OPEN WIDE

WHAT ABOUT SOA?

So where can you find the SOA in carrier service creation environments? It's all over, really.

The fact that SOA comes directly from the IT world means it's no surprise that service-oriented architectures are affecting carrier IT systems — including OSS/BSS systems — first and most directly. SOA isn't required for Web services-based service creation, but it certainly helps. And when an SOA spans from the back-office to the service delivery platform (SDP) and beyond, the next-generation telco software architecture really comes into focus.

At the core of modern SOA approaches is the enterprise service bus (ESB), not a product per se but an approach to connecting distributed services and orchestrating their interaction. ESBs accomplish all this while also spanning different operating systems, programming models, application types and locations — a key enabler of distributed SOAs.

In the back office, an ESB creates the bridge between various network and IT resources such as operational and billing systems.

“You can support new services connecting directly into the OSS, but SOA provides a more flexible for implementing new services,” said Peter Dragunas, director of network domain for Hewlett-Packard's communications, media and entertainment division.

Add an SDP to the mix, and an SOA and ESB engine becomes the glue for piecing together and delivering composite, distributed applications and services.

“There's two main ways that SOA plays in telecom service creation,” said Indu Kodukula, vice president of product management for Oracle. “First, it solves the challenge of feature interaction and composition, the way you put together two features to create something new. Secondly, by separating orchestration logic from component logic and exposing it as a standard interface, it provides a much more flexible approach for building composite services.”