TMCnet Feature

This article provides perspectives on:

• Major trends that are driving the transformation of the Telecommunications industry.
• Implications of these changes in software development practices for communications service providers, and particularly for their technology suppliers.  
• The roles of open source software in this transformation.
• Management of open source software and their attributes such as licensing and copyrights within telecommunications organizations.  

The telecommunications industry is transforming rapidly:  from providing voice and basic data services towards a much broader set of services with flexibility of adaptation to customer desires and market opportunities. Communications services providers (CSPs) are investing to serve the hyperconnectivity needs of evolving ecosystems of diverse applications for users and devices.

Source: GSMA (News - Alert)

The pace of this transformation towards hyperconnectivity services is driven by the rapidly growing numbers and categories of devices. These range from smartphones, eReaders and tablets to connected vehicular systems, environmental sensors, smart tags and many others. The devices enable a highly distributed, responsive and ever-expanding range of applications such as: digital media, gaming, enterprise management, ePayments, eHealth, smart grid, clean tech and machine-to-machine. The growing usage of social networking in and across many application domains is an added driver for hyperconnectivity and customer engagement.

Source (News - Alert): Cisco VNI Mobile, 2011

The cloud computing service model is further adding to the pace of this transformation as it delivers application platforms with compelling advantages: time-to-market, operational economies of scale, capital cost reduction and mobility support. The cloud model is creating new opportunities for service providers to offer application-driven service packages, service level agreements and elastic resource allocation for demand-based services with real-time billing.

Source: Wikipedia

CSPs are working towards offering smart and agile platforms for massively scalable hyperconnectivity, dynamically serving up connections with explicit quality of service to multiple networks (3/4G mobile, Wi-Fi, fixed broadband). The multiple connections can optimize network usage over the best available network, e.g. 3/4G offload to Wi-Fi. They are also increasingly serving application user experiences with simultaneous interaction with multiple devices enabled by the cloud (e.g. TV programming on big screens integrated with social networking applications on tablets or smartphones that transparently share snapped photos and videos for viewing on big screens or tablets).

Hyperconnected customers demand excellent quality of experience which is securely dependable, attractively priced, and individually tailored. Customers vary in scale and sophistication from individual consumers to families to enterprises of all types. As the overlap between personal and enterprise usage of devices (such as smartphones and laptops) increases, appropriate governance solutions for security, charging, and IT support are being developed. The CSP platforms need to support visibility of usage and flexibility of self-service. These functions are increasingly integrated with on-line charging and real-time billing for a wide range of flexible bundling offers.

The telecommunications industry is dealing with the increasing complexities of this transformation within a competitive environment that creates strong pressures for agility and innovation in services while controlling costs. Equipment vendors who supply the CSPs with products and services, especially given the global nature of their competition, face even greater and continuous pressures for cost-conscious agility and innovation to overcome the commoditization trap. At the same time, the major source of growth for the equipment vendors is in emerging markets where massive scale at low costs is a fundamental requirement.

Implications for software development

The transformation towards the hyperconnectivity services business model creates tremendous opportunities for CSPs and their equipment and service vendors. To address the opportunities, though, it also creates significant challenges for the required software systems:

• Complexity: More systems need to work in concert in order provide broader service solutions for hyperconnected users. At the same time, there is a need to streamline existing solutions where there is overlap and multiple legacy systems (e.g. in business and operations support systems) that need to be rationalized and consolidated.

• High agility: The solutions need to be highly configurable for particular usage and business contexts in order to minimize software deployment complexities. At the same time, as unanticipated requirements arise, the software addressing them needs to be developed and deployed in time frames for very competitive markets -- weeks rather than months.
• Cost-sensitivity: While the number of devices, their interconnections, bandwidth requirements and communications service sophistication are growing exponentially, the related revenues grow linearly within the challenging global economic context and competitive pressures. This is especially critical when addressing emerging economies with low margin characteristics.

• Massive scalability:  Incredible increases in the number of devices per user (e.g. laptop, smartphone, tablet, camera, health monitor) and many devices that don’t have individual users (e.g. environmental sensors, smart tags) add to scaling requirements as well as the ramp up in users and devices in emerging economies. The new applications, from gaming to green tech, demand very low statistical latency of communications.

Given the above challenges, the industry is responding with software lifecycle strategies that include:

• Specialized Components: With the increasing complexity of software systems, delivery of functionally specialized components improves the ability to provide dependable solutions which can be refactored for different and evolving market needs.  These components are developed in-house, out-sourced to third party development or obtained from third parties.  Open source software is increasingly used in all three cases.  
• Integration:  In conjunction with the above strategy, there is a need for creating comprehensive solutions from a large number of specialized components. Some of these components are combined by a single vendor to provide a product or a solution. However, the products and solutions from each vendor also need to be integrated across both standard and proprietary interfaces. And there is the need to integrate new additional solutions into existing environments. One of the key emerging aspects of integration is the role of fine-grained monitoring and actionable analytics for business intelligence to provide a dynamic operational view all the way from devices to networks to subscriber usage patterns that allow better business responsiveness to operational and market trends.
• Continuous Evolution:  Given the need to address market opportunities, standards and regulatory evolution, software components and their integration are being designed in such a way to allow change while protecting investment by utilizing as much of the existing software base as possible.
• Business Consolidation: Early stage innovators start to address niche market opportunities and grow and CSP and their vendors merge or acquire other companies for growth and to  address their markets. Business M&A entails integration of complementary software components and systems into more powerful solutions as well as consolidation of overlapped solutions to control cost and complexity. Software assets are a significant valuation consideration in most M&A deals in the industry, and open source software should be managed to provide a positive impact on the valuations rather than introduce business risks. more strongly

