IMS Forum is Accelerating Applications Interoperability

By Michael Khalilian

A Summary of IMS Plugfest™ II and the Plan for Plugfest III.

In June, we completed our second Plugfest event, Plugfest II, which is just one stop on our journey. There was an 80% increase in overall participation, and 80% of the participants from Plugfest I in January returned for Plugfest II. Both events were held at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL).

Plugfest II demonstrated that IMS applications and services are a reality. There were 18 companies at Plugfest II that rapidly deployed and debugged a fully functional, end-to-end IMS network running “rich” multimedia applications, such as instant messaging and IP Centrex services; the number of test cases tripled from 13 to 43. Participants in Plugfest II included a cross-section of 4 to 5 key segments of the IMS industry in a clear example of the global reach of IMS. Companies from around the world set up short message services (SMS) and video messaging services, among others. For many of the companies, Plugfest II was their first interoperability event. We are encouraged that they were able to get so many pieces working in such a very short time.

The first IMS Plugfest allowed participants to demonstrate that by using IMS, a service provider could bring online a large best-of-breed central office switch in eight hours. At the second Plugfest, vendors showed that IMS enables a service provider to start providing on-demand, IP multimedia and mobile services in three days.

Plugfest II showed that when vendors implement IMS architecture the result is an easy-to-use, quick-to-install-and-run delivery service. Vendors didn’t get tangled in standards and the complexity of the operations as they appear on paper. They did a great job of taking complexity and it hiding inside the design. Vendors made interoperability appear simple. This is good news for the industry.

We also found convergence of services is easily supported by the IMS architecture. We saw how, in one platform, it is possible to combine several services such as Voice -over IP (VoIP), IP Centrex, PBX, fixed mobile and SMS.

Our final lesson learned is that companies are motivated to work together to come up with new services and applications. We feel strongly that the progress made at our Plugfest events held at the UNH-IOL demonstrates the importance of our vendor’s IMS technology solutions to the service providers.

But the completion of Plugfest II was only the beginning of what we can do. The IMS Forum’s third Plugfest is scheduled for October 15 to 19 at the UNH-IOL. IMS Plugfest III is dedicated to interoperability across fixed, mobile and cable IMS core components, and covers the test of VoIP, FMC, SMS, and multiple video services. The IMS Forum Plugfest is the only event covering applications and services for IMS running on all types of networks. For more details and registration, please check our website at www.imsforum.org.

Michael Khalilian is the President and Chairman of the IMS Forum and CTO, Pervasip Corp.

For membership information, or to participate in IMS Forum working groups, plugfest and membership info, please visit www.IMSForum.org or contact Michael Khalilian at [email protected].

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