Service Delivery Architecture Research Articles

Broadband Futures Forum: The Rise of 5G and the NBN

On 25 May 2021, TelSoc hosted the seventh Broadband Futures Forum, held online, to examine the relationship between 5G and Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN). Two speakers discussed opportunities arising from the 5G core architecture for service creation and delivery via the NBN. Several 5G-related services that could be offered by the NBN to be used by its retail service providers were outlined. Discussion following the speeches included questions about potential service characteristics, possibilities for automation, and deployment scenarios.

On Blockchain-Based Cross-Service Communication and Resource Orchestration on Edge Clouds

With the advent of 5G verticals and the Internet of Things paradigm, Edge Computing has emerged as the most dominant service delivery architecture, placing augmented computing resources in the proximity of end users. The resource orchestration of edge clouds relies on the concept of network slicing, which provides logically isolated computing and network resources. However, though there is significant progress on the automation of the resource orchestration within a single cloud or edge cloud datacenter, the orchestration of multi-domain infrastructure or multi-administrative domain is still an open challenge. Towards exploiting the network service marketplace at its full capacity, while being aligned with ETSI Network Function Virtualization architecture, this article proposes a novel Blockchain-based service orchestrator that leverages the automation capabilities of smart contracts to establish cross-service communication between network slices of different tenants. In particular, we introduce a multi-tier architecture of a Blockchain-based network marketplace, and design the lifecycle of the cross-service orchestration. For the evaluation of the proposed approach, we set up cross-service communication in an edge cloud and we demonstrate that the orchestration overhead is less than other cross-service solutions.

Digital Governance, Public Service and Envirtizenship: Prospecting E-Society for Sustainability (E-S4S)

The globe is undergoing unprecedented transformation . Describing the emergent society simply as a global village is speedily becoming anachronistic as there exists a conceptual shift to the concept e-society. Digitalization engenders a plethora of e- (or electronic-) phenomena: e-commerce, e-service and e-governance, among others. Just as there is the fast emergence of the global e-society on the one hand, there is also the global environmental challenge of the anthropocene: environmental imbalance and widening gap between environmentally safe and unsafe communities. The emergent e-society throws up issues of eco-friendly public service delivery mechanisms in developing nations: communities in developing countries are fast becoming referents for environmental abuses. The paper analyze s the plausibility of leapfrogging digital governance for birthing a global public service delivery framework for sustainable governance in developing countries. The paper critically examine s the interplay between the phenomena digital governance, public service delivery and sustainable governance. The analysis birthed the epistemological construct envirtizens – by which we conceptualize environmentalists of the emergent e-society: digital and networked citizen-environmentalists. The paper recommends, among others, formation of a global framework – E-Society for Sustainable Development (E-S4S) – as a desideratum for engendering clean public service delivery architecture in developing countries.

“Social licence to operate” and the human services: A pathway to smarter commissioning?

AbstractExternalised service provision is now an embedded feature of Australia's service delivery architecture. However, the lessons drawn from two decades of contracted service delivery suggest that “competition” is an imperfect platform for the delivery of public services, especially where issues of trust in government come into play. Could the concept of a “social license to operate” (SLO), which has been in use in the natural resources sector for over two decades, help to facilitate the conferral of greater trust, credibility and legitimacy upon governments, and externalised service providers in social policy spaces?

An Approach for Systematically Analyzing and Specifying Security Requirements for the Converged Web-Mobile Applications

As the use of web and mobile applications is becoming pervasive for service delivery and user mobility support, enterprises are now increasingly fighting against a huge number of emerging security threats which interfere with the process of service delivery. As an attempt to help the enterprises in dealing with the emerging security threats in the converged service delivery architecture, this paper presents a methodology for security threat analysis and security requirements specification in web/mobile applications development. The presented methodology is based on a case study Livestock Data Center (LDC) system, which is being developed and it allows both web and mobile interfaces as service delivery channels. Hence the system serves as a representative of other similar setups of service delivery. In addition to the processes of analysis and security specification, the methodology involves threat modeling as well. There are several threat models in the literature. The STRIDE threats model is one among the existing threats models that is used to identify security threats that needs to be addressed in systems such as the LDC system. The STRIDE threats model has been used to identify the likely security threats to our case study. On applying the STRIDE threats model the following threats were identified as prominent: sensitive data exposure, weak server side controls, client side injection, and weak authentication and authorization. The identified security threats were compared to existing threats in traditional web and mobile applications separately in order to figure out the changes when the two computing platforms come together. The findings from our case study have shown that the proposed methodology for security threat analysis and security design can be useful in security requirements specifications in the converged web-mobile applications during development, and can be generally used to assist developers of other similar systems.

