Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 5

Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 8

	This Month's Issue:
	Serving Up Service Delivery

Service Delivery Frameworks:
The Service Provider's Mashup

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Fulfillment
Assurance
Charging for usage
Billing and revenue management
Monitoring and management
Trouble resolution

So far, the SDF team has not succeeded in directly linking SDF Service Lifecycle management to the eTOM except as an overlay drawing (the type we hate seeing so much when used by vendors to justify their products.) Relationship of SDF lifecycle to eTOM is clear during the in-service period, but likely will require extensions to eTOM to cover the creation and decommissioning periods. Also, eTOM does not itself yet have a model of service Mashup composition.

Other Bees in This Honey

Rather than compete, many members of the SDF community want to embrace and include Web 2.0 enablers in the SDF architecture mix. This expands the scope of SDF to include brokering between technologies. This enrichment also broadens the competitive positioning of services supplied via smart service provider middleware, potentially further marginalizing OTT services, but perhaps even OTT components could be incorporated.

When including Web 2.0 and Over-the-Top services, many new elements and enablers present themselves. These also are expected to be generated and managed through an SDF. Take for instance Identity Management and security. Many technologies and groups, like SAML, have little to do with IMS, and indeed are inventing alternative technologies faster than IMS can incorporate them in its architecture.

“The TMForum’s SDF work will embrace many of the major Identity groups work and provide a management structure for them. We have looked at the Liberty Alliance, Higgins Trust Framework, OpenID and others and feel that it is necessary to support these ongoing initiatives and not to choose between them. Also as these functions are critical so the TMForum’s SDF work must embrace their use and make it as easy as possible for them to be used with the rapid provision of all services and not limited to just content and media.” [Keith Miller]

Of course, Identity Management itself recursively becomes just a component service that will enable and enhance the offerings of other services. In NGOSS, we call this a framework service. In SDF it becomes part of a complex Mashup of services - becoming at once both framework and business service – where it is composed of more basic platform constructs and then enhances more complex and complete offerings. For example:

“eBIZmobility has built an SDP integration on

SDF must also encompass the delivery of enhanced customer experience while increasing the pool of possible customers and suppliers in our now much larger ecosystem.

top of Aepona/ Appium’s XWay application server that allows easy integration with charging gateways through their current Parlay/SIP implementations. This currently supports the Liberty alliances standards for Identity management and is being evolved with the TMForum’s SDF management work as it is maturing.” [Jeremy Kagan CEO eBIZmobility]

So SDF is the great service provider Mashup. It seeks to link NPI, lifecycle management, SDPs, IMS, Internet 2, SOA, W3C, and web 2.0. Add to this mix the concept of Resource Enablers made from, and abstracting, network elements and communications protocols and transport sub-components. This links SDF into Device Management, another new working team chartered by the TMF. Lastly, the possibilities of inter-working domains and multi-vendor component assemblies allows service providers to open up their network to service creation and deployment by third parties. This enables SDF as smart hosting middleware such as envisioned by FineGrain NGOSS. Realizing this broader vision of a SDF opens up a profound strategy for network owing service providers, what we call the “garden club.”

Big Job Moving Forward

If the dedication and expectations of the TMF SDF team are an indication, this project is gaining in support and momentum. Witness these glowing statements:

Keith Miller, Pendragon Consulting, Ltd.:

“The TMForum SDF program has come a long way in a short time with over 230 people from approximately 125 companies now monitoring and contributing to the work since we started the program just over a year ago. The program holds out the best hope for providing an SDF’s management integration in a painless and future-proofed manner. I am particularly pleased with the way that companies have collaborated in a pragmatic and open manner in order to move this work forward with the discussions being focused on meaningful implementation rather than each of their individual product lines!”

Jeremy Kagan, CEO eBIZmobility:

“We are pleased to see the TMForum take the initiative with the SDF program and we believe that this work is critical in bringing long term stability to the SDF area overall and de-risking SDP implementations.”

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