Software Development

Outsource Laboratories, Inc., or "Olabs" is a rapidly growing company that provides high quality software products and services. It specializes in telecommunication industry and its services have benefited the software development projects for both equipment and service providers, in the design, development, integration and testing phases. Olabs' clients include: AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Hewlett Packard, Inc., Chrysler, UNISYS, Telekom Berhad, InterWAVE Communications, Inc., ADC Wireless Systems, Inc., EC Cubed and CyberTel, Inc. and others.

Olabs emphasizes the application of state of the art technologies such as Java, Web, C++ and CORBA to provide a prompt, "best of class" solution for it's clients in both UNIX & Window NT platforms. Olabs has extensive experience and domain knowledge in the following areas:

The hallmarks of Olabs are the quality of its staff and its continued commitment to develop and maintain leading-edge technology, particularly in the Telecommunication Domain, Graphical User Interface (GUI) Development, and Software Testing/Quality Assurance. By integrating extensive telephony domain knowledge and experience with industry leading software technology, we reflect our core competency: providing complete and efficient solutions for complex networks.

Why choose Olabs for complex, custom system development?

What truly separates Olabs as a valuable resource is the quality of its development staff, many of whom had spent years at Bell Laboratories and whose long list of achievements include fellowships, patents, web awards, academic honors and dozens of publications.

The staff of Olabs has extensive experience in design/development of large, complex, mission-critical network management systems prior to joining Olabs. The purpose of these systems were to: i.) maintain the transmission facilities for a large backbone network for both PDH and SONET/SDH technologies, and ii.) provide customer trouble reporting/tracking of telecom business services. The functionality of these systems include network technician's GUI screens and the real-time processing of network element data and associated databases (sizes exceed 100 Giga-Bytes). GUI screens from these systems are used at a nation-wide Network Operations Center (NOC).

Olabs development team expertise has been on the forefront of software technology and has enabled Olabs to be one of the leaders of client/server systems development. Olabs programmers are widely acknowledged experts in programming languages that lend themselves to the client/server models, such language as: C++/C, JAVA, JAVAScript, and JAVA related languages tools (i.e., Applets, JAVA Beans, HTML, etc.), and in Object Oriented Design/Tools. Olabs staff also have superior expertise in network protocols and/or backbone infrastructure such as: CORBA, OSI/TMN models, TCP/IP, SNMP, Datakit, etc.

A member of our software testing/quality assurance team has developed, prior to joining Olabs, a new selective regression testing technique capable of analyzing large software systems written in C. Experimental results have shown that this is the fastest known technique capable of achieving dramatic reductions in the size of the regression test suite. Because of Olabs staff members' experience and appreciation for a 'no-nonsense' development process, Olabs has consistently delivered on-time, on-budget, and high-quality software development projects in highly complex environments.

The key to Olabs successes has been its commitment to adhere to a disciplined, optimized software methodology that expertly merges common sense with appropriate concepts from various software methodologies. To make these deliveries, Olabs offers a full range of life-cycle services that include:

* Project Management
* Systems Engineering
* Architecture Design
* Program Design
* Implementation
* Software Testing and Quality Assurance

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Product Development and R&D

Olabs has a unique ability that permits it to develop new software related products and then seek venture or development partners to refine them, bring them to market or license them for other practical applications.

Signature Verification
One of the new, exciting areas of Olabs is the on-going development of handwritten signature authentication. Because it does not rely on a central computer and can be validated at the point-of-sale, it is expected to be very popular for credit card security. The algorithm is copyrighted and pending patent. The practical applications are expected to be very useful for a wide variety of non-critical applications as well, including individual identifications, security authentication, etc.

System Development Testing Program
In software development, it is very common for software development responsibilities to be aligned to process boundaries, especially in cases where a complex distributed process communicates with one or more other complex distributed processes.

For example, a group of developers will be responsible for building a server application which interacts with one or more clients that are developed by other developers. During development and unit testing the developers of this server will need to simulate the client(s) with which the server will communicate.

Olabs has developed a proprietary interface-independent Java-based CORBA Process simulator software package which facilitates the simulation of one or more CORBA clients and/or servers each of whose behavior is specified by flat text files. These text files include Interface Definition Language (IDL) files to specify the interface, a trigger-response map to specify the process behavior, and (G2-like or C structure-like) interface-based data files to specify the data.

* The trigger-response map and data files are flat ASCII text files that are interpreted at run time to support scripting, a native executable interface, a simple built-in object repository database, and internal object data access.

* The software package supports translation from/to C structure (e.g. G2)-like ASCII text to/from CORBA objects and method invocations. Other features include client registration and asynchronous event notification, manual and automatic process invocation, logging, and a dynamic and distributed Java-based GUI to trigger and track communication.

* Olabs' simulator software package offers time and cost savings in the development, unit testing, integration testing, system testing and on-site installation and troubleshooting stages of software development. In the development and unit testing stage, it eliminates the need to create an interface- and data-specific simulator of external connecting processes. In the integration and system testing phases, it may be used as a pass through module between processes to track communication and to pinpoint the process boundary of a given problem.

* At any stage of testing, it offers full control of the timing of simulated process triggers and responses. At installation time, it may be used to retrieve customer site information from an old software version to input into a new software version since the input and output (logging) data formats are the same.

Other projects in various stages of refinement include a network security and "anti-hacking" program as well as automated installation software. For more detailed information on this or other Olabs software and development capabilities we ask that you contact us at our web site or via phone.

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You already know our Customers...

