A NEW APPROACH FOR BETTER TELECOMS SYSTEMS
11 October 2002 - European Institute for Research and Strategic Studies in Telecommunications GmbH (EURESCOM)

Telecoms services depend on a reliable network infrastructure. Ever more, telecoms systems are based on complex software. Managing this complexity effectively could be a matter of life or death, if you think of emergency calls. The integration of different business models, user requirements and technologies requires thorough software architecture.

OMG's Model Driven Architecture is a new approach for getting to grips with the complexity of large software systems. MODA-TEL's main project goal is to apply the MDA approach to telecoms systems and deliver guidelines for applying MDA to any kind of services and systems. This approach gives companies the opportunity to develop their systems faster and cheaper without neglecting quality, especially if a system needs to be implemented on different platforms. 'MDA puts the focus on business models and user requirements as a unifying element in the process of software systems integration', explains Anastasius Gavras, project manager at Eurescom. 'This is radically different from earlier technology-driven systems integration,' he adds.

Having a well-defined model, from user requirements to the lowest design level, for a complex telecommunications system contributes to improve considerably the working conditions of the software engineers that work on developing such systems. Software engineers possess a blueprint of the type of system they have to develop and they can reason about different system characteristics based on it. This contributes to relieving some of the pressure on software engineers facing unknown problems. An MDA-based software development process, in general, makes a step to more predictable time to market and development cost, a fact that makes life for software project managers easier too. The implementation of changes and migration to a new platform are facilitated. Business units will be able to make safer estimates about time and cost for delivery of services to customers.

Besides Eurescom, as the organisation responsible for the overall management of the project, seven companies participate in MODA-TEL: The telecoms network operators France Telecom and Telenor, MDA tools providers Interactive Objects Software and SOFTEAM, systems integrators T-Systems and INTRACOM, and the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology of the University of Twente. 'We have high expectations for the MDA approach in telecommunications, and we hope that this may reduce implementation cost considerably', says Oddvar Risnes, Director of Research at Telenor R&D.

http://www.eurescom.de

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  • For October 2002
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