IBM Helps Telecoms Create New, Dynamic Services With SOA and Web 2.0 Technologies

AT&T Uses IBM Technology to Develop Next-Generation Network Applications



ARMONK, NY.-IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new and enhanced products to help telecommunications carriers, equipment providers and application developers take advantage of service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 technologies to help them more rapidly and affordably create, deploy and manage voice, video and data services.

Building on its SOA leadership and telecommunications industry expertise, IBM is enhancing its existing software portfolio to help service providers enable flexible, standards-compliant service platforms that support the delivery of IP-based services. Service providers are also taking advantage of IBM’s SOA approach to transform previously siloed network infrastructure investments into reusable services that can easily interoperate using industry standards. This helps provide the business and IT leaders within an organization with the ability to quickly adapt to changing market demands and customer needs.

IBM is helping telecommunications companies like AT&T explore innovative and highly personalized services through a wide range of telecommunications industry-specific products based on SOA and Web 2.0 technologies. AT&T is using IBM WebSphere Application Server and BladeCenter systems as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) service logic execution environment platform to develop mission-critical services for deployment on AT&T’s IP-based network.

“IBM is enabling service providers to create, combine and deploy new telecommunications services based on emerging technologies,” said Tim Greisinger, vice president, communications sector solutions, IBM Software Group. “With IBM’s Web 2.0, SOA and IP technology leadership service providers may also have the capability to deliver innovative services with greater speed and quality in a much more open and flexible environment.”

This is also reflected in IBM’s continued partnership with the TM Forum, an open standards industry consortium with more than 600 members around the globe. The TM Forum recently selected IBM Rational RequisitePro to manage requirements across its Service Delivery Framework group. The Service Delivery Framework team is expanding industry best practices guidance and standards to next generation service delivery. This complements the existing publication of the Shared Information/Data (SID) and multi-Technology OSS Program (mTOP) telecommunications models by the TM Forum in IBM Rational Software Architect and support for TM Forum’s process models, contracted service definitions and SID data models in the Telecom Operational Content Pack for the IBM WebSphere Business Services Fabric, helping telecommunications service providers use industry best practices to transform their businesses.

New software for telecommunications industry
Available today, the following new and enhanced Rational, WebSphere and Tivoli products are designed to enable service providers to efficiently create, deploy and manage rich new converged services independent of the underlying network infrastructure. The WebSphere offerings build upon the latest release of IBM WebSphere Application Server and leverage reusable IP-based services building blocks based on open standards. The WebSphere offerings’ modular approach provides customers and partners with a flexible, high-performance service execution environment for next generation converged services. The new IBM Rational software includes extensions to standards-based modeling and testing tools, which are key components of an open, comprehensive service creation environment that supports the design, development, testing and deployment of SIP-based applications in a converged environment.

* IBM Rational Performance Tester Extension for SIP -- designed to enable the testing of SIP-based applications. For example, service providers can use an integrated test management environment to test the reliability and scalability of not only SIP applications, but also applications dependent on other standards and protocols such as HTTP, Web Services, and Java™ Server Pages, across a variety of IBM and non-IBM service execution environments.
* IBM SIP Modeling Toolkit for Rational Software Architect -- designed to enable the modeling of SIP-based applications. For example, service providers can start with simple call flow models using the graphical Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard and automatically generate the code to power new SIP servlets such as a call blocking application.
* IBM WebSphere XML Document Management Server (XDMS) -- offers a way to help customers manage XML documents of various types, including group lists, user profiles, contact information, authorization rules, and policy data, which is independent of both services and applications. Using XDMS, customers may now incorporate network-stored documents across multiple applications. For example, a user may create a group list through an address book application or device client and then access that same group to set up a conference call or instant messaging chat session.
* IBM WebSphere Telecom Web Services Server (TWSS) -- designed to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to help deliver a secure, standards-based gateway for third-parties to access personalized capabilities like location- based services, presence, call control and messaging. In the latest version of TWSS, IBM expands its existing portfolio with new Parlay X 2.1- based Web services for MMS messaging and address list management, a new WAP Push Web Service, and new implementation options for terminal location services. Using the new functionality, a social networking site might offer a mash-up of the presence and location of nearby friends and enable a subscriber to easily send an SMS message to invite the group to meet at a nearby restaurant. Likewise, a workforce management application might be enhanced with a worker’s location and availability to determine whether to forward an incoming customer call to them.
* IBM WebSphere Presence Server -- designed to deliver the ability to collect, manage and distribute real-time information about subscriber access, availability and willingness to communicate across applications and environments. The new version adds performance and functional enhancements, including standards-based authorization rules for privacy and features to help minimize network traffic.
* IBM WebSphere IMS Connector -- designed to enable applications running on WebSphere Application Server to communicate with IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) core elements like the call/session control function, home subscriber servers and charging systems. The new release includes support for pre-paid or credit-based charging, designed to allow service providers to deploy new services with more flexible billing options.
* IBM Tivoli Netcool -- IBM plans to release new Tivoli Netcool software that will provide monitoring of the WebSphere IMS platform, enabling service providers to monitor the availability and performance of their next generation IMS WebSphere infrastructures. The new software will add to Tivoli’s extensive portfolio covering wireless, wireline, and server and application expertise, helping businesses to deliver end-to-end management of next generation services utilizing SOA and SDP technologies.

These new and enhanced products are available today. These products build upon IBM’s extensive telecom industry experience -- boasting more than 90 percent of service providers worldwide as customers -- and complement IBM’s hardware and services offerings as part of IBM’s broader IMS services plan solutions.

IBM WebSphere Application Server
IBM’s WebSphere Application Server delivers telecom class infrastructures with a focus on SIP features. It is a carrier-grade application server that utilizes a converged HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and SIP container. It allows service providers to quickly offer new personalized and productivity enhancing services that subscribers demand. WebSphere Application Server 6.1.0.11 using Red Hat Linux and integrated in the IBM BladeCenter HT chassis, which is network equipment building systems (NEBS) compliant, has achieved an industry leading SIP performance measurement of 1296 calls per second, using a 13 message SIP call model (with 80 second hold time) which translates to over 4.6 million busy hour call attempts per blade. Using this call model, in a high availability, carrier-grade configuration, WebSphere Application Server achieved 660 calls per second per blade with session replication. These results were achieved while retaining extremely low end-to-end SIP message processing latency of under 50 milliseconds ninety five percent of the time. This exhibits the ability of WebSphere Application Server to handle the call volumes businesses demands while ensuring service quality.

For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/soa