Since the invention of the telephone, roughly one and a half centuries ago, it has spawned an industry that has undergone profound changes. Originally the industry served as a provider of voice communications over fixed wireline systems. Today it provides a variety of services, including voice, multimedia, and data, over mobile and fixed infrastructure. An exciting and rapidly developing area is M2M, where machines and sensors are managed remotely using wireless communication. With revolutionary growth in volume and variety, the task of providing the IT infrastructure that manages such complex systems is a challenging one. In these pages we give a high level overview of the key aspects of telecom IT systems architecture (a discussion of IT systems architecture in general can be found here). The industry has responded to the complexity by developing several standards, e.g., OMA DM, NGMN, TMF, OMTP, etc.
When one talks of IT systems for the telecom industry, probably the first words one comes across are OSS/BSS (Operations Support Systems/Business Support Systems ) . OSS supports the telecom network operations, e.g., network management, provisioning (preparing the network to provide services to the users), configuring the network and network fault handling. BSS supports the business side dealing with customers, e.g., taking orders, billing and payment collection. Initially, the OSS and BSS systems were isolated, and did not talk directly to each other. The first step in evolving an enterprise architecture was to break down the silos and have an integrated OSS/BSS system. However, every enterprise still had a different OSS/BSS system, and there was no industry standard architecture which would allow software vendors to develop inter-operable applications, and no easy way for telecom operators to source thier software from different providers without taking on a major integration effort. To overcome this problem, an international association of operators and vendors (TeleManagement Forum, TMF) was formed in 1988 to provide standards for digital services serving the telecom business processes. The TeleManagement Forum has been active in defining a standard business model and IT architecture which would allow a telecom company to buy different components of the OSS/BSS from different vendors and integrate them seamlessly. The TMF has defined NGOSS (New Generation Operations Systems and Software) as Solution Frameworks for transforming telecom business and operations. The Solution Frameworks consist of 4 key components and a methodology for implementation.
The key components of the Solution Frameworks are:
Business Process Framework (enhanced Telecom Operations Map, eTOM) – The Business Process Framework provides the map and common language of business processes that are used in the industry.
Information Framework (Shared Information/Data, SID) – The Information Framework provides a “common language” for software providers and integrators to use in describing management information.
Integration Framework – The Integration Framework and Business Services (also known as Contracts) provide a common plumbing in order to successfully integrate applications provided by multiple software vendors. The Integration Framework defines architectural principles to guide developers to create components that operate successfully in a distributed environment; and the Business Services define the “APIs” for interfacing those elements to each other across the architecture.
The Application Framework (Telecom Applications Map, TAM) – The Application Framework considers the role and the functionality of the various applications that deliver management systems capability, and provides definitions of them.
The Frameworks can be used to implement a Service Oriented Enterprise (SOE) which is defined as a modular organization, where process, information, systems and people are grouped to provide reusable business services (elements of functionality) with which the enterprise operates. The SOE provides the ability to play a role in a collaborative eco-system quickly and at low cost, e.g., defining and establishing new services across a multi-partner value chain. The Frameworks together with the Solution Frameworks Implementation Methodology allow software engineering organizations to create low cost integration support system components.