Introduction
The days in which a single Network Equipment Provider (NEP) designed, manufactured, and supplied all of the software and hardware in a telecommunication system are long gone. Now, the NEP obtains both software and hardware platform components from different
component vendors and then integrates those components together with its own components and applications into a complete telecommunication system that it delivers to the service providers (carriers). Examples of such components are:
Hardware, such as server cards, shelves, and cabinets
Operating systems, such as Carrier Grade Linux
Middleware, such as high availability middleware
Tools, such as development and profiling tools
Operations and maintenance services, such as network management
Applications, such as multimedia services
It is important to the NEP that several alternative suppliers exist for each of the components, so that a competitive market ensures high quality, responsive service, and reasonable prices. Interoperability is also important. The components provided by the platform component vendors should work together (interoperate), and a single standard should exist, rather than competing standards that would fragment the market.
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Standards organizations
Several organizations have been established to define standards for various aspects of the platform components, including:
PICMG for physical hardware Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) for high availability middleware
Open Software Development Laboratory (OSDL) for Carrier Grade Linux
These standards provide an excellent basis for the development of telecommunication software and hardware, but the standards organizations are not focused exclusively on telecommunication systems. A great deal of understanding and hard work goes into the creation of a standard and, thus, these organizations seek to promote their standards for a wide range of applications. For example, the SA Forum wants to establish standards for service availability that apply not only to telecommunication applications, but also to enterprise applications. To satisfy a wider range of applications, the standards might require additional features or requirements beyond those that telecommunication systems need. Consequently, the NEPs have started to worry about specification creep. On the other hand, there are gaps in the standards, because of the specialized nature of some requirements. For example, the current MicroTCA specification does not cover all of the requirements for outdoor equipment.
The SCOPE Alliance is a consortium of NEPs that reviews industry standards to determine their relevance to telecommunication systems. It is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization. The sponsor members of SCOPE are major NEPs: Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Motorola, NEC, and Siemens Networks.
In addition, the SCOPE Alliance also has contributor members, which are typically the component suppliers. Currently, there are 12 contributor members.
The member companies of the SCOPE Alliance contribute experts that review the standards and generate a NEP-focused profile for each platform standard. The profile defines which aspects of the standard are required for quality and interoperability in telecommunication systems, and which aspects are not necessarily needed. It also identifies gaps in the standards. The SCOPE Alliance does not itself define standards, and it does not provide specifications to fill the gaps that it has found in existing standards.
Figure 1
The SCOPE reference architecture
Figure 1 shows the SCOPE Reference Architecture. The initial focus of the SCOPE Alliance centers on the components within the red dashed lines, that is, the carrier grade base platform and the tools. The carrier grade base platform includes:
Hardware, such as blades and shelves
Operating systems, particularly Carrier Grade Linux
Middleware, including high availability middleware
These technologies are quite mature, and many base platform components are becoming commodities with little proprietary differentiation. Good standards for many aspects of the base platform already exist, and the SCOPE Alliance seeks to strengthen those standards and to focus them on telecommunication systems.
In contrast, few industry standards for tools currently exist; however, SCOPE has determined that standards for development and test tools can reduce the difficulties of combining together software components. SCOPE is encouraging the development of standards for such tools. Among the methodologies of interest to SCOPE are the UML-based Model Driven Architecture developed by the Object Management Group, XML, and other formats of the World Wide Web Consortium for specifying configuration files and other application input, the Eclipse guidelines for interactions between tools and their users, and various UNIX system development tools.
The SCOPE Alliance has initially focused on the control and service plane, to the left of the black dashed line in Figure 1, which is vital for interoperability between components, rather than on the user plane, where proprietary differentiation still exists.
SCOPE has already issued profiles for the Advanced Telecommunication Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA) standard from PICMG and for the Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) standard from OSDL. SCOPE is currently developing a profile for the Application Interface Specification (AIS) high availability middleware standard from the SA Forum. Gap analysis of existing platform standards is underway.
The role of SCOPE in the platform industry
Today, there are many activities around standardization in the platform industry. Sometimes it is hard to understand who will deal with what. Figure 2 gives a simplified picture of how these various initiatives interact.
Figure 2
The primary role of SCOPE here is to produce input to the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of the standardization bodies, based on the existing specifications and reflecting the requirements of the service providers. On the other side, the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA) takes the SIGs’ output (specifications) and drives the delivery of products that comply with SCOPE profiles.
Future activities
During its first year, the activities of SCOPE focused on profiling existing specifications and on the control and service planes shown in Figure 2, where SCOPE will continue to focus its activities.
In 2007 SCOPE intends to create a tools content profile for development and test tools. The term tools content profile means the description of requirements related to functions and properties of tools for the development of carrier grade systems. SCOPE is looking at such tools standards as the UML-based Model Driven Architecture, XML, and other formats for specifying configuration files and other application input, the Eclipse guidelines for interactions between tools and their users, and various UNIX system development tools. Tools content profiles for such tools can reduce the difficulties of combining software components in telecommunication systems.
Gap analysis will be a second important area of work for SCOPE. Gaps exist in the standards due to the specialized nature of some requirements. For example, the AdvancedTCA specification does not currently address certain blade and shelf thermal requirements, which are necessary for interoperability. The intention of SCOPE is to influence the development of upcoming standards before they are finalized. Thus, the work on gap analysis will be performed in close cooperation and dialogue with the SIGs.
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A third important area of work for SCOPE is definitions. The platform industry today has different roots, experience, and history. Thus, there is a lack of common interpretation of such terms as carrier grade, service availability, long lifetime support, and central office environment. As an example, consider the 5-nines availability requirement. Many companies interpret this requirement to mean the availability during the operational phase of a system, but in the telecommunication industry this requirement is understood to be an overall requirement including maintenance. Thus, zero downtime means no service interruption at all over many years. There is clearly a need to create a common understanding of terminology across the entire industry.
Conclusion
The SCOPE Alliance has successfully started to review and influence standardization work in the platform area. The main goal of SCOPE is to help to develop a powerful platform ecosystem, which allows the Network Equipment Providers to fulfill the requirements of their customers.
The SCOPE Alliance continues to encourage contributions to, and comments on, their profiles and gap analyses. SCOPE welcomes companies that seek to build, or supply components for, telecommunication and network equipment. Widespread active participation in SCOPE will result in realistic standards and a vigorous market that increases the quality and reduces the cost and time to market, to the benefit of all.
Dr. Dieter Carl is vice president, platform strategy at Siemens Communications.
Dr. Louise E. Moser is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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