Scalable Passive Optical Network Architecture for Reliable Service Delivery

A scalable and reliable architecture for both a wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network and a hybrid wavelength and time division multiplexing passive optical network with self-healing capability is presented and evaluated. Our protection scheme is compatible with a cascaded arrayed waveguide grating that can accommodate an ultra-large number of end users. A simple interconnection pattern between two adjacent optical network units (ONUs) is applied in order to provide protection for distributed fibers between a remote node and the ONUs. Therefore, the investment cost on a per-user basis can be significantly reduced. Meanwhile, the performance evaluation shows that our approach can achieve high connection availability while maintaining the support of long reach and high splitting ratio.

Toward a unified service delivery process for next-generation services

In this paper, a framework for a unified service delivery process is proposed for next-generation services within the context of an end-to-end service delivery architecture (SDA). The framework defines service as a provisionable capability of the SDA that is either a connectivity service, a communication service, or a support service. The platform operator (PO) and the service operator (SO) have separate roles in the service delivery value chain. The customer and end user also have different roles, in receiving services and conducting self-services.

Service Delivery within an IMS Environment

The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) standard is being widely adopted by both wireline and wireless service providers to support the next wave of multimedia communication applications. As currently defined, that IMS standard proposes a detailed architecture for the transport and control layers of the next-generation telecommunication networks, but leaves many questions unanswered on how the application layer should be structured. A more structured approach to service delivery will be required in order to deliver new multi-media applications in an efficient and cost-effective way. An approach based on service delivery platform (SDP) proposes a layered service architecture, with a strong emphasis on re-use of common service enablers and on open APIs. This paper describes work being undertaken within HP's IMS Experience Center to validate a horizontal service delivery architecture for next-generation IP multimedia applications.

Architecture for reliable service discovery and delivery in manets based on power management employing slp extensions

Limited energy resources and mobility issues affect the topology of ad hoc networks and introduce difficulties in service discovery. The high possibility of a link breakdown due to low energy supplies in a ubiquitous computing environment, such as a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), raises service-provider selection issues with regard to achieving the best possible service reliability. Every node requiring a specific service must choose a provider under certain criteria. This article provides an overview of standardized service-discovery and delivery solutions. In addition, a novel architecture is proposed which provides the ability to select a service provider by taking into account metrics such as the power supplies of the service provider and concomitant path towards the destination. The proposed algorithm is decentralized and based on service location protocol version 2 (SLPvZ) extensions

The BT HP alliance — integrated service delivery

The BT HP alliance was established to address the challenges that arise with global ICT outsourcing, bringing together the world-class capabilities of BT and HP to provide a full service outsource capability — where such an arrangement would yield benefit to BT, HP and clients. This paper will look at some of these challenges and in particular those which relate to the provision of ‘end-to-end’ service management. It describes the BT HP alliance’s approach to the delivery of an integrated service, and how the issues raised can be addressed using an integrated service architecture (ISA). The core components of the ISA, namely the customer portal, the service catalogue, the joint service delivery model (JSDM), the joint service delivery architecture (JSDA), and the supporting data storage, are identified and described. In order to describe the approach taken to develop the ISA, incident management is used as an example to show how the existing service delivery processes are aligned in the joint service delivery model. It is recognised that there are existing process standards and frameworks within both companies, and hence, in the early stages of establishing a joint service delivery capability, the approach is to rely on these existing processes and identify and harmonise the necessary interfaces between them. The overall effect of this is to provide a seamless view of service delivery from the customer perspective. As well as aligning these processes, in some cases they are also bonded together, where it is appropriate and where there is an identified benefit. The paper will also describe the infrastructure and systems that have been put in place in order to electronically bond and automate processes by using the JSDA, taking the incident management process as an example.

Delivering interactive services via a digital TV infrastructure

This article discusses an architecture for interactive service delivery to the home via the digital television (DTV) infrastructure in systems with and without return channels. This approach relies on a broadcast computing model adapted to suit the DTV environment. The model works even with low-cost user terminals, such as the basic DTV set-top boxes with limited computational and graphics capability and no local disk storage.