Plugfest III to Certify Interoperability for IMS Services

A while back I had the opportunity to interview Brian Allain, Vice President and General Manager of 3Com’s Data and Voice Business Unit. The conversation ranged to include a wide variety of topics, and the results of that discussion appear below.

Writing in his column in IMS Magazine, IMS Forum president and Chairman Michael Khalilian explained that Plugfest I 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. Plugfest II showed that when vendors implement IMS architecture the result is an easy-to-use, quick-to-install-and-run delivery service.

In a recent interview, Khalilian told me the impetus for the Plugfest series was simple. “We needed some level of interoperability and validation, so we implemented the plan starting in January 2007 for Plugfest I, and in June 2007 for Plugfest II and now the upcoming Plugfest scheduled for October.”

Building off the success of Plugfest I and II, Khalilian and his organization believe that there is still work to do.

“In looking at the infrastructure requirements for service delivery of triple play and quadruple play applications to consumers and looking at broadband transport including wireless and wireline options and also the various levels of access CPE, we are interested in how these applications and services have conflicts and issues regarding interoperability,” he told me.

Regarding what standards are being considered for the IMS Forum testing methodology, Khalilian shared the following: “We are looking at 3GPP, ETSI, CableLabs, SIP and other industry standards as a baseline requirement and validation. We are also looking at the requirements for service and application delivery and thus we’re designing our IMS Forum test plan.”

Manuel Vexler is on the board of the IMS Forum; I asked him what issues carried over from the most recent Plugfest.

According to Vexler, “The main outcome of Plugfest II that may affect Plugfest III is the discussion around the deployment of services and applications in a scalable and multivendor fashion.”

“When you start to look at the services and how they are deployed in the lab and how they get deployed, we begin to see some of the areas where there are not necessarily limitations but they require qualification in terms of how the standards need to be applied,” he said.

Vexler added, “Because there are multiple ways of deploying the same service, the question becomes which is the best way in terms of operational economics and operational technology.”

In addition to major sponsors Sonus, Intel, and Empirix, the initial Plugfest III participants will feature Acision, ARGELA Technologies, Coppercom, Data Connection Ltd, Ixia, Mavenir Systems, Mu Security, NE Technologies/MARBEN, RADVISION, Reef Point, Starent Networks, and Tekelec.

Khalilian believes that the main goal of the Plugfest is to prove that it doesn’t have to be overly difficult to implement IMS, and his concern is that an exceedingly negative image of IMS only serves to scare off potential investors.

“IMS, triple play, quadruple play… are not complex and are not only for greenfield service providers to deploy,” he said. “We’re trying to take the fear and the complexity out of the equation, because that is what concerns Wall Street. Service Providers are getting concerned. And the ripple effect concerns me.”

“What we are showing in the IMS Forum plugfests is that interoperability between a number of vendors - as well as the services and the tools and applications - is there today. The products are there today. Back office support is there today. FMC, VoIP, mobile applications, IPTV, video, they are all available today. Now, of course, there is still room for improvement, but these services are all available today and the service provider can have a business case for increasing their revenue or enhancing their infrastructure using IMS.”

Khalilian gets passionate when he confronts naysayers who deride IMS as being a pipe dream. He believes that in order to be successful, companies playing in the IMS space need to “…be creative, with good marketing, good technology, good back office support, a good engineering team and most of all a good management team.”

“Don’t blame the technology,” he says. “There are other factors that need to be considered. IMS is a framework to bundle different applications and services utilizing broadband and offering services to consumers. Like it or not it is happening. Don’t blame the technology for lack of a good business plan.”

Nevertheless, the IMS Forum Plugfest III is being held this October to help dispel any negative press surrounding IMS and to help prove that the technology works, and that vendors are indeed interoperating on various levels today. IT

Greg Galitzine is TMC's Editorial Director.

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