Parlay / OSA: From Standards to Reality

Description

Parlay will enable rapid and cost-effective delivery of services based on telecommunications networks, and will be an essential part of the 3G future.

Parlay/OSA: From Standards to Reality is an accessible primer on network ecosystems and operations today, discussing the need for Parlay, the details of standards, aspects of network evolution and support for legacy systems, and advanced topics from an implementation perspective. The authors examine the potential of the Parlay/OSA (Open Service Access) solution from a number of points of view: business need, service development and service deployment.

Parlay/OSA: From Standards to Reality:

• Provides a comprehensive account and examination of the Parlay technology.
• Covers standards capabilities and directions, and Service Capability Features, including call control, mobility management, data session control, generic messaging service and content-based charging and policy management.
• Addresses architectural alternatives and advanced architecture patterns.
• Provides use cases, architecture, deployment scenarios and advanced topics for further reading.

This invaluable resource will provide product managers, software developers, application developers, network architects and engineers, as well as advanced students and researchers in academia and industry, with an in-depth understanding of Parlay.

"Telecommunications today is all about services, and in this context Parlay has long been presented as the network-independent, developer friendly solution. This very timely book will help the reader understand the deep changes in the telecommunications market, present the Parlay solution in technical depth, and provide guidance on how to best deploy it in today's networks."

- Chelo Abarca, former 3GPP CN5 (OSA) chair

"This book provides the most comprehensive and useful description to date of what Parlay/OSA is and what it can do."

- Marc LeClerc, Chairman of the Parlay Marketing Work-Group.

 

Table of Contents

Trademarks and Permissions.

Dedication.

About the Authors.

Foreword.

A Note to the Reader.

Acknowledgements.

End-user Scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Operator’s Perspective.

Scenario 2: The Application Developer’s Perspective.

Scenario 3: End-user Perspective.

Scenario 4: Yet more perspectives.

News Flash (Sometime During 2003–2004).

Scenario 5: The Future.

Part I   Background and Introduction.

1    The Internet is Calling – Today’s Network Ecosystems and Their Evolution.

1.1 Introduction.

1.2 Traditional Telephony and Intelligent Networks.

1.3 Signaling.

1.4 A Foray into Other Network and Service Architectures.

1.5 Wireless Networks and Generations of Technology.

1.6 The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).

1.7 Related Technologies.

1.8 Summary.

2    The Need for New Technologies.

2.1 Introduction.

2.2 Issues with Networks Today or The Drive to Improve.

2.3 Summary: Required Characteristics of a Desirable Solution Technology.

3    Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

3.1 Introduction.

3.2 Of ‘Smoke-Stacks’, Value-Chains, and Service Layers.

3.3 The Programmable Network.

3.4 Services and Applications.

3.5 Developing a Satisfactory Solution Architecture.

3.6 Service Mediation and Mediation Gateways.

3.7 Service Mediation Example.

3.8 Summary.

4    Parlay and OSA.

4.1 Introduction.

4.2 The Need for Standards.

4.3 The Parlay Family Tree.

4.4 The Standards Themselves.

4.5 Summary.

5    The Parlay Conceptual Architecture.

5.1 Introduction.

5.2 The Client Application.

5.3 The SCS.

5.4 The Framework.

5.5 All Together Now.

5.6 The Enterprise Operator.

5.7 Summary.

Part II The Standards In Detail.

6    Standards Capabilities and Directions.

6.1 Introduction.

6.2 Part 1 – Overview.

6.3 Part 2 – Common Data Types.

6.4 Part 3 – Framework (FWK).

6.5 Part 4 - Call Control (CC).

6.6 Part 5 – User Interaction (UI).

6.7 Part 6 – Mobility Management (MM).

6.8 Part 7 – Terminal Capabilities (TC).

6.9 Part 8 – Data Session Control (DSC).

6.10 Part 11 – Account Management (AM).

6.11 Part 12 – Content Based Charging (CBC).

6.12 Part 13 – Policy Management (PM)

6.13 Part 14 – Presence and Availability Management (PAM).

6.14 Other Standards-defined SCFs.

6.15 Support for Non-Standard SCSs and Value-Added Extensions (*).

6.16 Summary.

7    Standards Capabilities and Directions II – Scenarios and Details.

7.1 Introduction.

7.2 The Parlay Ecosystem and Value-Chain.

7.3 Example Scenario.

7.4 Under the Covers – How it Actually Works.

7.5 Mapping APIs to Protocols.

7.6 Toolkits for Application Development.

7.7 Mixed Mode Applications.

7.8 Summary.

8    Standards Capabilities and Directions III – The Lay of the Land.

8.1 Introduction.

8.2 Navigation.

8.3 Parlay in 3GPP Environments.

8.4 Parlay in 3GPP2 Environments.

8.5 Summary.

Part III Building a Service Mediation Gateway.

