Application of Web Service in Telecommunications Industry Data Service
CWW.NET.CN January 5, 2004 11:28 Communication World Network
IBM China Research Center Yingchun Yu Shilan
China Mobile Communications Group R & D Center Zhou Bin Wei Bing
For operators, the so-called telecom data traffic generally refers to communication networks such as GSM, GRPS, WirelessLAN, access to various types of data devices and servers based on IP (InternetProtocol) technology, providing content with the Internet. The general name of the various new services of the application service, such as short message (SMS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Multimedia Message (MMS), E-mail (E-mail), Air Interface (Download) Server (OTAServer). From the perspective of business model, telecom operators use their own mature communication networks and rich backend services and billing systems, which make up service delivery platform, news, games, emails, business, etc. Intente. The service provides infrastructure support such as user access, management, billing, expands the scope of business services for their own end users; and is divided into new revenue channels with Internet content and application service providers. For a long time, telecom operators have mastered three technical high points: communication channels, user databases, and billing systems. Around these highlights, operators have conducted long-term investment and construction, and in traditional business sectors such as voice have reached a high technical maturity. However, the development of telecom data services has brought new demand and challenges for operators' technical reserves, and new business systems and management platforms have emerged, and they are imminent between them and integrate with old systems. The unique business cooperation model creates a unique demand for supply chain management, namely cooperative service provider relationship management. It is estimated that the proportion of equipment elements and end users in the traditional business business in the telecommunications industry are 1: 10,000, that is, one device element is used for service 10,000 users. With the development of new business and the increase in data network equipment and servers, this ratio has been reduced to 1: 500, that is, one device element is used to serve 500 users. Many data services flexibly across multiple communications channels, users and cooperative service providers, further increasing the complexity of equipment integration.
Based on the above reasons, the current focus of the mature operators at home and abroad has been transferred from individual key devices to end-to-end equipment integration, which often across a large number of partners. Faced with such changes, traditional system integration technology, such as point-to-point private interface adapter, suitable for traditional distributed object components in the enterprise, have no heart. The construction of telecom interconnection and value-added service chain requires safe, flexible, and has the ability to cross partner IT management domain boundaries.
Web technology is greatly successful in WAN applications, XML (ExtendedMark-Uplanguage) in universal applications in e-commerce and enterprise data exchange and integration, and distributed objects and message intermediates architecture in the integration of internal application integration, Introduction to the industry's wisdom, in 2001, the WebService technology and service-oriented architecture, SOA, which are integrated in 2001, to meet the new integrated technology and frameworks to meet the business sectors including the telecommunications industry. Demand. In conjunction with the background of telecommunications industry data services, this paper introduces the basic concept of this technology and its application in system integration.
First, basic concept
The international standard of WebService is developed by W3C organizations (WorldwideWeb Consort "that is full of Web and XML technology standards. Currently, the interim definition of Web Service is a Software application identified by the Web Services Architecture Group: Web Service is a software application identified by the URI (Unified Resource Identifier), and its interface and binding can be defined, described and discovered by XML components. Web Service supports the use of XML-based messages to interact directly with other software applications through the Internet-based protocol. Read this definition carefully, we can see the technology of webservice interaction between software applications, with the following basic characteristics:
Web features on the communication level: use the URI to identify and communicate with various Internet protocols.
Indicates the XML feature on the level: describe the service interface and binding information using XML, and the communication message format uses XML.
Distributed Calculation Features on the Architecture: Service can be used to find and discover on the network using it.
Since the end of the 1990s, many manufacturers have spontaneously start using the WEB Communication Protocol (HTTP) to add XML messages to solve the problem of services on various Internet services. For example, the implementation of the HTTP carrier XML message is used based on LIF (LocationInteroperabilityforum) standards and Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and other companies. All kinds of e-commerce standards are generally based on XML and are transmitted using HTTP protocols in implementation. A standard XML-RPC calling standard XML-RPC is a model of such technologies, which is still applicable to some company-based call descriptions and data representations based on XML-based call descriptions.
