Upgrading Oracle Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) software is a complex process that carries risks if not properly managed. It is crucial to partner with experts who have proven experience with BRM upgrades and customizations. Tarshan is presented as a partner with a team of BRM experts who use a thorough, proven approach to analyze impacts, address issues, manage the project, and ensure a successful BRM upgrade.

1. THE ULTIMATE
GUIDE TO
BRM Upgrade Strategy
PUBLISHED BY

2. The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy'
Introduction:
Key to BRM Upgrade Success
Not every Oracle Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) upgrade is a success, at least not initially. These often are complicated
upgrades with various customizations to deal with. Although many service providers promise to assist with the Oracle BRM upgrade
you need to be careful who you partner with. The key is to check that they have the proven BRM experience your upgrade needs.
Specifically, do they:
· Take charge of the project and manage it to a successful finish on time and at budget
· Have the ability to analyze current BRM down to code level
· Have the ability to assess the impact on your customizations
· Have the skills and tools to remediate where necessary
· Test and deliver the BRM upgrade ready to deploy
And most organizations don't want to turn over the upgrade to Oracle unless, maybe, your technology infrastructure and business
billing and revenue management processes are completely vanilla. For example, Oracle offers upgrade scripts out of the box for the
newer releases and upgrade versions, but if you have made any customizations to your current version, these scripts need to be
assessed and modified to preserve your customizations. Similarly, if you rely on a complex business process these packaged scripts
are unlikely to work. You initially customized Oracle BRM for a good reason. You will want to preserve those changes with the new
upgrade.
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3. Oracle BRM Upgrade Risk
Your choice of a BRM implementation partner is crucial because critical revenue stream is involved. That automatically makes
upgrading BRM a high risk undertaking since the entire revenue of the operator depends on BRM running smoothly. Adding to the risk is
the complicated nature of the upgrade, entailing various customizations and schema changes that need to be identified and assessed
as part of the upgrade process.
Given the risk involved, Project Management can become a challenge involving the need to monitor, coordinate, and orchestrate the
various people from different business units and with diverse skills required to handle what can be tricky customizations and
modifications and do it end-to-end with consistency and authority. As a result, you need a respected partner that recognizes the risk
from the outset and brings the skills to mitigate the various risks and see the project managed from start to finish, thereby ensure
billing and revenue continuity.
The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy' Page 2 of 7

4. In-house Versus
Outside BRM Experts
A company's initial inclination usually is to turn the BRM upgrade
over to its in-house staff. It seems to be cheaper, the in-house
group represents a known quantity, and it has been running the
system all along. Given that the in-house choice seems right.
Or, is it? How much expertise does the in-house staff really have
in Oracle and in BRM? Consider who made the customizations,
which made the database schema changes, and who is best
positioned to perform a thorough and informed risk assessment
and analysis of the upgrade across organizational silos? Then
consider who can handle project management start to finish or
understands data quality and data migration. Also consider how
deep is the in-house team's relationship with Oracle or how well
they know the BRM internals. Finally, consider that if the in-
house team has to augment staff with any outsiders for expertise
or experience they lack, you lose whatever cost advantage the
in-house team might have had.
An outside team like Tarshan, on the other hand, with proven
BRM expertise and experience as well as a deep relationship with
Oracle—deep enough to bring insights of BRM's internals—will
likely be able to deliver the project faster, with much lower risk,
and even at a lower cost when all factors, including risk, are
accounted. And, with such an outside team you will still retain
complete control of the project and ensure a predictable ROI on
the upgrade since you are the team's sole client and focus, which
is more than you can say about Oracle.
For example, a client was upgrading to Oracle BRM 7.4 and
switching operating systems from Solaris to Linux. Tarshan
analysis revealed the upgrade would enable the company to drop
what had now become several unnecessary customizations by
taking advantage of new capabilities in v7.4. Tarshan applied its
expertise in operating systems, Oracle, and BRM to handle the
upgrade and successfully handled end-to-end project
management.
The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy' Page 3 of 7

5. Proven Tarshan Expert
based BRM Upgrade Approach
Tarshan, a global IT services provider, has spent XX years
working with Oracle BRM on behalf of over ## Oracle clients. It
recognizes Oracle BRM as a multi-faceted product that is used
differently by every organization. It also understands the
complexity and inherent risk surrounding every Oracle BRM
upgrade.
As a result, Tarshan assembles diverse team of BRM experts for
each upgrade engagement, many of whom previously worked
for Oracle and have been involved in multiple BRM projects. The
work covers a broad spectrum of activities: analysis,
assessment, coding, scripting, testing, and project
management. In some cases, an upgrade may touch on obscure
BRM internals for which Tarshan has knowledgeable experts
ready. In short, the Tarshan approach is aware of the criticality of
your BRM upgrade and brings the appropriate BRM expert team
to the project.
Tarshan BRM Upgrade Process Applied
Specifically, Tarshan delivers upgrade analysis, assessment,
coding, scripting, testing, and management.
Organizations will benefit from the Tarshan expertise in the
following areas:
· Early assessment with a focus on impact analysis
· Understanding of custom hooks into Oracle code to
support specific logic
· Identifying and addressing problematic database
schema
· Upgrading complicated or customized reports
· Analysis of the pricing catalog to conform with the
upgrade
· Expert scripting to facilitate the BRM upgrade process
The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy' Page 4 of 7

