Technical Article » The Service Delivery Framework

Nishan Rajapaksa, one of Unico’s solution architects gives a brief run down on an emerging capability that most operators in the region are striving towards.

Service Delivery Framework (SDF) / Service Delivery Platform (SDP) are concepts that we have been getting to grips with over the last few months. I recently attended the SDP Asia conference to find out more. Here is my take on the SDF.

What is it? Well that’s a good question as I got different views from the people I spoke to and from the speakers themselves. However, the consensus (in my opinion) is that the SDF (I prefer to use the word Framework) aims to abstract the operator’s resources such as the BSS, OSS and Network to allow Services to be developed easily. For those coming from the IT world it is the same concept as the SDK provided by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google aimed at both the operators themselves as well as 3rd party application developers.

Why now you ask? It is true that for years operators architected their systems in a manner that kept these resources close to them. Services were developed exclusively by the Operator. But change is in the air…

Firstly, many operators in mature markets are looking for new revenue streams, as growth by virtue of adding more users and voice calls has flatlined. Content such as video downloads and ringtones are becoming the main engine for growth. They are fascinated by the interest users are showing in Web 2.0 services and by the business models such as mashups that are delivering novel applications.

Secondly, operators are grudgingly beginning to acknowledge that they cannot deliver innovative services by themselves alone. The internet model has shown that rapid innovation can come by allowing 3rd parties to leveraging building blocks. The key is to make these building blocks easy to access and use by the developer community. Operators need to ensure the security and privacy of their customers and provide charging and administrative functions without placing this burden on innovative developers.

Thirdly, technology frameworks such as IMS and SOA are providing the means for operators to open up their systems to 3rd parties in a consistent and easy to use manner.

The current driver pushing most operators towards an SDF is the management of Content services – Content creation, Provisioning, Rating, Adaptation. As a result, most SDF architectures are heavily geared towards this. However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the big picture which can include “conversational” services. These conversational services are in my opinion the next breakthrough services that will emerge that utilise the abstraction of the network (by IMS).

So what are Unico doing on this front? Well, part of our business is developing conversational services for operators based on the Mobile Intelligent Network framework. The challenge for us will be to develop suitable application building blocks for the SDF that encourage service innovation in this area for operators as well as for 3rd party developers.