|
|
|
|
What’s New about the New Generation of SDPs
Paula Bernier
06/27/2007 SDP, or service delivery platform, is a concept being pushed by such IT companies at BEA, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle – as well as a new crop of SDP-specific vendors like Aepona and Redknee – to enable service providers to more easily, and affordably, deliver innovative services by themselves, or in collaboration with third-party application developers. SDP solutions employ Web services to avail service provider networks to the applications of third parties. The SDP market, including software and integration services, is forecast to hit $3.5 billion in 2010, according to a study released this summer by Infonetics Research. Yet SDP is considered by some to be an ill-defined term because it is not a standardized concept. However, recent analyst reports give us a good idea as to what generally falls under the SDP umbrella. A Yankee Group study released last fall says key SDP attributes include: • An open standards-based component architecture that utilizes Web services or equivalent interfaces to applications and standardized abstractions such as OSA/Parlay. It also enables third-party developers to access the SDP and BSS/OSS layer to offer new services. • A horizontal composite infrastructure that enables developers to expedite the creation of new applications by reusing the SDP infrastructure in multiple applications. • Vendor-agnostic standards-based components that don’t require service providers to purchase all SDP components from the same vendor to ensure integration. Service providers may select different components from different vendors. • The ability to integrate with both legacy and new network elements including 2G, 3G, IMS, IN and SS7. The SDP layer, which resides in the services layer of the network, abstracts the applications from the underlying network technologies in the network control and transport layers. • The ability to integrate with business support systems (BSSs) and operational support systems (OSSs) including billing, provisioning, CRM and service management systems via open standards-based interfaces. In a March study called “Service Delivery Platform Success Requires a Strategy Vision and Corporate Collaboration,” Michele Pelino says an SDP must include a service creation environment that gives developers tools (like software, scripts and APIs to network services like presence, location and messaging) for quickly creating new applications; a service execution environment (including gateway servers like Parlay to enable applications and service to be delivered to multiple devices based on specific requirements; and the ability to interface with BSSs and OSSs); and service management capabilities to ensure reliability and customer care. Chris King, senior director of worldwide telco markets at BEA, says the key SDP players are pretty much aligned on the core set of functionality for a service delivery platform. The only part that’s really up for debate is whether OSS/BSS functionality belongs in the SDP, says King. While BEA and Oracle think SDP should interface to OSSs and BSSs, but not perform those support system functions, King says IBM believes the SDP should actually include OSS/BSS functionality. BEA, which sells a SIP application server and a network gatekeeper, got into the SDP space sort of by mistake after acquiring WebLogic in fall of 1998, according to King. The deal followed by three years BEA’s acquisition of Tuxedo, a Unix-based transaction monitoring software created at BellLabs and now in use by all the major service providers’ billing vendors. So, when BEA bought WebLogic, it did so in a move to position the Java-based Web application server for OSS/BSS applications. However, a year or two later, BEA discovered its wireless customers were using the WebLogic server to host their applications for early wireless data services, he says, and that early usage evolved to SDP. “SDP allows service providers to, in a rapid fashion, build out a new service or set of services their subscribers use, rather than building those services into the network,” adds King. “SDP has interfaces into the network, the OSS/BSS and the Internet world. And SDP can manipulate content in[to] the right format for a given device.” Today BEA has SDP deployments in place at 48 service providers, and no two are alike, says King, adding that BEA’s partners in the SDP space include such big names as Accenture, Ericsson and HP. Here are some examples of how service providers are using BEA’s SDP solutions today: • O2, a subsidiary of Telefonica offering wireless services in U.K., started off using a basic SDP to offer sports content and intelligent SMS. Then, about a year and a half ago, O2 started using BEA’s WebLogic Network Gatekeeper to expose its network to third-party application developers. • Hutchinson in the United Kingdom and Asia is using BEA’s SDP solutions to deliver such content as ringtones, sports highlights and video over its 3G networks. • Three North American cable companies are in production with BEA-based SDP deployments related to VoIP and dynamic bandwidth allocation. King says SDP adoption at this point is just entering “phase three.” As he sees it, phase one had wireless service providers delivering rudimentary wireless data services using SDP. Phase two began when wireless data services gained some popularity and service providers allowed for some shared functionality between services. And phase three, which King says started last year, has service providers starting to embrace IMS, SIP, SOA and Web services to enable third-party exposure. Of course SDPs are not new. Service providers have SDPs in place today. After all, you need some kind of platform to create and deliver new services. However, this old line of SDPs was erected in a one-off, or “siloed”, fashion because telecom operators to date have lacked a simple way of creating and delivering services using a more holistic approach. But, as indicated above, the new generation of SDPs that has recently appeared on the scene is all about “openness” and the ability for third parties to interface with carrier networks via standard APIs. “Service providers are really looking to transform their business models,” says Aepona Vice President of Marketing Michael Crossey. “They’re under threat by Google and Yahoo. ... So telcos run risk of becoming a dumb pipe. Telcos need to regain control of the customer.” And telcos have the rich information about their customers to be able to do so, says Crossey of Aepona, which at NXTcomm introduced a wireline version of its Telecom Web Services solution, which such service providers at Sprint and TELUS use. The new view on SDP comes in large part from the concept of service-oriented architecture (or SOA), which originated on the enterprise network side, notes Patrick Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing at APPTRIGGER, a Dallas-based startup that sells an application session controller, which can be used as part of or independent of an SDP. On the carrier front, however, it was NTT DoCoMo that pioneered the idea of creating an open ecosystem of application developers for public network operators – a precursor to this new vision for SDP, according to Crossey. NTT DoCoMo published a proprietary programming language that application developers subscribed to and offered developers revenue-sharing for services based on those applications, he adds. This move to make it easier for third-parties to develop applications to run on service provider networks is happening now given service providers need to be able to get services to market quickly and affordably more than ever and given the fact that telcos and cablecos are increasingly going head-to-head with residential, and more and more, business services. At the same time, consumers’ growing attachment to wireless has pushed service providers like AT&T to bring wireless back into the fold; and these companies want to be able to leverage network assets – and be able to combine product packages and services ¬– across both wireless and wireline. “For example, rather than employ a separate policy, presence or application server for a particular service, operators can leverage an SDP infrastructure across multiple applications, whether these applications are created in-house or by third-party developers,” says the Yankee Group report on SDP. At the same time all this is happening in the telecom world, rich media applications delivered on the Web have developers combining capabilities – which have typically been associated with separate VoIP, video or data networks – through “mash ups” that combine existing functionality to create entirely new experiences. David Mangini, global solution owner for SDP at IBM, says his company believes SDP is intimately tied to the concept of the long-tail of the Internet. Service providers are looking at the type of services being offered through the Internet and recognizing there are new businesses models for developing new services and revenues, he says. So service providers are looking to adopt those to extend their brands through their Web sites and by using community-building and other techniques, he continues. “That’s where new service creation really starts to take a different feel,” adds Mangini. “If they’re interested in pursuing a long tail, they want to offer new services quickly, inexpensively, and with low risk” that allows them to launch and take down services as needed. Aepona www.aepona.com
Share this article: Email,
Slashdot, Digg,
Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb,
Windows Live Favorites,
Furl
|
|
| Sponsored Links | New Telephony Announcements |
Email this article
Add a comment
Printer version
Order reprints
RSS Feed
Bookmark article