Service Definition, Deployment, Management and Architectures in Telecommunication Networks: From Intelligent Networks to Service Oriented Architectures

The rapid globalization of world enterprises and the pressing need to provide networks and services more responsive to the “end users” push the telecommunications world towards rapid service deployment and new integrated value-added technology solutions. Service orientation, initially introduced in Intelligent Networks and currently further exploited within the Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), seems to be the key for achieving the rapid development of new services with low cost. New value-added services as well as new business models drive the adoption of SOA in the telecommunications world. In this paper, we first discuss the requirements for a service-based approach, and then we overview the traditional service orientation in the telecoms sector, as well a main methodology for service definition and creation. A discussion of telecommunications service management follows together with an investigation of current Service Oriented Architectures, through the provision of some important examples.