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Service Delivery Platforms: Defining and Comparing

| May 6, 2009 | IP Services Infrastructure | Advisory Report

| Analyst: Joe McGarvey

Joe McGarvey Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure

Summary

The service delivery platform (SDP) currently occupies a paradoxical position in the telecommunications industry; it is at the same time something old and something new. This condition arises, of course, from the fact that the SDP, a mature and familiar artifact of telecommunications networks, is undergoing a rapid and dramatic evolution into a multi-faceted platform for assisting operators in their transition into value-added service providers.

That the SDP is essentially a moving target has made it difficult to define and nearly impossible to compare one supplier’s SDP to another’s. Taking on this challenge, Current Analysis has introduced the Service Delivery Platform (SDP) Solution Assessments, a collection of solution profiles and rankings designed to measure the merits of an SDP offering based on its ability to drive operators toward a business model that is aligned with the communications industry’s shift toward the Internet.

Divining a measuring stick for SDPs required satisfying several requirements, such as figuring out a common approach to evaluating solutions that may take divergent paths to solving the same problem or assigning an objective ranking to platforms that are likely to appeal to operators for subjective or idiosyncratic reasons.

Current Perspective

Despite existing for decades – as long as telecommunications operators have been delivering services – service delivery platforms (SDPs) have eluded a consensus-satisfying definition. As operators increasingly look to leverage SDPs as the engines that drive the transformation of their networks and business models to better compete in the 21st century, a definitive description becomes even more elusive. If merely defining an SDP is an arduous task, then comparing one to another is downright Herculean. A head-to-head evaluation of competing SDPs is an exercise akin to ranking schools of thought (e.g., is 20th century existentialism better than Confucianism?). Despite these significant obstacles, Current Analysis has delivered a set of solution assessments that provides a working definition of an SDP and an objective system for comparing solutions from multiple vendors. What follows is a deconstruction of the methodology and reasoning that contributed to the creation of the Current Analysis Service Delivery Platform Solution Assessments offering.

Defining

The process of defining a 21st century SDP is hindered in some respects by history. SDPs have been in employment for multiple years and are associated with various tasks, both within and outside the telecommunication industry. From the telecom perspective, SDPs over the past 10 or so years have become nearly synonymous with content management systems (CMS) used primarily by mobile operators to automate the process of matching ringtones, games, and other mobile applications with specific handsets and to oversee the delivery of that content. From an IT perspective, an SDP is all about service creation and execution and orchestrating processes using service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology. Not unlike the metaphorical elephant encountered by a traveling band of blind men, SDPs tend to take a particular shape based on the angle from which they are being encountered. One of the major goals of the SDP Solution Assessments is to provide a broad and objective definition of an SDP that includes all of its different and varied job descriptions. In other words, a chief objective of this exercise is to expose the entire elephant.

While other telecommunications architectures, such as IMS, can be defined and compared to a degree due to adherence to a common set of blueprints or industry standards, SDPs remain – for the most part – outside the governance of standards bodies or an industry-accepted set of best practices for their implementation. Since SDPs lack a common point of references for describing and comparing, a logical approach toward finding commonality in the solution category is to focus on the objectives that operators are looking to accomplish through the adoption of an SDP. While SDPs may vary significantly in terms of the individual products and systems that give them shape, nearly all SDPs are designed to assist operators in accomplishing four objectives: increase the overall agility of the service delivery infrastructure, reduce operational expenditure (OpEx) and capital expenditure (CapEx) costs, automate and make uniform frequently performed tasks, and enable operators to play a role in the service delivery value chain beyond transport provider (see the chart: Common Objectives of an SDP).

All of these objectives, when combined, represent a major transformation of the telecommunications operator’s service delivery infrastructure into a mechanism that can compete with – or enable – the agile and open service delivery capabilities of Internet-based service providers. While it is possible for carriers to survive by adopting a transport-only business model, an overhaul of their existing service delivery infrastructure, which will rely heavily on the adoption of an SDP, is required in order for operators to thrive in the 21st century.

Chart 1: Common Objectives of an SDP

Though often overlooked as a major objective of an SDP, automation of common tasks is an essential requirement of an SDP. For operators to compete with or add value to the offerings of Internet-based service providers, they must be able to evolve their networks effectively and cost-effectively into multimedia market places that can accommodate millions of subscribers, thousands of partners and third-party services, and hundreds of business models and payment schemes. Current standard operating procedure for most operators dealing with third-party relationships is to create a separate and vertical service delivery and lifecycle management system for each encounter. Continuing down this path is not an option for operators. Only through a properly implemented SDP will carriers be able to adopt a repeatable and automated approach to service delivery that is capable of scaling to support hundreds, if not thousands, of partners, applications, and services.

Comparing

Once a set of common objectives for SDPs is identified, the next logical step is comparing SDP solutions based on their effectiveness in assisting operators in reaching those objectives. Accordingly, the Current Analysis SDP Solution Assessments are composed of six separate selection criteria that are aligned with the common objectives that operators are looking to achieve through the implementation of an SDP. These six selection criteria – Third-Party Management, Content Management and Delivery, Resource Abstraction, OpEx Reduction, IT and Network Integration, and Overall Effectiveness – are described below (see the chart: Comparing SDPs).

Chart 2: Comparing SDPs

By focusing on the SDP’s ability to assist operators in accomplishing a common goal, the SDP Solution Assessment is able to accommodate variations in the composition of SDPs, while still providing an objective comparison of each approach. For example, several SDPs incorporate a standalone content management system (CMS) to provide content management and delivery capabilities. Other SDPs provide similar capabilities through the bundling of multiple common enablers. The same is true of the way SDPs address third-party management and the exposure of underlying telecommunications functions to developers or partners. While some SDPs employ a standalone product, such as a ParlayX gateway, others rely on the exposure of functionality provided by session control or application layer products through Web services APIs or through third-party gateways. By focusing on objectives, rather than specific products or systems, the Current Analysis SDP Solution Assessment is able to compare SDPs that may employ different approaches – systems or products -- to reach the same goal.

Focusing on objectives and goals instead of specific products or components also enables the SDP Solution Assessment to be applied to SDPs that have different implementation, or adoption, characteristics. For example, a few equipment makers take a passive approach to SDP adoption, offering it as a blueprint that essentially sits in the background as specific services are adopted. In this scenario, services are implemented almost independently of the SDP, which takes on the role of centralizing the resources and components that are common to the different services. In other cases, equipment makers have carved out a more active role for their SDPs in the adoption of specific services. A major component of the NSN Service Delivery Framework (SDF), for example, is an application blueprint that serves as sort of a prototype for a specific service, which is further customized through NSN’s professional services operations. It could be argued that an SDP that plays an active role in shaping new applications requires operators to make a sizeable and early commitment to an SDP solution – at least more so than a passively implemented SDP.

Coming back to the similarities between ranking SDPs and philosophies, a particularly difficult piece of reality for SDP providers to swallow is the fact that many operators will adopt an SDP for completely subjective and idiosyncratic reasons. In some instances, the most important component to an SDP adoption decision will be the preservation of existing systems and components that constitute the current service delivery infrastructure. Ultimately, the commercial success or failure of an SDP solution could come down to how well it plays with others. What should not be lost along the path toward finding an objective and meaningful procedure for evaluating and comparing SDPs is the critical impact the adoption of an efficient SDP will have on the future fortunes of a telecommunications operator. If telecommunications carriers are to assume a role in the service delivery value chain beyond transport pipe in a communications industry rapidly transitioning to an Internet model, the successful adoption of a comprehensive SDP is imperative.

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