CIMI Corporation, has announced that the ExperiaSphere open source NGN Services Architecture project it launched a year ago has completed its prototype and begun demonstrating it to interested service providers and equipment vendors. The project is designed to provide effective service, application, and experience management to both public networks and private networks regardless of their technology. ExperiaSphere is a Java toolkit that provides developers the ability to create abstract service components, then tie them together to create services. By linking components through management APIs to equipment EMS/NMS products, the services are then created on the network.
CIMI Corporation is also very pleased to announce the first vendor partnership for ExperiaSphere, Extreme Networks (NASDAQ:EXTR) . Extreme will be providing technical support and testing for the connection of ExperiaSphere to its EPICenter management interface using industry-standard XML. The EPICenter connection will support provisioning of E-LINE, E-LAN, and E-TREE services as well as monitoring and management on a per-switch basis. "Carriers offering next-generation services will clearly benefit from this collaborative architecture," said Mark Showalter, director of service provider marketing for Extreme Networks. "We are pleased to be part of this team."
ExperiaSphere provides an open-source service and service feature abstraction layer that fits between any service user and the set of network and computing resources needed to fulfill the service, whether they are one provider network or many networks, public infrastructure or private. It is compatible with any order source, including simple HTML, and with network connections based IP, Ethernet, optical, ATM, frame relay, SIP, RTP or any other technology with a basic management API exposed. ExperiaSphere can build any IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) application (in fact, you could build IMS itself with it) but it goes far beyond IMS in network technology and service flexibility.
"ExperiaSphere came out of work with international telecom carriers in early 2008," said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corporation and Chief Strategist for ExperiaSphere. "Operators told us they were concerned that the standards in NGN services were developing too slowly to be useful, and often were proving too complicated to be implemented. We launched ExperiaSphere to prove that it was possible to create robust service architectures from web- oriented tools. We wanted to build what the web community would have created if it had been tasked with creating IMS."
ExperiaSphere is based on Java 2 Standard Edition, and it focuses on creating functional "atoms" called "Experiams" that represent a specific service feature or behavior. The Experiams are composed into structures that represent services, and when activated they control underlying service resources through standard APIs. The interfacing between Experiams and management systems or other outside processes is strictly compartmentalized from functional behavior, so any interface capable of exchanging the required data elements can be accommodated in any mission.
"We believe that even the telco standards world is moving away from a walled garden, call-based, architecture for NGN services," said Nolle. "The older IMS model is being modified in ITU work to create something that works better with web-based services. ExperiaSphere has modeled the same approach as that being taken in the ITU."
The first working prototype of a service based on ExperiaSphere has been completed. This service simulates the ordering and delivery of a video stream by either a PC/browser user or a smartphone user. The order/delivery process is based not on complex APIs but on a simple HTML exchange that could be added to any website with any HTML editor tool. The user, in the prototype, enters a video name and format and the result, as an HTML form, is dispatched to ExperiaSphere.
The ExperiaSphere service logic software runs a Yahoo Video search, identifies the correct video based on the request, and returns the URL to the user. At the same time, it activates the logic to create a priority path across an arbitrary set of service providers to insure quality streaming. The service provider interfaces are simulated in the prototype, but ExperiaSphere is seeking service provider partners to work with in creating an actual controlled delivery demonstration later in 2009. The same service logic would support mobile or wireline users, IP or Ethernet networks; services are completely abstracted from resources and service order interfaces are also completely abstracted.
The next phase of ExperiaSphere, which has already begun in a design sense, will create a second set of tools designed to provide social-based communications services. This is more than social networks, it's a whole new model that blends social networking, calling, collaboration, and unified communications into a single package. These tools will also be open source and the first versions will be included in the Beta release that will be made available on SourceForge, the open source repository, in late spring 2009. At the same time, CIMI Corporation will be seeking partners to host ExperiaSphere.net, a prototype social communications network running ExperiaSphere elements throughout, as a worldwide testbed for the next generation of public communications.
ExperiaSphere is unique in four primary ways:
1. It is the first next-generation services architecture to be based on
web concepts of social communication, on web-friendly interfaces, and
on Java open source code.
2. It is not just an abstract architecture, as IMS is, but rather a
toolkit that can actually be used to build services. Each tool can be
modified and customized as needed to support new requirements.
3. It completely abstracts the notion of a service as a set of related
features, from the resources that fulfill the service. The same
service logic can set up an MPLS LSP or a PBT tunnel, a SIP call or a
PSTN call.
4. Because it's based on Java, ExperiaSphere elements can run on anything
that supports Java 2 release 1.6 or higher, and so it's compatible
with personal computers, servers, laptops, nettops, smartphones,
tablet systems, and any other appliance or device with a Java Virtual
Machine. Thus, ExperiaSphere is the first truly open and distributed
telco services architecture. ExperiaSphere goes beyond open handsets
to open services.