The Role of Open Source Software

The use of open source software is increasing as software developers address the opportunities and the corresponding challenges of the telecommunications industry transformations at the same time as facing global economic and competitive pressures. The reasons include the following:

• Open source software’s agility and cost advantages provide considerable choice to the catalogue of specialized components that software developers can call upon. For example, the Insight Report “Open Source Software Impacts on Telecom Services, 2011-2016” mentions over 23 telecom-focused open source companies in four major categories: Network Infrastructure, Business/Operational Support Systems, Service Delivery Platforms, and Open Source Software Support. At the same time, there are hundreds more companies serving the overall open source space which is also utilized by telecom software developers: from data-bases to XML tools.
• Using open source software components is becoming one of the key strategies to address the ever more complex integrations that are required in ever shorter time frames. Open source software increases the solution options available to systems integrators and mitigates the lock-in and cost increase risks by a few large and powerful vendors who may also be competing with the systems integrators. There are currently over 17 companies offering open source software and middleware for systems integration.
• As software systems constantly evolve, their use of third party components creates a dilemma. On the one hand, by using existing and proven components from third parties, one can address business opportunities faster. On the other hand, use of third party components creates a dependency; the third party component supplier needs to be responsive to the evolving needs of the developers using their components. If the third party supplier does not respond in a timely manner because of business priority, direction or ability issues, then there is a major risk to the developers depending on the supplier. Open source can better enable evolution and mitigate future risks in two ways. First, it increases the number of component vendors offering a larger number of options for evolving needs. Second, using open source components can offer more control to the business by ultimately allowing one to make in-house critical code changes when it becomes clear that these are not going to be offered by the third party suppliers.
• In business consolidation scenarios, the software assets valued as part of the M&A increasingly include open source software introduced through in-house development, outsourced development or third party software.  There can be significant legal licensing and intellectual property obligations, security risks, export regulations risks, and support costs associated with the software depending on the pedigree and licensing terms of the software.  There might be anonymous source code introduced into the code stream with uncertain pedigree. Therefore, there are major software risks for both parties in an M&A situation:  deal loss, valuation loss, delays, and unpredictable future costs to the business. These risks need to be managed.

Open source software risk management

While the use of open source software in the transformation of telecom can bring significant benefits, the risks need to be managed:

• Support: While open source software source code is freely accessible, the building, packaging, testing and ongoing maintenance of the evolution of this code needs continuous investment or it becomes undependable, particularly as the code develops evolutionary branches.  There is a need for a bill of materials for an existing code base, so that the developers are aware of what is in the code base and who supports the software components: internal, external volunteers, or a commercial organization.  Commercial open source can provide better supported code for a license fee.
• Security: CSPs and their vendors are at the core of the global information flow and their focus on security risks is, therefore, absolutely required. As the sophistication of open source software grows, its sources become much more diverse and its use much wider, the risks of security vulnerabilities being introduced to the CSP solutions also need to be robustly addressed. Again, having an accurate bill of materials that provides an reliable view of what source code components are in the software base is critical, as are methods of identifying code components that can increase vulnerabilities.
• Legal: There is a range of different open source licensing terms with differing legal obligations. These range from the restrictive Gnu Public License (GPL) with strict “copyleft,” to the permissive BSD licenses with only attribution requirements. The terms of the license will determine whether a company’s software investment also has to be opened up to its competitors.  Some open source component licenses have implications on the ability to patent or the possibility of infringing on patents for the adopting organization. Therefore, the legal risk must be addressed robustly as part of a disciplined software development lifecycle approach using appropriate tools. This risk management, protecting company value, forms part of the executive fiduciary responsibility towards the shareholders and the other stakeholders in the business or organization..

Open source license management is a cornerstone of a risk management strategy appropriate to the sophistication, scale, and critical role of telecommunications software.

Structured Open Source Software Adoption Process

A structured Open Source Software Adoption Process (OSSAP) can be used in an existing development quality development process without replacing or hindering existing practices. The first step of OSSAP is establishing policies around acceptable attributes (such as licensing or pedigree) of the open source packages and what to do in case violations are detected. Others steps in OSSAP include package pre-approval, analysis of the existing software portfolio and establishing a baseline, regular analysis and approval of third party code (for example as supplied by outsourcers or contractors) or new code developed internally as part of the development process. Optionally, OSSAP includes real-time discovery and Open Source management functions as the code is developed, or as new software is checked into the technology company’s repository. The final step in a structure’s open source adoption process is build analysis, where the final artifact is scanned for any unwanted content that could violate established open source adoption policies. Manual analysis and implementation of OSSAP is time consuming, but there are automated tools that speed up and simplify implementation of a complete OSSAP within an organization.­

The best practices in open source license management are a lifecycle approach that includes policy-based, automated and continuous license management  as the software is being developed and a fine-grained audit and rigorous due-diligence approach at critical junctures such as M&A. Establishment of a structured Open Source Software Adoption Process and a lifecycle approach ensures that any risks are addressed as early as possible to contain their impact, and it ensures magnified due-diligence in critical business transactions to provide the best possible assurance for positive business outcomes.

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Mahshad Koohgoli (News - Alert) is CEO of Protecode (News - Alert), Inc. (www.protecode.com), an innovative provider of open source license management solutions, based in Canada. He has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, specializing in technology start-up businesses, and holds several patents in the computer and communications field.

Parham Momtahan is an advisor in market-focused technology evolution and intellectual property management to Protecode Inc., a software IP management company. He was a member of the executive team at Bridgewater Systems (News - Alert) (News - Alert) who helped grow the company from startup to its public offering and eventual acquisition by Amdocs (News - Alert).  His previous roles included Xerox, Bell-Northern Research, and Northern Telecom.  Parham holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and a Master’s degree in Computing Systems.