Early discrete efforts in the industry have finally aggregated in the W3C organization to become the foundation of today's WebService standard. The service discovery mechanism in the standard has a shadow of the Corba (COMMON Object Request Broker Architecture), which is OMG (ObjectManagement Broker Architecture). However, there is a significant difference between the current web service technology and traditional distributed component object techniques represented by CORBA lies in: Web Service is XML data instead of object or object reference. In fact, transmitting binary objects and object references between different merchants on wide area online will lead to tight coupling of services and services to be implemented, and is unquestable. Therefore, some people have suggested that the Web Service may be more suitable for system-dialogging using asynchronous messages, rather than now popular remote procedure call, RPC) mode. Message-based Web Service is called Message Web Service, the Web Service based on the RPC mechanism is RPC Web Service. Although Message Web Service is theoretically more flexible and efficient, its programming model is more complicated, requiring developers to have high IT architectural design and programming capabilities. Therefore, the mainstream of each IT manufacturer is still a relatively simple RPC Web Service. In addition, the two types of technical variants have a common technical foundation, and they are used as a service-oriented architecture that meets the above definitions.
Second, the service-oriented application architecture
The W3CWebService architecture sets a service-oriented WebService architecture, as shown in Figure 1. In this architecture, the core is a service concept. Services are defined as a set of operations for performing a class of business tasks such as parts procurement or books. In the Web Service context, you can use standard XML technology and Internet protocol publishing, finding and binding services. The Web Service architecture defines three major entities. Figure 1 Service-oriented WebService architecture
Service Provider: Responsible for using WSDL to describe and define webservice, publish information of these services in the UDDI Registration Library (located in the service agent), so that they can be accessed and called by the service requestor.
Service Agent: Responsible for the WebService definitions issued by the promotion service provider and allows the service requester to find the released WebService definition. Its role is the same as the yellow page of the phone.
Service Request: After checking the WebService you need through the service agent, download the WSDL document describing WebService, bind and call the web service provided by the service provider based on the service description.
This triangular design pattern for the WebService architecture is called a service-oriented architecture. It includes three standard operations below.
Publish: Execute and register the existence and functionality of a service by the service provider, which is the operation between the service provider and the service agent.
Find: Execute the service requestor to find services that meet specific needs or technical features, is the operation between service requestors and service agents.
Binding: The service requester is executed to call the service provider provided by the service provider and the operation between service requestors and service providers.
WebService is an implementation of service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA is a major architecture used in the field of distributed computing. Unlike distributed computing technology such as CORBA and DCOM, Web Service is standard and loosely coupled. First, a widely accepted Internet standard (such as XML, SOAP, HTTP, etc.) provides interactivity between different vendor solutions. Developers can develop platform independent, programming language, independent Web Services, enabling existing software and hardware resources and human resources. Second, loose coupling will isolate the participants in the distribution calculation, and the changes in one party on both sides will not affect the other. The combination of both means that the company can implement some Web Services without having to know any knowledge of clients using these Web Services.
The powerful and flexibility of SOA will bring huge benefits to e-commerce. If a business is abstracting its IT infrastructure, it is expressed and released in a certain granular service form. Each service clearly indicates its business value, then these services (may be interior in the company, It may also be a business partner of the company to use these services through the published business interface, without considering the specific technologies implemented.
Third, the WebService development phase
According to the current IT industry, WebService technology can be divided into three stages from production to maturity:
Perfection of the basic service architecture;
Perfection of safety and reliability support;
Perfection of cross-domain collaboration and fast service chain integration technology.
