Service providers seeking to become more agile businesses face the complex reality that the very systems that have brought them success thus far are often a huge hindrance to their ability to move forward in a digital world.
That was one common thread among sessions at TM Forum’s Digital Disruption event in San Jose last week, where participants grappled with trends in areas from customer experience management to IT to delivering enterprise services.
One particular subject of attention is the interest in software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization, and how lower-cost, software- and cloud-based systems can be adopted when a business often has various legacy systems that it operates on a day-to-day basis, and where the line should be drawn in maintaining an old system, migrating old data to a new system, or standing up a new system that can interact with the old.
One of the most outspoken advocates of innovation in telecoms systems was James Feger, vice president of network strategy and development for CenturyLink.
In a case-study session with Ericsson, Feger discussed the common problem in telecom of being a business built from multiple acquisitions, each component company with its own systems — which prevents a 360-degree view of the business and impacts the agility of new offers and time-to-market.
Another important factor, Feger said, is assessing the costs and benefits of whether to stand up a new system and migrate data — taking into consideration whether that data is good or bad — or integrate new features that are likely to be limited by the capabilities of legacy systems.
Robert Emery, CEP of customer solutions and product management at Ericsson, said during the session that his company has been able to reduce lead times from 4-6 weeks to 2-5 days and touch-points from 10 to 4, for 70% of the involved orders, so that operators can gain more revenue from their network assets.
Feger added that system components need to be modular rather than monolithic and should be open-API driven, so that many different developers can create solutions rather than service providers being locked in to end-to-end systems.
Several experts said that operators are pushing the marketplace in that direction — and indeed, TM Forum recently launched an API ecosystem for digital service management, with major vendors and service providers including Huawei, Cisco, Ericsson, Orange, Amdocs, Accenture and Telefonica O2 participating.
“Today, services are commonly delivered by several partner providers, all of whom need selection, orchestration, management and ultimately payment,” said Laurent Leboucher, vice president of APIs and digital ecosystems for Orange, in a statement on the new API Zone. “Partnerships can be struck and dissolved in seconds, so real-time processing, accurate and secure information flow and agility are more important than ever. An online environment for digital services management APIs puts developers in the digital services driver seat by giving them the tools they need to connect to the biggest players in the digital ecosystem.”
During a hackathon to prove out those APIs, 150 developers created 25 unique apps in 36 hours in areas such as trouble ticketing, product offerings, and product catalogs.
Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) also play into the drive to transform networks and the attendant legacy systems. According to Jeff Edlund, CTO for HP’s communications and media solutions business unit, most businesses are trying to figure out how to inject virtualization as part of their regular capital refreshing budgets, while also attempting to identify opportunities for new revenue that would prompt them to make such investments ahead of their typical upgrade cycle. During a Q&A session with reporters, Edlund said that the ability to leverage “the full power of HP” across multiple elements of networks will allow the company to not simply be seen as an IT company, but as one that can bring value to revenue generation for service providers as well.
“I think it really changes the nature of the whole industry and opportunities, and the way that carriers’ needs will get met,” Edlund said.
For more on TM Forum’s API Zone and the conference, watch this video interview with TM Forum’s COO Aileen Smith.