The solutions that Olabs provides, within the telecommunications industry, have been in two significant areas: SONET/SDH technology and wireless technology. In this area Olabs' clients include: AT&T, Lucent Technology, Inc., InterWAVE Communications, Inc., and ADC Wireless Systems. In the GUI arena, Olabs achievements have been the end-to-end development of platform independent GUIs related to the network and workforce management processes. Olabs' GUI customers include: Chrysler, Lucent Technology, Inc., UNISYS, and Telekom Berhard. [Descriptions of some of these projects are given below.]

Because of Olabs' telephony domain knowledge and experience, particularly in facility maintenance processes, and the complete understanding of network equipment interfaces, Olabs provides outstanding solutions to both RBOC and non-RBOC customers.

Olabs also has formed a joint venture with Hewlett Packard, Inc. to provide telecommunication solutions to certain international telecommunication customers.

Please review our extensive list of development projects created for various leaders in the telecommunications industry. We bring the same level of care, expertise and commitment to excellence to every customer and project we address. Projects are listed according to our experience in the following development areas:

Olabs has used innovative technology to provide service for companies that provide equipment in telecommunications. In this area of the telecommunications industry, Olabs' clients include prestigious companies such as Lucent Technologies, Inc., InterWAVE Communications, Inc, and ADC Wireless Systems, Inc. The following technologies are just a sample of the services that Olabs has provided.

ITM NM/XM - Lucent Technologies, Inc.

Integrated Transport Management (ITM) Network Management (NM)/Cross-Connect Element Management System (XM). ITM NM/XM is a Lucent Technologies, Inc., product where Olabs had the client-side development responsibilities. The system consisted of 200 screens, running on both HP workstations and PCs. The system supports a wide range of telephony functions, such as provisioning, administration, fault management, security, and configuration management. JAVA and C++ are extensively used, and CORBA/IIOP is used as the backbone infrastructure. The system features a dynamically configurable system for different customers for both SDH and SONET markest in different international languages without source code re-compilation.

ITM SNC - Lucent Technologies, Inc.

Integrated Transport Management (ITM) SubNetwork Controller (SNC) is an element management system for SONET transmission network equipment. Olabs is primarily responsible for the GUI of ITM SNC that consists of more than 200 screens that support a wide range of telephony functions, such as provisioning, administration, fault management, security, and configuration management. JAVA and C++ are extensively used and CORBA /IIOP is used for client server communication. The platforms for ITM SNC GUI are HP, Sun workstations and PCs.

SEAB - AT&T

SDH EMS Alarm Browser (SEAB) is a client/server network management system that provides fault management and administration of AT&T's SDH network for international traffic. Network alarms are polled from four separate element management systems from Alcatel and NEC. Olabs is responsible for the systems engineering, design, development, test and deployment of SEAB. JAVA and C++ are extensively used. The system has an Oracle DBMS. SEAB utilizes a Unix server with Sun Solaris clients (use a browser).

S/NEM - AT&T

NMOP/Network Event Mechanization (S/NEM) is a web-based client/server decision support system to help manage AT&T's network maintenance activities. The purpose of S/NEM is help avoid costly and timely network events that impact reliability and through-put. Olabs has the responsibility of developing and testing S/NEM. C++ is extensively used on the server and client processes. Oracle is the DBMS, running on a Windows NT server.

OMC (GSM) - InterWAVE Communications, Inc.

Operations Maintenance Center (OMC) is a network management system for a cellular wireless communication systems known as WaveExpress developed by InterWAVE Communication, Inc. WaveExpress is a wireless communication system based on the GSM standards. Olabs played a significant role in designing, developing, and project managing OMC Release (R4.0). Areas of expertise are access manager, alarm manager, cell broadcast, and project management activities. Using JAVA was one of the fundamental improvements that were introduced in the access manager. C++ was extensively used on the other managers (processes). The server platform for OMC is a Sun server with an HP workstation as the client-side system.

OMC (PCS 1900) - ADC Wireless System, Inc.

OMC PCS 1900 is an ADC Wireless project, where Olabs is responsible for the feature enhancements to the OMC R4.0, as described in the previous paragraph. The main features are the implementation of E1/T1 management system.

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GUI DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

WFM - Lucent Technologies, Inc.

Work Force Management System (WFM) is a system to help service providers to deploy and track repair teams to solve customer telephony problems. With primary responsibility for the systems engineering and development of the GUI, Olabs developers used Zapp/RogueWave platform independent GUI and related tools to produce a system that runs seamlessly on UNIX (Sun Solaris 2.X, HPUX 9.X) and Win32 platforms. The GUI consisted of 70 screens that display and allow users to control various aspects of work force deployment process. WFMGui has two external interfaces, one to an Oracle server, and a second to a related system to perform hardware test services. The system is currently deployed in Telekom Berhad (Malaysian Telephone Company) with more than 750 machine distributed nationally. It is expected to be utilized by a significant number of international telephone systems.

OBD2 - Chrysler, Inc.

On-Board Diagnostic System (OBD2) is a diagnostic system that provides real-time test data from automobiles that are being tested at Chrysler's proving grounds in Grand Rapids, Michigan. OBD2 is an existing system that is currently being enhanced and ported to JAVA. Olabs' responsibility is to provide technical leadership and architectural design to assist in the enhancement and port.

OneVision - Lucent Technologies, Inc.

OneVision is a Lucent Technologies, Inc., product that provides a platform and a set of building blocks, or services, that can be re-used to build application-specific network management systems. The types of services offered are: event logging and viewing, alarm monitoring, module management, network database, node discovery, and network topology. These services are provided in the form of CORBA servers, C++ libraries, and JAVA GUI frontend libraries. Olabs' responsibility is to provide overall architectural design/directions and JAVA shared libraries. OneVision currently runs on Sun Solaris and HPUX platforms. Future enhancements will include deployment on Win32 platforms.

Olabs is pleased to offer our specialized custom development services to meet the needs of both corporate clients and technology solution providers or vendors. Please contact us for more information.

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