In the first phase, the development of WebService is the standardization of service communication, description, and discovery mechanism. Under the service-oriented architecture, the specific standard specification communication message SOAP (SIMPLEOBJECCESS Protocol) protocol, the WSDL language description of the specification service, and UDDI (UNIVERSAL DESCRIPTION, DISCOVERY, AND INTEGRATION) for service registration and discovery (N) service and EBXML ( E-Business XML) standard. The main task of this phase is currently completed. At present, the development of WebService has reached the second phase, namely the message-level WebService security mechanism and the standardization of the reliability mechanism of WebService messaging. As an end-to-end distributed technology, Web Service is different from the technique of past point-to-point, and the news that passes can pass all kinds of information services, such as the content classification filtering firewall, business shopping guide middlemen, professional billing service provider Wait. The ultimate service, limited business trust between the servers and the intermediary, which means that the intermediary needs to understand and deal with some messages, and no need to see the unrelated part of the traditional Internet point to point safety technology cannot meet Such a need. The so-called message security is the enhancement and expansion of point-to-point security technology, which is the purpose of meeting the safety needs of end-to-end communication. Despite the effectiveness of achieving the most authoritative institution, the Oasis (Organization for the Advancement Of Structured Information "organization developed the development framework of Web Service Security, and its core WS-Security standard has also been completed. The first version of the work. In addition, most commercial services require reliable information transmission, and their common demand is drawn, which constitutes a need for Web Service reliability. Some vendors try to give these needs in the system level, and propose a range of standardization programs that are running quickly.
In addition, July 2002 IBM, Microsoft and BEA proposed three standards of WebService cross-domain collaboration, transaction and service chain integration technology (Web Service Transaction, Business Process Execution Language for Web Service) marking Web Service Third-stage research and standardization work have also been put on a schedule.
4. Application example of WebService in telecom value-added business platform
Although WebService is still in the development process, some models have been recognized by a large number of practices, such as information exchange between enterprises, integration of information portal and business processes. These modes combine the characteristics of telecommunications, producing some business models that are unique to telecommunications-based WebService. Here, the application of WebService is an example of the application of the telecommunication value-added business platform, indicating its application in the telecommunications industry data service.
Telecom value-added business platform is a technical support platform for value-added business value chains, management of business integration between carrier and serviceProvider (SP). For operators, the platform encapsulates the underlying communication network and provides an open security access network capability to SP. This collection includes network function entities, certification, content based charity, and service order relationships. SP can make new telecom value-added services on this platform using this platform. ParlayGroup, 3GPP, and ETSI jointly developed Parlay / OSA [5] is such a telecommunications specification for telecom value-added business platforms. WebService has been widely used in Parlay / OSA. As shown in Figure 1, the Telecom value-added business platform architecture of Parlay Web Service is adopted. The value-added business platform is managed and maintained by telecom operators, divided into two logical parts: framework and network resource capability servers. The framework provides two types of interface support to SP. One is the interface support for the telecom service ordering relationship between the business legal person, as shown in Figure 2, including the management of the SP corporate account, the management of the application, and the management of telecommunications resources. Second, the application of secure access authentication, telecommunications resources, signed service level contracts, access to the telecommunications service instance entry and service quality monitoring, as shown in Figure 2. The telecommunications resources used by the SP application are provided by the network resource capability server, as shown in Figure 2. The telecom resources here include voice, SMS, location, user status, and billing, which can be mapped to operator existing network devices and internal systems through a variety of different private protocols. These resources are registered in the frame through the interface shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, this telecom value-added business platform is a typical B2B mode (SP and operators) using Web Service for business integration. In addition, the MobileWeb Service (MWS) working group in OpenMobileAlliance (OMA) organization also explores how standard Web Service's technology is deployed in the mobile operator's network and builds new telecom data business platforms. The current work is still in the draft stage. Given that PARLAY has had a lot of standards and technologies in the same field, OMA MWS has signed a cooperation agreement with Parlay to coordinate the standard development of both parties.
Figure 2 Telecom value-added business platform architecture adopted PARLAYWEB Service