9    Alternative Architectures.

9.1 Introduction.

9.2 Standard Architectural Alternatives.

9.3 Advanced Architectures Patterns.

9.4 Summary.

10      Considerations for Building ‘Carrier-Grade’ Systems.

10.1 Introduction.

10-1 Reflections on the Performance of Implementations.

10-1.1 Introduction and Scope.

10-1.2 Performance Aspects.

10-1.3 Performance Computation – Flow Composition.

10-1.4 Performance Computation – Transaction ‘Mix’.

10-1.5 Performance Computation – Abstract Models (*).

10-1.6 Performance Computation – Round Trip Times.

10-1.7 Performance Verification and Validation – Tuning the Code, Measurements.

10-1.8 Performance Engineering for Deployments.

10-1.9 Summary.

10-2 Overload Handling Considerations.

10-2.1 Introduction.

10-2.2 What is Ideal, What is Practical?.

10-2.3 General Patterns for Overload Control.

10-2.4 Overload and Parlay Gateways.

10-2.5 Summary.

10-3 On the Scalability and Reliability of Implementations.

10-3.1 What are High Availability and Reliability? Why consider Scalability?.

10-3.2 Reliability and High Availability of Parlay – Applications and Gateways.

10-3.3 Scalability and Reliability.

10-3.4 Parlay Considerations.

10-3.5 Summary.

10-4 Failure Handling in Parlay/OSA Environments.

10-4.1 Introduction.

10-4.2 A Layered Software Architecture – Again.

10-4.3 A Layered View of Errors?.

10-4.4 Summary.

10-5 Security Aspects.

10-5.1 Introduction.

10-5.2 Security and Service Mediation Gateways.

10-5.3 Network-level Security Support.

10-5.4 Summary.

10-6 Upgrading Field-deployed Systems (*).

10-6.1 Introduction (*).

10-6.2 Upgrading an SMG (*).

10-6.3 The Upgrade Process, and Addressing Inter-Component Dependencies (*).

10-6.4 SCS and Service Upgrades (*).

10-6.5 ‘Type C’ Upgrades (*).

10-6.6 Supporting Different Service Versions Simultaneously; The Proxy Architecture (*).

10-6.7 Summary (*).

10.2 Chapter 10 Summary.

Part IV  Realizing Parlay.

11  Deploying Parlay Gateways.

11.1 Introduction.

11.2 Parlez-vous Parlay?.

11.3 Growing the Parlay Network Footprint.

11.4 Simplifying the Labors of Hercules.

11.5 The Value Proposition for the Service Mediation Gateway in Service Provider Networks (*).

11.6 Propositions and Proofs (*).

11.7 Conclusion.

12  Parlay and Legacy Systems – Handling Feature Interactions

12.1 Introduction.

12.2 Out with the Old, In with the New? Not quite.

12.3 Parlay and Legacy IN Co-existence .

12.4 Managing Trigger Contention.

12.5 Service Level Feature Interactions.

12.6 Summary.

13  Application Implementation Perspectives.

13.1 Introduction.

13.2 The Theory of Defensive Applications Design.

13.3 Example Scenario Revisited.

13.4 Where to Deploy?.

13.5 Building the Application: Designing High-Level Logic (*).

13.6 On Lower-Cost Testing of Applications across API Interfaces  (*).

13.7 Summary.

Part V  Advanced Topics and their Implementation.

14  The Parlay Proxy Manager (*).

14.1 Introduction (*).

14.2 Prising Open the Parlay Proxy Manager (*).

14.3 Applications of the Parlay Proxy Manager (*).

14.4 Taking the Proxy Model Even Further (*).

14.5 Summary (*).

15  Multi-Network Deployment Scenarios.

15.1 Introduction (*).

15.2 Some examples (*).

15.3 Federation: What is it? Why is it a Good Thing? (*).

15.4 Models for Multi-Network Deployments of Parlay Gateways (*).

15.5 Mobile Virtual Network Operator Scenarios (*).

15.6 Revenue Settlement between Federated Entities (*).

15.7 Summary (*).

16  Parlay/OSA and XML-based Technologies.

16.1 Introduction.

16.2 The Acronym Soup.

16.3 Parlay WSDL.

16.4 Parlay X.

16.5 Summary.

Bibliography.

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms.

References.

Index.