As IMS makes its way from hype to reality, one of the crucial steps along the way for the technology involves testing various parts of the architecture, as well as the applications and services that are to run over the Internet Multimedia Subsystem networks.
Since January, the IMS Forum has organized two testing “Plugfests,” which allow companies to come together in a neutral environment, enveloped in nondisclosure agreements, to check the abilities of their products to determine just how well they’re doing in producing IMS creations that are truly interoperable-which is one of the architecture’s key selling points.
A third Plugfest is set to be held in October. The first one concentrated on infrastructure, and the second began to emphasize applications and services, user equipment and fixedmobile convergence, according to Manuel Vexler, vice president of the IMS Forum and chair of its Technical Working Groups. Vexler said that the goal of the Plugfests has been to focus on applications and services, which he said had previously “lacked a concentrated effort” to verify interoperability-even though they would be the money-makers for carriers that choose to deploy IMS.
Hush-hush results
Held at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., the Plugfest participants have been small and medium-sized companies thus far, Vexler said. Members of the IMS Forum collaborate to develop a testing plan, and then meet at the lab to perform the testing itself.
The results of the testing are kept within the forum and shielded by layers of NDAs signed by participants, including a personal statement of responsibility not to reveal their knowledge.
Ten companies participated in the first Plugfest; 18 in the second; and Vexler said that the list is expected to grow for the October event.
The frequency of the event is key, said Vexler, because companies are rapidly developing new IMS products to test and no one knows exactly which applications will end up being successful. Although the IMS Forum doesn’t want to become a standards body itself, he said, the Plugfest offers an opportunity to establish recommended best practices as well as to glean implementation-related information that can be passed back to groups developing the standards.
The event also gives companies a chance to figure out prior to deployment just how well their products meet interoperability expectations.
“Although we’ve been talking about IMS for, I’ll call it three years, in reality it’s been a lot longer-now that we’re getting kind of serious, it turns out it’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Oswin Eleonora, senior VP of sales and marketing for Acision North America. The Plugfest participant develops applications related to messaging, charging and content delivery.
“If I could have my way, I would have a Plugfest for everything, because there are so many things we deploy in commercial networks and you never get to understand what the real implication is going to be until you’ve deployed it,” said Eleonora. He said since his company has experience working with more than 300 networks around the world, “we know a lot of things that still could happen, but there are still a lot of unknowns.”
One thing he said he would like to see, Eleonora said, is more carrier participation in the Plugfest event. He added that he has laid out a challenge to his team to encourage them to help carriers get involved.
Real-world testing
Sonus Networks Inc. has participated in both of the Plugfests so far, and plans to attend the October event as well.
“It’s important to us for interoperability of the network and important to us for creating an environment where applications can be created and can be used broadly across networks, and there can be a lot of innovation in the applications,” said Mark Lunardoni, director of marketing operations for Sonus Networks.
“It’s really helpful to get into real-world or interoperability lab environments where you can test out the reality vs. the theory, and that’s really what these Plugfests are all about,” said John Nye, VP of applications solutions for Sonus.
Although private testing is often part of a company’s repertoire, forum-centered testing allows companies to both test their products with multiple fellow vendors in a short amount of time. The forums also allow vendors to network with others and get a broad view of IMS progress and their respective places within the industry.
Nye said that Sonus performs testing on its own, but said that the IMS Forum’s event presents “the opportunity not only to do the actual testing, but also, frankly, there’s kind of a social networking aspect to this thing and technical networking, whereby we get exposure to partners, vendors, etc., and it gives us a good sense of what everybody is going. So that has its own value along with it, that goes above and beyond what we might do by ourselves.”
Nye said that operators are embracing IMS, but “in a logical way that’s tied to business cases” and that reflect an evolving transition to IMS rather than an abrupt switch. The progress made with each Plugfest, he said, helps his company validate for its customers that their decisions to move to IMS make good sense.
Vexler did say that some companies that participated in the early Plugfests had a rough time of it-they had come in believing their products were interoperable, but the testing didn’t bear that out. However, he said that the Plugfest failure gave at least one company a new perspective on the value of working within the industry to ensure interoperability.
Lunardoni of Sonus Networks had a similar tale to tell about a company (not his) that participated. He said that the company’s products had failed in interoperability during the first Plugfest, but when the company returned for the second, things worked smoothly.
“I don’t think they’d be as far along if they hadn’t participated,” he said.
