SDPs PDQ: Why New Service Creation Platforms Are Better, Faster, Cheaper

And How All This Relates to IMS, SOA and Web 2.0

Name a three-letter acronym that describes a construct to enable service providers to leverage common components across multiple applications and networks in an effort to expedite time-to-market for new services while containing costs.

If you answered “IMS,” you are correct.

Extra credit goes to anyone who also responded “SDP.”

This little quiz demonstrates the many similarities of IMS and SDP. Yet, it’s unclear just what the relationship is, or might be, between IMS and SDP.

SDP, or service delivery platform, is a concept being pushed by such IT companies at BEA Systems Inc., IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. to enable service providers to more easily, and affordably, deliver innovative services by themselves, or in collaboration with third-party application developers.

Some traditional telecom equipment vendors, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, are offering up SDP-type solutions as well. But Alcatel-Lucent, in particular, clearly is not leading with its service creation and execution offer, which it doesn’t even want to classify as an SDP product. That’s because Cindy Mills, a general manager in the professional services unit of Alcatel-Lucent Services, says SDP is a term with “limited historical perspective” and can be “a very service-specialized solution.” Instead, Alcatel-Lucent prefers the term service delivery environment, or SDE.

Call it what you will, the “rapidly growing” 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.

Service Delivery Platform Components and Interfaces Click to Enlarge

As with the IMS camp, SDP proponents like to talk about the need to abstract the services layer from the network layer. SDP solutions, however, tend to employ Web Services to avail service provider networks to the applications of third parties. While IMS is an IP-centric concept, SDP addresses both legacy and IP-based networks and applications. And, as indicated by Mills, while IMS is a standardized network architecture as defined by 3GPP, there is no standard definition for SDP.

However, at least a couple analyst firms have provided a clue as to what constitutes an SDP solution.

In a March 2007 study called “Service Delivery Platform Success Requires a Strategy Vision and Corporate Collaboration,” Michele Pelino, a senior analyst with Forrester Research Inc., 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. (For a look at how these pieces work together, see chart above.)

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, BEA’s King says IBM believes the SDP should actually include OSS/BSS functionality.

SDP Process Framework Click to Enlarge

BEA, which sells a SIP application server and a network gatekeeper, got into the SDP space sort of by mistake after acquiring WebLogic in the 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 the 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 3G U.K. Ltd. in the U.K. 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.

SDP: Yesterday and Today

While IMS is relatively new to the telecom lexicon, SDP is not. 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 recently has 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 the 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, used by such service providers at Sprint and TELUS.

The new view on SDP comes in large part from the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA), which originated on the enterprise network side, notes Patrick Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing at AppTrigger Inc., 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 Inc. 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.

SDP and Web 2.0

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, especially since telcos and cablecos increasingly are 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 Inc. 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,” according to a 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 merging capabilities — which typically have 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 tied intimately 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 business models for developing new services and revenue, he says. So, service providers are looking to adopt those models 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.

So, SDP is a good match for this Web 2.0 world, given SDP is predicated heavily on the concept of Web Services. It’s this fact that makes some believe SDP ultimately will be rendered the winning solution in what some see as an SDP/IMS throwdown.

SDP and IMS

But is SDP really a competitor to IMS, or is it a complementary concept? It depends on whom you ask. But most sources I spoke with indicate the two are complementary, although not codependent.

In cases in which SDP and IMS coexist, most sources say, SDP rides on the application layer of the IMS framework. That’s why you’ll often hear IMS as part of the discussion by SDP suppliers. For example, BEA at NXTcomm earlier this summer unveiled Release 3.0 of its WebLogic Network Gatekeeper, and part of that announcement addressed the product’s integration with IMS. BEA also has teamed up with signaling company Tekelec and HP to deliver a pre-integrated “IMS in a Box” solution, which made its debut at NXTcomm.

When talking about Oracle’s SDP solution, Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, also mentions IMS. At the core of the Oracle SDP is a carrier-grade application server. That application server has a Parlay interface to support legacy networks as well, and SIP and DIAMETER interfaces to work with IMS. The Oracle SDP also has enablers for location, call control, media server and messaging enablement, and has three main services — virtual PBX, a Vonage-type service and presence.

IBM’s Mangini adds that the service execution piece of SDP is about leveraging service providers’ existing investments so they can offer new services today — and also leverage IMS- and SIP-based infrastructure so they can add new services when they move to IMS. In fact, IBM has announced a deal to provide an SDP solution for Swisscom Mobile, which also is using IMS. But IMS doesn’t necessarily need to be part of the mix, he says.

“We’re reacting to the marketplace, where there’s an awful lot of effort being put into IMS. But I really don’t think the carriers are yet ready to jump into [IMS] in any kind of a massive way,” says Mangini.

MetaSwitch Offers ‘Telephony-Optimized’ Take on SDP
By Paula Bernier

Like IMS before it, everybody seems interested in getting a piece of the SDP pie.

For example, MetaSwitch at NXTcomm is pushing further into the applications sphere with the introduction of what it’s calling a service delivery platform (SDP).

There’s no standard definition for SDP, but what most folks think of when you say service delivery platform these days is a Web-based solution for creating and deploying a variety of services, and interfacing to necessary OSS and BSS systems at the service provider, regardless of the type of service or network. The idea behind this new generation of SDPs, being promulgated at IT vendors like BEA Systems Inc., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp., is all about breaking down single-service silos.

However, while Martin Taylor, MetaSwitch’s senior vice president of product management and strategy, says its MetaSphere SDP theoretically could work for any application, he indicates that this product is optimized for telephony-type applications. That makes sense, given MetaSwitch is a softswitch vendor. But it kind of goes against the idea of breaking down service silos.

In any case, Taylor says it would be more difficult for “general-purpose” SDPs from companies such as those mentioned above to create and support some of the applications MetaSphere aims to address, given MetaSwitch has a “mastery of telephony.”

The MetaSphere solution includes a service creation and personalization environment as well as pre-packaged applications.

MetaSwitch already offers an application and services environment, and some pre-packaged applications, notes Taylor. What’s new here is the service-creation environment and some new or enhanced applications. The Java- and XML-based service-creation and personalization environment offered under the MetaSphere umbrella is referred to as SCAPE.

“SCAPE is the tool that allows for new IVR capability to become developed quickly through a GUI,” says Taylor. The MetaSphere solution overall aims to help service providers and their partners create and introduce new services and features “at Google lab speed as opposed to BellLabs speed,” he adds.

SCAPE supports carrier-grade availability and scalability to tens of millions of users via clustering of commercial off-the-shelf server hardware; a service capability interaction manager to facilitate interaction between multiple applications; and a library of common services providing access to media server, session control, virtual home subscriber server data storage, diagnostic, provisioning, auditing/logging and billing functions. Another key element of the MetaSphere SDP is CommPortal, MetaSwitch’s previously announced user interface.

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