March 2008

IN THIS ISSUE

WHAT’S NEW

IPSF NEWS RELEASES

IPsphere Forum Delivers New
Specification for IP Services
Resource Management

Fremont, California - 19 Feb 2008

The IPsphere Forum today published its specification for Interworking Session Services and Resource Management (SSRM) with IPsphere.

To Read Full News Release Click Here

WORKING GROUP UPDATES

RIWG

Within the RIWG, activity has been focused on the conduct of the ContentSphere trial. Several members have collaborated together in building a lab-based proof-of-concept. To assist service provider members understand how to undertake similar proof-of-concept activity, a "cookbook" for ContentSphere has been produced. This practical guide provides real implementation examples, instructions, and analysis of areas where further work or investigation may be required for a successful IPsphere implementation.

RAWG

RAWG has been working with RIWG in determining the perameters around the proposed field trial, including the ContentSphere Cookbook. RAWG has also been finalizing documentation around Publisher Interface Specifications and Data Model Specifications.

MARKETING COMMITTEE

The MC is focused on advancing the ContentSphere field trial effort via two major efforts: 1) equipping members with tools to advocate for the trial in their respective organizations and, 2) developing a marketing and media outreach plan around the trial activities in 2008. In addition, the MC continues to inform the industry about IPSF; our SSRM press release being a recent example.

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION COMMITTEE

The RRC completed two key initiatives: the Imagine IPsphere feature on our website, and the IPSF Value Report which was sent to all of our members at the end of the year. The latter has also generated interest and engagements with prospective members.

UPCOMING EVENTS

IPSF STOCKHOLM
MEMBER MEETING

Dates:  20-22 May 2008
Location:  Stockholm, Sweden
Host:  Telenor

More Information

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The IPsphere Forum would like to thank BT for its generous support of the November 2007 interim meeting held in London, UK. Thank you for your support of the IPsphere Forum.

WHAT'S NEW | UPCOMING EVENTS | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | CONTRIBUTED ARTICLE
SSRM | MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Dear IPSF Members and Friends,

2008 is now in full swing and the IPsphere Forum has a number of exciting projects in the works. IPSF has been hard at work since our last newsletter on planning for our service provider field trial, ContentSphere. Additionally, we just published the lastest IPSF specification -- Session Services and Resource Management (SSRM).

I must also advise that I'm moving on from the Chair role at IPSF. I have greatly enjoyed serving you all in this role since mid-2005 and will be forever grateful for the support afforded me by the board, committee leaders, our AMS secretariat (Laura & Shonna in particular), and our membership overall. The IPSF board has appointed Todd Shimizu of Juniper Networks as my replacement. As many of you know I have worked closely with Todd for several years and he is the ideal successor; he is highly skilled and capable, a strong team player and is steeped in all matters IPsphere. I know Todd will enjoy all the support afforded me, please join me in welcoming him into the Chair role.

Regards,
Kevin Dillon
Chairman, IPsphere Forum

Dear IPSF Members and Friends,

I'm very honored and humbled by this opportunity to carry on the work of the IPsphere Forum in the Chairman’s role. Kevin certainly leaves behind big shoes to fill and I believe we should all take the opportunity to thank him for his immense contribution to the Forum’s success. I look forward to working with the membership to continue driving our key initiatives, particularly the ContentSphere field trial. I always welcome and value your input and suggestions and look forward to seeing all of you in Stockholm.

Regards,
Todd Shimizu
Juniper Networks

CONTRIBUTED ARTICLE

Delivering Flexible Automated Services

By Mike Lerer, Soapstone Networks
Consultant for Office of the CTO

Service Providers are challenged by the radical shift in service revenue and technology that has occurred in the last two decades. In order to grow top line revenue, they have organized around business opportunities in managed services (VPN, VPLS), connection-oriented services (i.e., VoIP and video over IP), IPTV, Internet and wholesale services. These services are layered over different physical infrastructures with varying constraints.

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The ITU-T’s Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture uses multiple broadband, Quality of Service (QoS) enabled transport technologies and makes service-related functions independent from the choice of underlying transport technology. As a result, this architecture frees service providers from the constraints and costs of a stovepipe architecture in which each service would have its own dedicated or overlay network...

Click Here to Download this Article in its Entirety

Session Services and Resource Management (SSRM) Specification

IPsphere Forum recently published a framework specification on Interworking Session Services and Resource Management (SSRM) with IPsphere. The work on this specification started with the question of how IPsphere relates to IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS is a key building block of future service delivery. Since IPsphere enables service providers to negotiate and guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) for pan-provider services and since IMS-based services require QoS, the obvious question is how IPsphere can help provide QoS to IMS-based services.

When starting the work, IPsphere Forum soon realized that many IMS-based services, such as Voice over IP (VoIP) have stringent requirements for session setup times and that many session are fairly short. It is therefore impractical to trigger the IPsphere orchestration environment for every single VoIP session.

IPsphere Forum therefore developed a two-tiered architecture: At the higher level, service providers can negotiate and contract bandwidth aggregates ("pipes") through IPsphere. At the lower level, session-based Policy Management and Resource Control systems are used to perform admission control and provide QoS guarantees. In the industry, several of such systems have been standardized. For example, 3GPP has specified a Policy and Charging Control (PCC) framework and ETSI/TISPAN has specified Resource an Admission Control Subsystem (RACS).

IPsphere Forum's SSRM document specifies a framework that explains the interworking between the higher-level IPsphere components and the lower-level session-based components such as IMS, PCC and RACS. The document explains in detail how QoS at the border between service providers can be managed. It also illustrates how negotiations between IPsphere partners may result in specific policies that are pushed towards the lower-level components and used to affect the way traffic is routed and resources are allocated.

It should be noted that the SSRM document provides a general framework, not only for IMS-based services, but also for other services such as non-IMS based Video-on-Demand.

In summary, IPsphere's SSRM document is an important step in the evolution to an all-IP world in which services that span the globe can receive end-to-end QoS guarantees.

-- Peter Busschbach, Alcatel-Lucent
Editor, Interworking Session Services and Resource Management (SSRM) with IPsphere

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

The IPsphere Forum is pleased to announce the Q4 07 recipient of the Circle of Excellence Award - presented to individual members who have made a significant contribution to the Forum.

In February 2008, the Forum honored Todd Shimizu of Juniper Networks for his dedicated leadership as chair of the Recruitment and Retention Committee and vice chair of the Marketing Committee. During his tenure Todd has driven much of the hard work behind the scenes, including the creation of the original IPSF website and the recent significant re-vamp of the site, writing much of the material emanating from the committees, and acting as a solid compass for the group. Like previous recipients before him, Todd received an “official” IPsphere Forum iPod shuffle in IPsphere green and a letter of recognition from the IPSF Chairman to his manager describing the reason for his selection as this quarter’s winner.

Members are encouraged to nominate individuals who they believe have made significant contributions to the IPsphere Forum. For more information on the program, please contact Shonna Anderson, IPSF Project Manager, at sanderson@ipsphereforum.org.