Abstract
Telecom operators have started to make significant investments towards evolving their Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) to a next-generation architecture, based on IP technologies and standards such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and increasingly, Web 2.0. These investments are tightly coupled with demands for network middleware infrastructures that allow for rapid service creation and execution, efficient service orchestration and management, and flexible exposure of core network capabilities as services. A key service management functionality of integrated SDP is IP-based service control. Traditionally, service control functionalities have been vertically integrated with service logic and hence, are inflexible and costly to maintain and upgrade. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which defines the overlay service architecture for next generation networks, stopped short in designing a flexible service control component. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a service control layer (SCL) for IMS networks, which is flexible on two fronts, viz., the SIP based service modeling for fine grained service control and the programmability of the controlling action implemented by external business services. We present the detailed description of the design and implementation of SCL followed by the results obtained from a performance evaluation exercise that evaluates the scalability of SCL.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The reason behind the choice of SIP: Firstly, SIP is based on a simple request-response interaction model that allows developers to interact with individual protocol messages. Secondly, SIP can start/manage/tear-down sessions for any media type, be it voice, video, or application sharing.
If the message is not relevant for the service control requirement, it is simply forwarded to the destination.
With the operators increasingly coming up with new attractive pricing schemes to entice the subscribers, such diverse but short-lived charging scenarios are now norms rather than fancy features and any tightly coupled charging system would understandably fail to adapt to such a dynamically changing space.
SIP service modeling has engaged researchers from the very early days of SIP based service development and deployment. The main objectives of such service modeling range from formal verification [12] to advanced service design [13]. While there are many ways to model a SIP service, we have adopted a simple state machine based approach, with Drools enabling the state machine. One of the merits of a state machine is that it is well understood in the telecom developer community. Telecom service providers have already successfully used state machines in many areas. For example, the protocol Specification and Description Language (SDL) [14]. AT&T research also uses a state machine method for creating CallVantage Service [15]. In contrast to the AT&T and SDL approach, the purpose of a state machine in SCL is to select specific points in service with the help of FPDs.
This corresponds to the pre-paid scenario described earlier.
A key agenda of JSR 289 is to make HTTP (SOAP)-based services available on the same platform with SIP-based services.
References
Telco Web 2.0 Mashup: A New Blueprint for Service Creation. Lightreading’s Services Software, vol. 3, Number 2, May 2007
Parlay X Web Service Specification, Version 3.0. http://portal.etsi.org/docbox/TISPAN/Open/OSA/ParlayX30.html (2007). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Web 21c sdk (Now supported by Ribbit Corporation). http://web21c.bt.com/ (2007). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., Schooler, E.: SIP: Session Initiation Protocol. RFC 3261, June 2002
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS); Stage 2, Release 8. 3GPP Specification TS 23.228 (2008)
3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and Systems Aspects; Network architecture (Release 6). 3GPP TS 23.002 V6.10.0 (2005)
3rd Generation Partnership Project. http://www.3gpp.org (1998). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Chakraborty, D., Dasgupta, K., Mittal, S., Misra, A., Gupta, A., Newmark, E., Oberle, C.L.: BusinessFinder: Harnessing presence to enable live yellow pages for small, medium and micro mobile businesses. IEEE Commun. Mag. Special Issue New Dir. Netw. Technol. Emerg. Econ. (Jan 2007). doi:10.1109/MCOM.2007.284550
IBM WebSphere Telecom Web Services Server. http://www-306.ibm.com/software/pervasive/serviceserver/ (2004). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
OPENET. http://www.openet.com/ (1999). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Drools. http://labs.jboss.com/drools/ (2001). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Chan, K.Y., Bochmann, G.V.: Methods for designing SIP services in SDL with fewer feature interactions. In: Amyot, D., Logrippo, L. (eds.) Feature Interactions in Telecommunications and Software Systems VII, pp. 59–76. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2003)
SIP Modeling Toolkit. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/downloads/07/rsa_sip_toolkit/ (2008). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
ITU-T (Recommendation Z.100). http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com10/languages/Z.100_1199.pdf (1999). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
AT&T CallVantage. https://www.callvantage.att.com/ (Discontinued since Oct 2009) (2004). Accessed 1 Jan 2009
Calhoun, P., Loughney, J., Guttman, E., Zorn, G., Arkko, J.: Diameter Base Protocol. RFC 3588, Sept 2003
WebSphere IP Multimedia Subsystem Connector. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/multisubcon/ (2004). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Din, G., Petre, R., Schieferdecker, I.: A workload model for benchmarking IMS core networks. IEEE GLOBECOM (2007). doi:10.1109/GLOCOM.2007.498
WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment 6.1. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/network/ (2003). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Apache Commons. http://commons.apache.org/scxml/ (2005). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
SIPp. http://sipp.sourceforge.net (2004). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
International Telecommunication Union, Network grade of service parameters and target values for circuit-switched services in the evolving isdn, Recommendation E.721. Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU, Geneva, Switzerland, May 1999
Lunteren, J. van., Engbersen, T., Bostian, J., Carey, B., Larsson, C.: XML accelerator engine. In: First International Workshop on High Performance XML Processing, 2004. doi:10.1.1.84.9051
Kakemizu, M., Wakamoto, M., Orita, A.: Unified IP service control architecture based on mobile communication scheme. FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J. 37(1), 81–86 (2001)
Trimintzios , P., Andrikopoulos, I., Pavlou, G., Flegkas, P.: A management and control architecture for providing IP differentiated services in MPLS-based networks. IEEE Commun. Mag. 39(5), 80–88 (2001). doi:10.1109/35.920861
Grech, M.L.F., Torabi, M., Unmehopa, M.R.: Service control architecture in the UMTS IP multimedia core network subsystem. In: International Conference on 3G Mobile Communication Technologies (2002). doi:10.1049/cp:20020354
Li, B.: Policy based SIP Signaling Management in IMS. ICIN (2007)
JSR 289: SIP Servlet v1.1. http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=289 (2006). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
JSR 116: SIP Servlet API. http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=116 (2001). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Dinsing, T., Eriksson, GAP., Fikouras, I., Gronowski, K., Levenshteyn, R., Pettersson, P., Wiss, P.: Service composition in IMS using Java EE SIP servlet containers. Ericsson Rev. 3, 92–96 (2007)
BEA AquaLogic Family of Tools (Supported by Oracle Corporation following the acquisition of BEA by Oracle Corporation). http://www.bea.com/aqualogic/ (2005). Accessed 1 Jan 2007
Microsoft Connected Services Framework Sandbox (De-emphasized by Microsoft). http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/connectedservicesframework.mspx (2006). Accessed 1 Jan 2007
Banerjee, N., Dasgupta, K., Mukherjea, S.: Providing middleware support for the control and co-ordination of telecom mashups. MNCNA: Middleware for next-generation converged networks and applications (2007). doi:10.1145/1376878.1376889
Banerjee, N., Dasgupta, K., Longmore, L., Mukherjea, S., Ren, L. N., Wen, J.J.: Service control layer (SCL): Enabling rule-based control and enrichment in next-generation telecom service delivery. Middleware. 1–6 (2008). doi:10.1145/1462735.1462737
Majithia, S., Shields, M., Taylor, I., Wang, I.: Triana: A graphical web service composition and execution toolkit. In: IEEE International Conference on Web Services (2004). doi:10.1109/ICWS.2004.1314777
Agarwal, V., Dasgupta, K., Karnik, N., Kumar, A., Kundu, A., Mittal, S., Srivastava, B.: A service creation environment based on end to end composition of web services. In: World Wide Conference (2005). doi:10.1145/1060745.1060768
Mittal, S., Chakraborty, D., Goyal, S., Mukherjea, S.: SewNet—a framework for creating services utilizing telecom functionality. In: World Wide Web Conference (2008). doi:10.1145/1367497.1367615
Blum, N., Boldea, I., Magedanz, T., Staiger, U., Stein, H.: A service broker providing real-time telecommunications services for 3rd party services. In: IEEE International Computer Software and Applications Conference (2009). doi:10.1109/COMPSAC.2009.202
JAIN SLEE. http://jainslee.org/ (1999). Accessed 14 Nov 2011
Venezia, C., Falcarin, P.: Communication web services composition and integration. In: International Conference on Web Services (ICWS) (2006). doi:10.1109/ICWS.2006.42
BEA WebLogic Network Gatekeeper. http://www.bea.com/content/news_events/white_papers/BEA_NW_Gatekeeper_ds.pdf (Supported by Oracle Corporation following the acquisition of BEA by Oracle Corporation) (2005). Accessed 1 Jan 2007
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Koustuv Dasgupta and Lee Longmore for valuable technical discussions. They also acknowledge the technical contributions by Li Na Ren, Jia Jia Wen and Qi Yu for SCL development and product testing results.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Banerjee, N., Nagar, S. & Mukherjea, S. Service Control Layer (SCL): Enabling Rule-based Control and Enrichment in Next-Generation Telecom Service Delivery. J Netw Syst Manage 21, 65–98 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-011-9223-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-011-9223-z