Provisioning

In general, provisioning means "providing" or making something available. The term is used in a variety of contexts in IT. In telecommunications terminology, provisioning means providing a product or service, such as wiring or bandwidth.

Provisioning means slightly different things in different aspects of telecommunications:

1) Providing telecommunications service to a user, including everything necessary to set up the service, such as equipment, wiring, and transmission.

2) Used as a synonym for configuring, as in "Telecommunications lines must be correctly provisioned to work with the customer's equipment and enabled for various options the customer has chosen."

3) In an ISP environment, provisioning refers to service activation and involves programming various network databases with the customer's information.

5) In a slightly different sense, network provisioning systems are intermediary systems that are used to provide customer services, log transactions, carry out requests, and update files.

6) Provisioning is the fourth step of the telecommunications sequence called OAM&P: Operations, Administration, Maintenance, and Provisioning.

7) According to the technical group that created the Services Provisioning Markup Language , provisioning is "the automation of all the steps required to manage (setup, amend, and revoke) user or system access entitlements or data relative to electronically published services."

TDL Gentek Provisioning Services Every service deals with provisioning in some manner. Some configurations are more involved than others, which can slow down deployment when onboarding new customers or upgrading existing ones. TDL Gentek’s technicians can do the provisioning work for you before we ship the device.  This means your IT resources won’t be burdened with setup, and it also eliminates the need for the device to come to you, allowing you take full advantage of all the savings and benefits of our Blind Drop Shipping service. Simply provide the provisioning instructions and we will configure to spec.

Gentek provides three provisioning services: Pre-Provisioning, Zero-Touch Provisioning and Full Provisioning.

• Pre-Provisioning is a hands-on process where Gentek inputs the IP address of your server into the device before we ship, in such a way that the device calls your server to get whatever firmware/software and settings you want it to access as soon as it is powered on at the final destination and connected to the internet.

• Zero-Touch Provisioning, also known as redirection, can automate firmware/software upgrading and installing, as well as downloading specific settings, without Gentek having to unbox and turn on each device.  This feature is available for devices from a number of vendors including Grandstream, Mitel, Polycom and Yealink.

• Full Provisioning is a hands-on process where Gentek inputs ALL settings into each device before shipping.  This service is available for modems as well as IP Phones, and is suitable for situations where Pre-provisioning or Zero-touch Provisioning aren’t an option (because the devices don’t support those capabilities, or perhaps you don’t have a server that can be accessed by the device from its final destination).