Product Assessment

Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG) Product Assessment - Network SDP February 02, 2015

David Snow

Current Analysis Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure

JJ Summary

Competitive Strengths

• Near complete standalone API exposure platform functionality • Very strong policy-based SLA monitoring and enforcement • Very strong partner relationship management with full-lifecycle API reporting and analytics • Extensive network and IT protocol adaption and abstraction capabilities • Complementary SDK tools and wide reach through Java Competitive Weaknesses

• ISV and network-agnostic advantages being challenged by its own network acquisitions • Currently lags major TEMs in terms of marketing composed IMS API capabilities • Currently lacks own integrated SDM assets to leverage in legacy or IMS exposure scenarios

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Product Assessment Current Perspective - Very Strong

The Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG) is very strong in the market among compared network SDP solutions. OCSG is part of the company’s overall service delivery platform (SDP) product line, supported by other SDP and related products including Oracle Communications Converged Application Server (OCCAS), Oracle Communications WebRTC Session Controller (OCWSC), Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (OCBRM), Oracle Communications Policy Controller Management (OCPM), OCCAS Service Controller (SC), Oracle Communications Application Orchestrator (OCAO) and Oracle Identity Management, Enterprise Management and Business Intelligence. Internally, OCSG is structured into a developer-facing access control and management layer, a network and IT-facing network plug-in layer and a communication services middle layer. OCSG is a purpose-built platform with leading API control credentials and strong partner relationship management, API governance, policy-based SLAs, full-lifecycle API and partner analytics. API exposure capabilities are also comprehensive with extensive ‘any-to-any’ network and IT protocol adaption and abstraction complemented by SDK creation tools able to leverage the company’s Java technology. OCSG is marked out by provisioning a number of commonly used, pre-built, ‘out-of-the-box’ communications services including messaging, mobile policy, identity management and charging. For an operator looking for a network vendoragnostic platform approach to network asset exposure, OCSG is well equipped and well qualified in terms of deployments. That said, Oracle has until recently owned fewer network assets to associate with OCSG than its major telecommunications manufacturer rivals. Not being fueled by the need to leverage its own IMS infrastructure, Oracle has been less visible in promoting the ‘holy grail’ of network exposure, namely composed IMS APIs, upon which the IMS vision was originally founded. Now, however, through acquisition, internal development and integration these gaps are being gradually filled in and the company is strengthening its position preparatory to addressing the emerging virtualized IMS market. Notwithstanding this progress, Oracle’s broadening portfolio of network assets itself may prove to be a double-edged sword for the OCSG; by both increasing the competitive stakes with network vendors and challenging the product’s hitherto network vendor-agnostic status in the eyes of operators. JJ Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• The OCSG offers most of the desirable functions constituting a standalone API exposure platform. For example, pre-integrating gateway communications services such as messaging, mobile policy, identity management and charging alongside custom service creation capability creates a near ‘out-of-the-box’ carrier solution. The ability to expose, create and control network API exposure, onboard and manage multiple developer partner relationships provides carriers with a one-stop shop for communications service delivery without the overhead of a full SDP implementation. • OCSG offers strong policy-based SLA management and enforcement functionality. Combining centralized access and policy control with geographically distributed enforcement, OCSG implements a comprehensive three-pronged service level agreement (SLA) policy structure oriented around network, application and subscribers priorities. Lying between the more business agreement-oriented and technically oriented SLA schemes of its rivals, Oracle’s SLA approach enables carriers to monitor and manage API performance agreements effectively.

