In keeping with its focus on delivering next-generation communications capabilities to service providers and customers using IMS and other advanced technologies, HP on Wednesday launched an upgraded version of its network platform for telecom operators.

 

HP Service Delivery Platform (SDP) is now out in release 2.0, providing operators with better than ever tools needed to offer converged, mobile Web 2.0 services. With this latest release, HP focused both on the needs of customers for convenient, robust services and on the needs of operators to increase revenues while decreasing cost and service development risks.

 

SDP 2.0 is designed to help operators put together converged services that personalize content delivery (e.g. music, video) for both consumers and businesspeople. The idea is to blend the best IT, Web and telecom resources to create new, revenue-generating services.

 

Delivery of such services is achieved using three main types of resources, HP said in its announcement: IT, Web and network. IT resources include such things as network management, business support systems (BSS), billing, and operational support systems (OSS). Web resources are used to provide access to large amounts of information, social communities and multimedia content. Network resources are used to show a customer’s presence on a network or his/her physical location.

 

The new platform, fully supported by HP’s consulting and integration services, includes service-level controls along with identity management and security mechanisms. These speed up deployment of new services and result in better experiences for end customers. The new capabilities are made possible by using a service oriented architecture (SOA), or a system of reusable resources that are linked together for on-demand access.

 

“Our customers understand that a flexible, SOA-based SDP can help them create new services quickly at lower cost, less risk and faster time-to-market,” said Ananda Subbiah, vide president of solutions, communications, media and entertainment at HP, in a statement.

 

HP noted that its new platform addresses a key shortcoming of traditional broadband, wireless and wired infrastructures—namely, that services tend to be put into vertical “silos,” each with its own links to network resources. The problem with such a system is that, as new services are added, the overall structure becomes more and more cumbersome and costly to maintain and also greatly reduces efficient integration of converged services.

 

Instead of a siloed structure, HP stuck to the basic principles of SOA and IMS, creating a horizontal system in which services can efficiently be integrated with one another and in which resources can be reused for development of new services. The result is a unified,  standards-based interface between wireless/wired services and the underlying network. All services linking to the common, unified layer automatically have shared access to telecom network resources, eliminating inefficient duplication.

 

Yankee Group (News - Alert) analyst Brian Patridge noted that service delivery platforms are a vital tool for service providers seeking to stay competitive into the future. Which platform is chosen can make a big different, he added.

 

“New converged services can become very complex, and if you're going to create and maintain them by the hundreds, you'd better have an SOA-based SDP framework that allows you to weave together all the disparate threads from web, telecom and IT,” Patridge said in a statement.

 

HP’s SDP 2.0 provides just such a framework. The new platform incorporates a number of enhancements, including those highlighted below.

 

Third Party Framework—uses HP’s SOA Systinet, SOA Manager and Select Access solutions to provide complete lifecycle governance and security.

 

Virtual Identity and Profile Broker—uses SOA technologies to provide single-point, virtualized access and control for customer info stored in disparate service silos.

 

Enterprise Service Bus—uses open, industry standards to create a bridge between IT and network resources.

 

OSS Adapters—uses a single console to provide a 360-degree look at network and service management and quality of service.

 

Service Enablers—uses other HP solutions like OpenCall IMS software to bridge current telecom environments with IMS and IPTV.

 

Testing Tools—uses a combination of HP Performance and Quality Center products to reduce testing costs and improve speed and quality of service delivery.