Skyline Communications is bringing an exclusive preview of its next generation DataMiner solutions to IBC 2008, in booth 1.C14. A brand new user interface, designated DataMiner Cube, features an innovative and ground-breaking user-centric design. This software is expected to redefine the way operators can manage complex operational ecosystems, and will set a new benchmark for intuitive and efficient network management. Skyline Communications is also showcasing DataMiner Customer Premises Equipment Manager (DMS-CPE), a new cutting-edge professional software platform, specifically designed for advanced management of very high volumes of CPE devices, such as cable or DSL modems, embedded multimedia terminal adapters (eMTAs), and set-top-boxes (STB) in both telco, HFC, FTTH, and satellite environments.

“The past year has been very exciting for us, because a record number of leading corporations made the decision to deploy our open DataMiner end-to-end network management platform. This includes, among others, Broadcast Australia, Czech Television, ENEX, Gateway Communications, M6, MTV, Overon, Roshan, RTL-TVI, Stratos Global, TelstraClear, TVE, UPC, etc.,” commented Ben Vandenberghe, Sales & Marketing Director at Skyline Communications. “But aside from the many customer wins, we were also very pleased to see that the existing customer base continuously expands the scope of their DataMiner Network Management platforms. Consolidating operations, accelerating business, that’s what DataMiner is all about. And, today, we have some very impressive implementations out there, ranging from solutions that literally wrap around the world, and provide an unprecedented consolidated overview of global operations, to solutions that manage the most complex digital interactive service environments more intelligently than ever before. ”

“Today, DataMiner is one of the most widely deployed open multi-vendor network management platforms in the industry, and it is continuously gaining momentum mainly based on its merits as being a very open, powerful and yet still intuitive and easy-to-use solution, with a very appealing total cost of ownership tag,” added Bert Vandenberghe, Software R&D Director at Skyline Communications. “DataMiner is a state-of-art multi-vendor network management platform, and DataMiner Cube underlines our commitment to our customers and business partners that they will continue to be disposed to the best that technology can offer. To some people it may come as a bit of a surprise that we went back to the drawing board, as our current generation of UIs is already ranked at the top. But this is all about being prepared for the future, and assuring that our customers can continue to operate more and more efficiently even while their technical ecosystems become more and more complex. While preserving the qualities of the existing UI, and by leveraging the latest technologies, DataMiner Cube embodies an entirely new, highly innovative and above all user-centric approach on the end-to-end management of complex technological ecosystems. We spent a massive amount of resources in researching UI techniques and scrutinizing the seemingly most trivial aspects, and it has paid off. You need to experience DataMiner Cube in order to fully comprehend what it is all about, but DataMiner Cube is truly going to change the way people look at managing the most complex ecosystems. And IBC2008 is a unique opportunity for operators to get a sneak preview.”

Alongside DataMiner Cube, Skyline Communications is also showcasing DataMiner Customer Premises Equipment Manager (DMS-CPE), a new cutting-edge professional software platform, specifically designed for advanced management of very high volumes of CPE devices, such as cable or DSL modems, embedded multimedia terminal adapters (eMTAs) and set-top-boxes (STB) in both telco, HFC, FTTH, and satellite environments. DMS-CPE is capable of collecting any information from any and all CPE devices, and to provide the operator with an intuitive consolidated overview of the status of his entire CPE ecosystem. Via its intuitive web UI and multitude of industry standard interfaces, DMS-CPE generates significant added value for a wide variety of aspects of the operations (e.g. including overall QoE monitoring, engineering troubleshooting, customer support, marketing, etc.)

DMS-CPE is available as a standalone platform, with a multitude of interfaces for a seamless integration with all aspects of the operations (e.g. provisioning, OSS, trouble ticket systems, help desk environment, customer self care web portals, etc.), but can also be deployed as a fully integrated part of the renowned and widely deployed DataMiner multi-vendor NMS environment. The latter makes DataMiner the very first platform in the industry effectively enabling operators to view any possible active component in their ecosystem, from content acquisition in the headend to content delivery at the subscriber home, and across any possible vendor or technology boundaries.

DMS-CPE features full user-definable continuous round-robin collection of so-called Key Performance Indicators (KPI) from every single CPE device deployed in the field, and statistically processes those for different user-definable system layers (e.g. geographical and logical groupings such as streets, optical nodes, cities, DSLAM, CMTS, VOD groups, etc.) offering operators comprehensive real-time consolidated information, alarming, trending and reporting, etc. at all those user-defined levels. In addition to that, DMS-CPE also supports so-called ad-hoc data collection of virtually any information that possibly can be retrieved from the CPE device. These ad-hoc sessions can either be initiated manually (e.g. to support help desk operations), by means of user-defined flags (e.g. for more detailed short term troubleshooting) optionally triggered by events in the operational ecosystem, or on scheduled bases.

DMS-CPE comes with a powerful distributed architecture, allowing the operator to run it across any number of physical servers, located at a single central location or distributed across different regions, and also supports disaster recovery hot redundancy functionality. This architecture provides a wealth of operational advantages, and allows operators to perfectly balance its power and speed.

About Skyline Communications

Skyline Communications is the global leading supplier of multi-vendor network management solutions for the HFC broadband, satellite, IPTV, and broadcast industry. Their flagship DataMiner network management platform, which received various prestigious awards, enables end-to-end integration of the most complex technical ecosystems and has been deployed by leading operators such as Arab States Broadcasting Union, Belgacom, Broadcast Australia, Czech Television, European Space Agency, Eutelsat, Gateway Communications, GlobeCast, M6, MTV, Orascom Telecom, Overon, Roshan, RTL-TVI, Broadcasting Center Europe, Stratos Global, Telenet , Telenor, TelstraClear, TVE, UPC, Virgin Media, VOO, Ziggo, etc. DataMiner is today already integrated with over 1000 devices and systems from more than 200 key industry suppliers, and offers a plethora of functionality including unlimited web access, alarming, e-mail and SMS notification, long-term trending, professional reporting, advanced automation, intelligent correlation and root cause analysis, service management, real-time SLA monitoring, user-definable key performance indicator dashboards, spectrum monitoring, mobile access, powerful CPE management, and much more.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.skyline.be