6. In addition, Tarshan experts will work along the organization's internal team to assist the
internal QA group in ensuring that performance testing, acceptance testing, and
integration testing are successful. Tarshan also will fully document the upgrade process,
leaving the organization with an effective map to maintain the system. Finally, Tarshan
will oversee end-to-end project management, working closely with the organization's
own PMO to ensure efficient delivery of the upgrade on time and at budget. In addition,
Tarshan provides optional services such as finding and correcting memory leaks, often a
cause of upgrade crashes and unexpected glitches, and develop automated scripts.
One of the largest telcos in Australia, for instance, upgraded BRM from 7.0 to 7.4, a big
leap that included customizations, changing from Solaris to Linux, porting the
applications to the new OS, and testing the application. Further complicating the
upgrade was the high volume of data and a pipeline design that impacted pricing,
modifications, customizations and configuration of the applications. Tarshan designed
upgrade scripts to automate the handling large volume of data as well as the
reconfiguration of the database racks. Tarshan also handled the installation and the
configuration of the new multi-schema implementation.
Another company faced an extremely complex BRM upgrade to Oracle BRM v 7.5. It
turned to Tarshan because the BRM upgrade also included fixing databases that had
been causing performance issues. The timeline was extremely tight but Tarshan,
drawing on its expertise in BRM and databases, was able to handle both the BRM
upgrade while also re-configure the databases to eliminate the performance issues. The
entire project was completed in less than 6 months.
Build the business case for the
upgrade
End-to-end project management
Assess customization impact
Understand patches
Upgrade the database and
schema changes as needed
Bring all the customization to the
new code
Apply scripts and tools
Perform QA and acceptance testing
Fully document the upgrade process
Tarshan BRM Expert
Strategy in a Nutshell
The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy' Page 5 of 7

7. Most likely problems Areas
Custom reports : an organization's unique business processes may
require custom reports that are not part of Oracle's packaged BRM
reports
Combined real-time and batch processing : complex BRM
processes may require both real-time and batch processing, which
can complicate the BRM upgrade if not handled correctly.
Testing : BRM processes can be quite complex and require extensive
testing to ensure they are working correctly and delivering accurate
results.
Pricing : the value of BRM comes through its ability to handle
complicated pricing structures. Tarshan assesses pricing models to
ensure they are accurately reflected in Oracle BRM and deliver correct
results.
The fact is BRM upgrades are too important and too risky with your
revenue stream at stake to not bring in proven expert help.
Customization : adds unique value to your BRM process but
can complicate the Oracle upgrade process. Tarshan identifies
and assesses customizations from the outset of the upgrade
process.
Schema changes : organizations often make schema changes
to reflect their unique BRM processes. Tarshan assesses the
schema changes and can make appropriate corrections as
necessary.
Memory leaks : are a frequent source of crashes and glitches.
Tarshan experts can find and fix memory leaks as needed.
Project management : the company's internal organizational
structure often hinders the necessary end-to-end project
management required for an effective BRM upgrade. Tarshan
can provide seamless end-to-end project management across
organizational silos.
*
The Ultimate Guide to 'The BRM Upgrade Strategy' Page 6 of 7

8. Conclusion
Tarshan—A Proven Oracle BRM Upgrade Expert Resource
An Oracle BRM upgrade is too important and risky to handle
without the assistance of proven Oracle BRM expertise. At the
least, you need knowledgeable experts like Tarshan who can
analyze and mitigate the impact on any customization during
upgrades and will bring insider knowledge of BRM code and
unpublished internals. Tarshan also brings scripting, testing, and
project management experience to your upgrade.
Tarshan LLC
5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 320
Santa Clara, California, 95054 USA
Worldwide enquiries:
Phone: +1. 408. 421.7776
www.tarshan.com
About Tarshan
Tarshan is a Software Services company and an
Oracle Communications Implementation Expert
exclusively focusing on Telecom BSS/OSS market
and providing high quality consulting services for
the Oracle Communications Suite of products.
With operations in the US and in India, Tarshan is
able to provide highly cost effective services using
a combined on-site/off-shore model. With an
extremely competent team of professionals,
Tarshan has made a name for itself in delivering
very high quality services in their projects,
especially Oracle BRM.
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