A runtime-adaptable service bus design for telecom operations support systems

Abstract

The complexity that telecommunications companies are faced with in their business processes and their information technology (IT) systems is especially apparent in their billing systems. These systems are required not only to handle large volumes of data and frequent changes in business rules, but also to ensure that the billing be done accurately and on time. This paper describes a solution that was developed to address this problem. It consists of an operations support system that is compliant with NGOSS (Next Generation Operations System and Software) and it implements a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that relies on an enhanced enterprise service bus (ESB). This enhanced ESB, referred to here as an adaptable service bus (ASB), makes it possible to carry out changes to business rules at runtime, thus avoiding costly shutdowns to the billing application. An implementation of this system has been operational in ChungHwa Telecom Company, Taiwan, since January 2008 and provides complete support to its billing application. As a result, the billing process cycle time has been reduced from 10–16 days to 3–4 days, which cleared the way for further growth of the business.