A service delivery platform (SDP) is a set of software and hardware components that provide a service delivery architecture, typically including functions such as service creation, session control, and communication protocols. It enables the delivery of services to end users or to other systems.
Although the concept is most commonly used in the context of telecommunications, it can apply to any system that delivers services, such as voice over IP (VoIP), Internet Protocol television (IPTV), Internet services, or software as a service (SaaS).
The TM Forum (TMF) has worked on specifications for SDPs, but there is no universally accepted definition within the industry. Vendors, service providers, and standards bodies often define the scope and components of SDPs differently, depending on their technological focus and market needs.
SDPs often require integration of IT capabilities and the creation of services that cross technology and network boundaries. SDPs available today tend to be optimized for the delivery of a service in a given technological or network domain (e.g. in telecommunications this includes: web, IMS, IPTV, Mobile TV, etc.). They typically provide environments for service control, creation, and orchestration and execution. Again in telecommunications, this can include abstractions for media control, presence/location, integration, and other low-level communications capabilities. SDPs are applicable to both consumer and business applications.
In the context of telecommunications only, the business objective of implementing the SDP is to enable rapid development and deployment of new converged multimedia services, from basic POTS phone services to complex audio/video conferencing for multiplayer video games (MPGs). In the context of SaaS, similar business objectives are achieved but in a context specific to the particular business domain.
The emergence of Application Stores, to create, host, and deliver applications for devices such as Apple's iPhone and Google Android smartphones, has focused on SDPs as a means for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to generate revenue from data.Connected Planet Online: “Solving the SDP puzzle.” Rich Karpinski. June 2008. Retrieved 2010-03-17. Using the SDP to expose their network assets to both the internal and external development communities, including web 2.0 developers, CSPs can manage the lifecycles of thousands of applications and their developers.TechTarget: SOA News. “Chasing Apple, HP targets telecoms with app store pack.” Rob Berry. Sept. 2009. Retrieved 2010-03-17March 8,2010. “Service delivery platform market to hit $4.6 billion by 2014, driven by mobile ads, app stores
Telecommunications companies including Telcordia Technologies, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Avaya, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent have provided communications integration interfaces and infrastructure since the early to mid 1990s. The cost-saving success of IP-based VoIP systems as replacements for proprietary private branch exchange (PBX) systems and desktop phones has prompted a shift in industry focus from proprietary systems to open, standard technologies.
This change to open environments has drawn software-focused telecommunication companies like Teligent TelecomInfonetics press release. “Telecom carriers spent $57B on outsourced services in 2007.” May. 2008. Retrieved 2010-03-18. and allowed systems integrators such as Tieto, Accenture, IBM, TCS, HP, Alcatel-Lucent, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, and CGI to offer integration services. In addition, new consortia of telecommunications software product companies offer pre-integrated software products to create SDPs based on elements, such as value-added services, convergent billing and content/partner relationship management.
Since SDPs are capable of crossing technology boundaries, a wide range of blended applications become possible, for example:
Users can see incoming phone calls (Wireline or Wireless), IM buddies (PC) or the locations of friends (GPS Enabled Device) on their television screen Users can order VoD (Video on demand) services from their mobile phones or watch streaming video that they have ordered as a video package for both home and mobile phone Airline customers receive a text message from an automated system regarding a flight cancellation, and can then opt to use a voice or interactive self-service interface to reschedule
The service delivery platform market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% over the forecast period 2019-2024.
History The late 1990s saw a period of unprecedented change in enterprise applications as the grip of client-server architectures gradually relaxed and allowed the entrance of n-tiered architectures. This represented the advent of the application server, a flexible compromise between the absolutes of the dumb terminal and the logic-heavy client PC. Although entrants into the application server ring were many and varied, they shared common advantages: database vendor abstraction, open standard (mostly object-oriented) programming models, high availability and scalability characteristics, and presentation frameworks, among others. These transformations were triggered by business forces including the rampaging tidal wave that was the Internet boom, but none of it would have been possible without the proliferation of standards such as the TCP/IP protocol, the Java programming language, and the Java EE web application server architecture. It is against this backdrop of transformation that telecom's era of rapid change was set in motion.
