSS tools is one of the mantras of the carrier operations and telecom software communities.

In a nutshell, Verizon, following some long-term and rigorous testing and trialing, has deployed software from Nakina Systems Inc. to create a multi-vendor Common Element Management System (CEMS). That's being used to run the carrier's ultra-long-haul optical, metro Ethernet, and converged packet-based backhaul infrastructures in North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific, which include equipment from 14 different vendors.

The alternative approach would have been to use multiple vendor-specific element management systems (EMSs) for the 20 or so different hardware platforms it has deployed across these networks.

Verizon inherited the Nakina engagement when it acquired MCI. According to Robert Ormsby, the carrier's director of network management and security testing, Verizon found that the specialist vendor's software had all the basic capabilities to manage the different boxes in its network. (See Nakina Lands MCI OSS Deal.)

Now it's using Nakina to manage 10,000 network elements, and expects that figure to rise to 12,000 in 2010. Ormsby says Verizon recently acquired a license from Nakina that allows for a deployment that covers up to 45,000 boxes.

Using a single EMS means there's just one interface that other OSS and business systems need to connect to in order to share data, and it saves time when a new network element needs to be deployed, said Ormsby, who added that Verizon is also using Nakina for network inventory and provisioning purposes.

"Nakina has proven itself to be carrier-grade," and has significantly reduced the time it takes for Verizon to introduce new network elements and launch new services, noted the Verizon man. "What used to take a year now takes two weeks," he stated.

And it's not just efficiency and time-to-market gains that the carrier is touting: Ormsby said Verizon has saved $11 million a year from multiple EMS "purchase avoidance," and is saving about $18.5 million a year from having a single point of integration between the CEMS and other back office systems.

"It has been very advantageous," Ormsby said.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading