at the risk of inducing narcolepsy to the board, following is a loring wirbel piece via EET.
article namedrops a couple of our personal faves -- namely, ulticom (nee DGM&S) and vitesse.
i'd imagine that software offerings such as these would push our margins even higher.
-----
Electronic Engineering Times
September 06, 1999, Issue: 1077
Section: News
Vendors jockey over packet-circuit approaches
Loring Wirbel
VANCOUVER, B.C. - The recent debut of a Call Policy Markup Language for programming hybrid packet-circuit switches is only the first shot in what promises to be a continuous volley of new offerings from vendors this fall and winter. Abatis Systems Corp., a Canadian startup that introduced a new service-provisioning architecture last spring, is launching a service scripting language called XML/Services this week. Like CPML, the new services language is an offshoot of the popular Extensible Markup Language.
Another direction in which the soft-switching community is heading is toward an open signaling stack for Internet Protocol, similar to Q.2931 signaling for Asynchronous Transfer Mode cell-switching, or Signaling System 7 for the circuit-switched environment. It may seem a contradiction in terms to talk about call setup and signaling for the connectionless Internet Protocol. But, as IP gains the flow definition and end-to-end quality of service (QoS) that give it circuit characteristics, developers are looking at how to put signaling layers into IP.
As one example, Henry Wong, former chairman of Xaqti Corp., the Gigabit Ethernet switch-chip company that Vitesse Semiconductor Inc. recently acquired, has formed a startup in San Jose. Signaling System 8 Networks Inc. will offer soft-switching protocol stacks similar to what SS7 offers for circuit-switched backbones.
Wong has pulled in key advisory members on Internet Engineering Task Force boards, such as Scott Bradner from Harvard, and is putting together the first round of financing for SS8 Networks. He predicted that signaling for IP environments would be a $1.6 billion market by 2003, expanding to $20 billion by decade's end. More important, Wong said, was that SS8's "glue" software will create an independent application software market for advanced call-feature applications based on IP-a market that could hit trillion-dollar levels within a decade.
The August debut of CPML by Digital Telecommunications Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla., as well as the new offerings from Abatis and SS8 Networks, are only the first of scores of new middleware offerings expected from large OEMs, existing telco protocol-stack specialists like Harris & Jeffries Inc., Trillium Digital Systems Inc. and Ulticom Inc. (the former DGM&S Inc.) and startups. Developers in large telco central-office equipment providers anticipate that the IP services provisioning-software space, and the related "soft-switch" programming market, will be one of the first boom markets of the new century.
"This is one of the top subjects being discussed at Alcatel headquarters in Europe," said Rich Weber, product manager at Alcatel's Assured Access group in Milpitas, Calif. "We're not seeing a lot of people in the United States recognizing the importance of the new models of soft-programming virtual switches, but there seems to be a lot going on behind the scenes."
In such a market, open application programming interfaces (APIs) are becoming the new indisputable mantras in the same way that open OS interfaces and open-source-code demands have taken over the client-server world. This is causing some of the early circuit-packet "mediation switch" startups (see Jan. 11, page 1) to shift gears and emphasize open interfaces to equipment on both the public-network and customer-premises side.
Convergent Networks Inc. (Tewksbury, Mass.), for example, announced last week that it would offer open ATM Q.2931 signaling interfaces to its Integrated Convergence Switch. The ICS platform was ATM-based from its launch this spring and has used open circuit-side interfaces such as GR-303 to encourage open hardware porting.
But the addition of Q.2931 allows open links to integrated access devices on the customer premises, said Sally Bament, Convergent's vice president of marketing. This way, a carrier can bundle the Convergent switch with any standard voice-over-DSL gateway on the market, or other access system that relies on ATM. Open signaling allows easier distribution of network intelligence, as well, she said.
"At the end of the day, service intelligence will be decoupled from the switching elements in the system," Bament said. "All of our competition, both the established players and the startups, will have to move toward open signaling sooner or later, because closed interfaces won't be tolerated."
The effort to develop interoperability in programmable approaches happens at several levels. The Internet Engineering Task Force has two working groups relevant to packet signaling: The Signaling Transport, or SigTran, group, is examining how to define signaling methods at the transport layer, using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP), carrying IP control messages between signaling gateways and media gateways.
A second IETF group, Media Gateway Control, or Megaco, defines servers or soft switches in a network that mediates between IP and circuit switches. The Megaco protocol could take away many of the signal interface duties currently handled by H.323 protocols.
In addition, at least two industry consortia have formed to examine interoperability. Large OEMs and carriers organized the International Softswitch Consortium at the spring NetWorld+Interop in Las Vegas, originally. Membership now exceeds 50 companies globally, and specialists in IP call-agent software, such as Richardson, Texas-based Telecom Technologies Inc., are now joining ISC.
A quieter coalition is the Parlay consortium, which is aimed at providing open APIs for formerly closed environments, such as circuit switches from Lucent Technologies Inc. and Nortel Networks Inc.
At SS8 Networks, Wong said that the company monitors the standards work closely, through advisory board members playing key roles in the Megaco and Sigtran working groups. SS8 has no intention of producing mediation-switch hardware or protocol-stack software. In fact, the company already is working with key partners like Trillium on open software stacks and TransMedia Communications (soon to be acquired by Cisco Systems) on interfaces to mediation switches.
Instead, SS8 will provide the IP equivalent of the functions from the SS7 world known as the signaling transfer point and service control point and will make these functions retargetable to different hardware switches. SS8 deliberately will avoid the service switching point of SS7, which is very similar to the Megaco function in IP. Wong said that there were "far too many people already pursuing this MGCP and Megaco and IP call-agent function."
Wong is anticipating competition from Nortel in a few years, from a reported "IPS7" development project, and possibly from Telcordia Technologies Inc. (the former Bellcore), which wants to extend its MGCP and IP call-agent work into true IP signaling.
XML for allocating service
If the CPML work was intended to bring XML into the area of describing call features, Abatis wants to use XML as a means to let carriers and ISPs provision service to customers. Fields such as service subscriptions, billing methods (including per-packet charges) and network identifiers can be handled as typical XML fields in the new XML/Services language. Amar Shan, director of product management at Abatis, said that the network ID functions could include the identification of nodes and subnetworks as well as physical-layer network characteristics, such as delay and jitter.
Although Abatis wants to work with router and mediation-switch vendors, its XML/Services language is tied to the company's three-layer notion of "IP Consumables" contracting. At the network layer, Abatis' hardware platforms, or service points, allocate services and bandwidth to customers.
At the contract layer, a new software platform called the Network Services Contractor (originally for Solaris platforms, but soon for NT 4.x as well) uses the XML/Services language to set up contracted services for customers. On a higher services layer, customers can contact carriers and ISPs through open service portals. Originally, Abatis had intended to help customers create Web portals, though the open nature of XML/Services will allow carriers to build these portals on their own.
Virginia Balcom, Abatis' director of marketing, said the language does not exist in a vacuum. Abatis uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol to maintain open directories accessible through XML/Services. To link to carriers' existing operations and support systems, the network services contractor makes heavy use of Common Object Request Broker Architecture calls.
This model fits with the view of Cimi Corp. principal analyst Tom Nolle that a repository for IP call features will end up being a primary piece of telecommunications software architecture for uniting circuits and packets in the near future. What is less clear is the breadth of software functions feeding the repository. The next year could see the launch of an array of IP signaling stacks, IP/circuit mediation stacks, service contracting applications, scripting languages for programming switches. |
