Www.ibm.com



Why leverage Service delivery Platform (SDP)

The Service Delivery Platform (SDP) can be seen as a phased approach to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Service Delivery Platform (SDP) have their origins with the mobile service providers. SDP creation was based on the need to deliver 2nd generation services quickly and with less cost to the business than traditional deployment models. These services had to be developed, integrated, and exposed to the carrier's consumer. This enables communication services providers to efficiently create and deliver new innovative services using carrier-class IT platforms. Communication services provider (CSPs) spending on service delivery platforms (SDP) will grow from $1.78 billion in 2006 to $5.04 billion in 2011 at a 23 % CAGR according to IDC. This growth rate will be achieved because service delivery platforms will become the core service platform in the Communication services provider infrastructure. Service delivery platforms will deliver a range of new and existing services that combine communications, entertainment and electronic commerce. Multimedia content, messaging, presence, location, games and real-time charging will be key enablers.

The future of a wire line and/or wireless service providers will be based on revenue generated by the data center ((B.E.T. (Business Enablement Technology)). Application services are going to drive service provider profitability and growth well into the future. An example of this is British Telecom spinning off the access network activity into its own division. This division will provide equality of access, processes and services to all its customers. This will include its retail competitors.

So why develop a Service delivery Platform to expose Next Generation Network support? If a provider is going to offer services that is more than me too, its competitive differentiator will be efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the service delivery infrastructure. The current silo service delivery models are not efficient and are expensive. They also limit the ability of the operator from bundling existing services and reduced the speed to market of new service.

The Service delivery Platform infrastructure will continue to develop and become the heart of the business, this will consist of Central office and Data Center hardware, rich middleware (Websphere), standards based protocols and applications.

SDP as it continues its migration into the core of business it will be enhanced by adding IP multimedia subsystems as functionality becomes available. So what is the difference between IMS and SDP if you are talking to a potential consumer of SDP and/or IMS? The biggest difference between them is SDP is not defined by a standards body, but uses standards and addresses a common problem that all providers have. So a Service delivery platform infrastructure has a very consistent deployment and tools. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a defined set of specifications developed by several standard bodies, so business needs to change to map to these standards. To some this may appear to be a weakness for the service delivery platform architecture and yet, in my opinion, it is a major strength of the service delivery platform model. This allows it to embrace an open ended set of common capabilities, that can extend into the operational support systems. This could include provisioning, service activation, and other enablement functions. Service Delivery Platform Infrastructure was born from business enablement technology (BET) requirements to support devices and content. This allows a Service delivery environment to meet the needs of a multi-device client. It contains a rich set of functions allowing support to catalog management, digital rights management, down load management and ability to combine and compose new services.

Final thoughts Service Delivery platform delivers:

Development - Using open standard tools that can run on various hardware platforms.

Integrated - The ability to blend legacy TDM environments with IP based services.

Expose to consumer - The services can be turn up easily deploying the new service across the business.

© IBM Corporation 2006

IBM Systems and Technology Group

Produced in the USA.

05-06

All rights reserved.

IBM, the IBM logo, System x, eServer and xSeries are trademarks or

registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or

other countries.

AMD and Opteron are trademarks or registered trademarks of

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Intel and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of

Intel Corporation

Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or

service marks of others.

IBM reserves the right to change specifications or other product

information without notice. References in this publication to IBM

products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them

available in all countries in which IBM operates. IBM PROVIDES

THIS PUBLICATION "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY

KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE

IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND

FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do

not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties in certain

transactions; therefore, this statement may not apply to you.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download