Up until the first few years of 2000, the markets for commercial and business telecommunication technologies were still saturated with proprietary hardware and software. Open standards started to become popular as IP technologies were introduced and with the rapid expansion of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) for transmission of voice data over packet networks and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for standardized media control, especially regarding enterprise voice communication.
In this new standards-supported environment, convergence of the voice and data worlds is evolving to provide new consumer and business services. The last few years have seen the introduction or proliferation of various SIP programming libraries (, Aricent, MjSip and its derived port by HSC) and products based on the relatively new SIP standard, and the IP Multimedia Subsystem standard defined by the 3GPP has gained a following. The Service Delivery Platform, whose power comes in large part from the quality and acceptance of these supporting standards, is rapidly gaining acceptance as a widely applicable architectural pattern.
In industry today multiple definitions of Service Delivery Platform (SDP) are used with no established consensus as to a common meaning. Because of this, and the need for service providers to understand how to better manage SDPs, the TM Forum (TMF) has started standardizing the concept of Service Delivery Framework (SDF) and SDF management. The SDF definition provides the terminology and concepts needed to reference the various components involved, such as applications and enablers, network and service exposure, and orchestration.
What is needed to deliver a blend of personalized services from multiple SDPs to end users is a means to inter-work those SDPs through common service enablers and network resources. Underpinning these service aspects though has been a fundamental concept that the user's attributes and the services they receive require a common repository and a common data model, such as those provided by an LDAP/X.500 directory or HSS database. Early SDP implementations of this nature started in the mid / late 1990s for ISP converged services. Larger and more complex SDPs have been implemented over the last 5 years in MSO-type environments and for mobile operators.
Context
SDPs are commonly considered for telco-type environments as a core system which interconnects the customer's access and network infrastructure with the OSS systems and BSS systems. SDPs in this context are usually associated with a particular service regime such as mobile telephones or for converged services.
SDPs are also considered in the context of very large transformation, convergence and integration programs which require a considerable budget. The difficulty in such projects is that there may be hundreds of thousands of design and implementation decisions to be made - once the architecture is agreed upon. Naturally, this issue alone dictates the need for software development and operational engineering skills. Probably the best way of reducing these design and integration issues is to simulate the SDP on a small-scale system before the major project actually starts. This allows the architecture to be verified that it meets the operational, service delivery and business requirements.
SDPs should also be considered not just as a core function within an operator but as a number of interconnected, distributed service nodes (e.g.) for redundancy reasons and for different service profiles to different business and market sectors. Many operators provide commercial scale/grade products such as bundled voice, web hosting, VPNs, mail, conference and messaging facilities to government and corporate clients. The evolution of such bundled services could be from fragmented management systems to a "Virtual Private Service Environment" where the operator runs a dedicated SDP for each of its customers who require their services on demand and under their control.
SDPs can also be used to manage independent wireless-enabled precincts such as shopping malls, airports, retirement villages, outcare centres.
Elements
Service creation environment Often a telecom software developer's primary access point, the service creation environment (SCE, also application creation environment or integrated development environment) is used by the developer to create software, scripts, and resources representing the services to be exposed. These can range in complexity from basic Eclipse plug-ins to completely abstracted, metadata-driven telecom application modelling applications (like Avaya's discontinued CRM Central product).
The purpose of the SCE is to facilitate the rapid creation of new communication services. Ignoring factors like marketing for the moment, the easier it is for developers to create services for a given platform, the greater will be the number of available services, and thus the acceptance of the platform by the broader telecom market. Therefore, a telecom infrastructure provider can gain significant advantage with an SDP that provides for rapid service creation.
The leveraging of converged Java EE and SIP service creation environments accelerated the adoption of service delivery platforms. Java-based applications developers, traditionally focused on IT applications, develop real-time communications applications using Java EE and network connecting protocols like SIP and Parlay X web services. Software vendors are combining these technologies (e.g., Oracle Jdeveloper and Oracle Communication and Mobility Server with basic Eclipse plug-in) to reach out to a broader developer base.
Execution environment Service Execution Environments (SEE) are used to execute the communication services developed in SCE. Execution environments are typically designed to mimic the hardware the particular service is expected to run on. SEE may be bundled with SCE as an IDE
Presence and location