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Product Assessment • Oracle’s partner relationship management including reporting and analytics facility is one of the most comprehensive full lifecycle offerings among compared vendors. Analytics and reports embrace partner onboarding, API adoption, API invocations application/subscriber requests, application ROI analysis, SLA breaches, subscriber usage and rate guarantee recommendations. The ability to track a continuum from partner onboarding through to application retirement in both business and technical dimensions is key to optimizing a carrier’s service exposure capability. • OCSG supports a rich set of network adapters and resource abstraction capabilities. Developed from the start as a network-agnostic platform, Oracle has assembled a large portfolio of adapters from native telecom network elements to IT protocols including state-dependent logic to provide virtually ‘any-to-any’ support for carriers with multivendor networks. Rapid custom network resource adaption capabilities enable carriers to avoid API fragmentation issues arising as a result of network consolidations involving multiple network equipment suppliers’ products. • The company’s network SDP solution includes a comprehensive SDK component. Oracle’s Platform Development Studio, as well as composing and testing APIs, also includes the ability to build SDKs with a wide reach given the company’s ownership of Java technology. The ability to increase an operator’s reach by distributing network API support via SDKs enables vendors to enhance the value proposition of an overall network SDP solution and carriers to include devices other than terminals as endpoints. Weaknesses

• The company’s network-agnostic approach to the network SDP market is being steadily challenged. For example, the company claims that OCCAS already forms the basis of several NEP’s application server offerings and its acquisitions have added market-leading PCRF, SBC and DSC products to its network equipment portfolio. Oracle will face stronger competition from NEPs in the future and operators may be less willing to credit Oracle with ISV status when it comes to network SDP procurement. • Oracle has not invested as much technical and marketing capital into composed IMS APIs as, for example, Alcatel-Lucent or Huawei. The company has hitherto focused on discrete or native multi-vendor CSCF API harmonization, rather than exploiting the attributes of the wider IMS Core. However, as Oracle assembles a stronger IMS portfolio, also launching an OCSG-compatible VNF Manager for IMS, the Oracle Communications Application Orchestrator (OCAO), the company is positioning itself to compete in the next wave of IMS adoption. • Oracle cannot yet leverage its own Subscriber Data Management (SDM) network assets in any network SDP solution. While the OCSG has all the requisite SDM API capabilities to expose other vendor’s SDM offerings, Oracle has yet to reveal the integration of its acquired Tekelec assets. As SDM APIs play a key role in almost every legacy-based, IMS-based or transitional API exposure scenario, some operators may prefer the continuity of using network SDP vendors equipped with their own integrated SDM assets.

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Product Assessment JJ Metrics

API GATEWAY PLATFORM

Rating: API Gateway Platform Date of Introduction

Very Strong Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG) 2003

Platform Options

Intel and SPARC Platforms meeting the OS or Virtualization Requirements. Virtualization: Solaris Zones, Oracle Virtual Machine, Virtual Box. Public and Private Cloud Solaris 9/10/11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4/5/6 , Oracle Enterprise Linux R4/5/6

Operating System Options Deployment options Platform Availability Platform Redundancy Platform Performance Supporting products

Tiered, Tiered/SOA, Non-tiered, Geographically redundant Designed for 99.999% availability in a fully redundant configuration Fully redundant active-active configuration Up to 25K TPS per blade depending on communications service Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (OCBRM); Oracle Communications Policy Manager; OCCAS Service Controller for SS7 connectivity; Oracle Identity Management; Oracle Enterprise Manager; Oracle Business Intelligence

API EXPOSURE

Rating: Very Strong API Interfaces supported Parlay X, OneAPI, SOAP, REST, SMPP, MM7, UCP, Custom API Standards See specific API - in general Parlay X, OneAPI, etc. Compliance Native interface exposure REST to REST and SOAP to SOAP capabilities, MM7, SMPP, UCP in addition to the ability to create custom APIs and communications services Composed API Creation Comprehensive support in the Platform Development Studio which (Network Operator) includes the Communication service creation wizard. Example: Platform Test Environment includes : a service-level agreement (SLA) editor; a schema for creating subscriber-centric SLAs; Event data record (EDR) and alarm listeners. SDK support SDK included with the product that can be customized by the operator Enterprise software API development portal allows APIs to be transformed between REST support and SOAP and payloads between XML and JSON. APIs can also be manipulated to conform with application requirements Third party software No third party API exposure used in product support NFV MANO API SupOCSG supports NFV MANO architecture and is compatible with Oracle port Application Orchestrator. WebRTC Support Websockets are supported and available from the underlying Weblogic Server platform. WebRTC integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio

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Product Assessment

API CONTROL PLATFORM

Rating:

Very Strong

API Control Platform Date of Introduction Partner Relationship Management

Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG) 2003 On board service and content partners providing intranet and extranet portals to service delivery. Portal supports partner onboarding, application onboarding, API exposure and discovery. Application Test Environment is a sandbox environment for testing clients using exposed APIs. Using the Platform Development Studio, new composite APIs can be created that include pre-existing network operator APIs. Lifecycle and version management are done in the admin console. Partner self-care is supported in the Partner Portal. The platform is fully virtualizable. For the SOAP interface: Username/Password Authentication (Username Token), Digital Signatures (X.509 Certificate Token), Encryption (SAML Token), Session IDs. For the REST interface: HTTP basic authentication and session IDs and Oauth 2.0. Three-prong policies: network, application and subscriber. Allow access to a limited set of traffic, restrict traffic based on budget or arbitrary parameter, filter information, guarantee high-priority requests, time of day contract, etc. Charging based on time used or per-use services (CDR based) using the Rf interface, Charging based on the content or value of the used service (CBC) using the Ro Interface. Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (OCBRM) can be integrated for this purpose or a third party charging system supporting Ro, RF or JMS may be used Supported either with SOA façade or by using the interceptor framework

Composed API Creation (Developer) API Governance

Security Authentication & Authorization

Policy Management & SLA Enforcement

Charging

Dynamic Service Orchestration API Operations Support Reporting & Analytics

SCIM/Service Broker

JMS, SNMP for alarm integration. Analytics for non critical issue detection. Log files for trace. Comprehensive analytics/reports over Oracle Communications Gatekeeper service provider, application, partner onboarding and API adoption, API invocations, 360-degree view on application/subscriber requests, ROI analysis on application including SLA breaches, subscriber usage, rate guarantee recommendation. Integration to the OCCAS Service Controller available out of the box, third party SCIM/Service broker integration supported via the SIP interface

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Product Assessment

IMS NETWORK APIs Rating: IMS APIs

Strong Third Party Call, Presence, Call notification, Audio call, Terminal Location, Subscriber Profile, Device Capabilities and Configuration, Quality of Service, Partner RelationShip Management, Address List Management, Payment, Subscription Management AS (MMTEL, TAS, Pres- Terminal Location, Presence ence, etc) CSCF OCSG has been successfully integration tested with 3rd party and Oracle CSCFs via the SIP/ISC inteface. The following API's are supported: Third Party Call; Call Notification; Audio Call. Additional CSCF integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio HSS HSS integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio PCRF Parlay X and Rest based QoS API and southbound interfaces over Diameter Rx to 3rd party and Oracle PCRFs. SBC SBC integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio similar to a CSCF integration DSC/DRA The Oracle DSC/DRA can be used with the Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper for routing and load-balancing Diameter traffic. The Platform Development Studio can be used to customize AVP’s, etc. for 3rd party DSC/DRA’s if needed PCEF/DPI PCEF/DPI integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio Others Terminal Status (SIP), SOAP to SOAP (Arbitrary WSDL), REST to REST (Arbitrary WSDL) LEGACY NETWORK APIs Rating Strong Legacy Network APIs SMS, MMS -MMS and Email, WAP Push, Binary SMS, Bulk Messaging, Terminal Status, Terminal Location, Subscriber Profile, Device Capabilities and Configuration, SMPP, MM7, UCP. Additional legacy API integrations can be built by the user using the Platform Development Studio. IN SCP With the pre-integration of the OCCAS Service Controller, Call Control and Messaging APIs are supported. Call Control With the pre-integration of the OCCAS Service Controller, Audio Call, Third Party Call, and Call Notification are supported. SDM/HLR Device Capabilities, Subscriber Profile, Subscription Management, Address List Management, Anonymous Customer Reference, Terminal Status Others Payment, QoS

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