IBM targets carrier SOA, Web 2.0

IBM this week rolled out new products focused on helping service providers leverage Web 2.0-style technologies to more rapidly design and deploy new services.

The products, which span IBM’s Rational, WebSphere and Tivoli product groups, offer carriers the “capability to deliver innovative services with greater speed and quality in a much more open and flexible environment,” said Tim Greisinger, vice president, communications sector solutions, IBM Software Group.

The new and updated solutions include tools for modeling and testing SIP applications; an XML document manager for managing group lists, user profiles and policy data; new servers for managing telecom Web services and presence capabilities; an IMS connector; and new software for managing IMS services in an end-to-end environment.

Together, carriers can use these platforms to create a third-party gateway to service provider capabilities such as location-based services, presence, call control and messaging, IBM said. Such a gateway would enable Web-based mashups or enterprise business processes that could be integrated with communications capabilities.

At the core of all these solutions is a version of the WebSphere Application Server optimized for telecom networks and with a focus on enabling SIP features, IBM said. According to IBM, the platform has achieved a SIP performance measurement of 1296 calls per second, using a 13 message SIP call model, which translates to over 4.6 million busy hour call attempts per blade.