Management World, Nice: Amdocs teams up with IBM

Amdocs has teamed with IBM to offer a standards-based service fulfilment solution. The Amdocs IBM Service Fulfillment Solution gives service providers a framework to support new services and extend the life of existing systems. The solution was jointly developed from inception using TeleManagement Forum and service-oriented architecture (SOA) standards. They claim this is an industry first for service fulfillment.

The companies claim their Solution reduces costs by providing pre-configured modular fulfilment processes for specific services within the framework. The pre-defined business processes that are aligned with industry standards and the modular and reusable fulfillment applications are said to minimise interoperability issues. As a result, service providers can upgrade their fulfillment capabilities while repurposing existing systems across multiple lines of business to reduce time to market. 

Amdocs and IBM have used shared information data model (SID), enhanced telecommunications operations map (eTOM) and next generation operations support systems (NGOSS) contracts standards. They say this demonstrates the applicability and value of these standards to reduce total cost of ownership. 

Standards-based data structures that include SOA attributes, such as service data objects (SDO) and service component architecture (SCA) simplify integration and the way applications handle objects. Amdocs and IBM will also offer joint consulting services to support the new solution.  

"Service providers need to continuously deliver new features to improve customer experience and reduce churn," said Charles Born, vice president of corporate communications at Amdocs.  "One of the main obstacles to delivering new services is the OSS environment, which generally consists of a variety of systems that support specific products or services."

Tim Greisinger, vice president, Communications Sector Industry Solutions, IBM Software Group said, "We believe the Amdocs and IBM Service Fulfillment Solution is the only service fulfillment offering that currently meets the full SOA attributes and that supports the TM Forum standards, enabling a next generation OSS technology-neutral architecture."