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October 23, 2006
Red Hat Pushes Further into the Telecommunications Space
By Patrick Barnard, TMCnet Associate Editor
Shhhh. Hear that sound? It’s the sound of open source taking over the telecommunications industry.
And Red Hat is leading the way. The world’s pre-eminent open source and Linux provider further expanded its footprint in the telecom space last week when it announced its participation in the European Community Open Platform for User-Centric Service Creation and Execution (OPUCE) project - as well as the extension and integration of the Red Hat (News - Alert) and JBoss telecommunications solutions.
OPUCE is a European Community Framework Program’s Sixth Framework Program (FP6) project designed to deliver next-generation telecommunication service delivery platforms (SDP) for use across the EU. Both Red Hat and JEMS experts plan to build an “open source ecosystem” around the initiative, delivering expertise on how to build open source communities and support mission-critical environments based on open source software. The goal is to develop an “open service infrastructure” that enables easy service creation and deployment in heterogeneous environments. This infrastructure will ultimately enable a multitude of devices to access seamlessly via disparate networks.
In addition, the effort will further validate open source as being central to the build out of next-generation telecommunications infrastructure. End users will benefit from enriched services - while service providers will benefit from eased service creation and the opportunity to readily expand service offerings.
Telecommunications companies are increasingly embracing Linux for its simplicity, reliability and configurability - the last one of those attributes being the most important, because as service providers gear up to roll out triple play and quadruple play offerings, they will come to rely on open source to provide the common building blocks which will lead to true interoperability - as well as to create innovative features that can allow their products to be differentiated in the market. So open source will not only lead to more rapid development of for next-generation services, it will also lead to more rapid delivery of advanced feature sets.
Ironically, however, open source is still so new in telecom that no one really knows for sure what new services or features it can bring. One thing is for certain, though: the telcos are lining up to shell out big bucks for these new open source platforms and innovative feature sets, so the market is more than ripe for commoditization. It appears that open source’s customization capabilities, coupled with its agility for developing rich new features, plus its affordability, is leading to it becoming the new standard in next-generation telecom build-out.
“Red Hat continues to leverage the complete open source platform to evolve as an infrastructure and solution provider for the telecommunications industry,” said Tim Yeaton, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing and general manger of Enterprise Solutions, Red Hat, in a press release. “Projects like OPUCE enable us to demonstrate the virtues of open platforms and the open source development model while, at the same time, provide us with unique perspective of how telecommunications infrastructure and solutions will be defined and deployed in the future.”
“We are pleased to include Red Hat as a member of OPUCE,” said Antonio Sánchez, project manager, Telefonica. “Red Hat’s reputation as an open source innovator and track record of high performance in mission-critical enterprise and telecommunications environments make it an ideal partner for next-generation telecommunications infrastructure. With its recent acquisition of JBoss, Red Hat is even better positioned to participate in the development of next-generation telecommunications middleware and service delivery platform capabilities.”
Red Hat claims the integration of its Linux software with its recently acquired JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS) is already popular among telecom operators around the globe. In fact, it claims in its press release that the combined solution has “become the platform of choice for mission-critical applications in enterprises and telecommunications operators worldwide.” The solution reportedly simplifies the development of enterprise Java applications which at the same time boosting time-to-market, flexibility and cost-effectiveness. As such, the new JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS) has already emerged as a market-leading middleware suite for telecommunications.
“Red Hat envisions JEMS to emerge as a core technology for the next-generation SDP market, and will look to leverage its current and growing ecosystem of OEM, NEP and ISV partners to drive feature road-maps and commercialization. JEMS runs on a variety of platforms, and is optimized for deployment on industry-standard software and Red Hat Enterprise Linux,” the Red Hat press release states.
More than anything, though, it appears that the telcos are gravitating to Red Hat Linux simply because it is good, reliable software. The company works with leading NEPs, ISVs and operators to define requirements and ensure that Red Hat Linux can be deployed in carrier-grade settings. Adding to this is the fact that Red Hat Linux has already been tested and battle-hardened in thousands of enterprise and telecommunications environments – and that the operators and equipment providers of the world are continuously evaluating and improving upon its performance. According to Red Hat, “[Red Hat Linux] provides the stability, predictability and track record required by the industry,” and it seems many operators are coming to agree.
Furthermore, and also extremely beneficial to operators, is the fact that Linux is Free Open Source Software (FOSS), based on the GNU Public License (GPL), which provides customers with the assurance that the source for their platform will always be freely available. This ensures that a customer cannot be pigeon-holed in to one platform or driven to a particular architecture by closed binary dependencies.
To learn more about Red Hat telecommunications solutions, visit www.redhat.com/solutions/teleco.
For more information about OPUCE, visit www.opuce.eu.
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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page
(source: http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/10/23/2006413.htm)
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