Applying SOA and Web 2.0 to Telecom: Legacy and IMS Next-Generation Architectures

With the emergence of SOA and Mashups technologies, telecom service providers now look toward Web 2.0 and next-generation network technologies to redefine the customer experience. How can telecom legacy applications be handled to fit in these trends? With IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture, the delivered multimedia services can be accessed by users from various devices via IP network or traditional telephony systems. Yet, with the characteristics of Web 2.0, new social capabilities could be applied to these services and personalization services could be provided. This technical paper consists of two parts: "SOA-lization" of telecom architectures, and "Web 2.0-ification" of the same. The SOA-lization section suggests a methodology for transforming both legacy applications and next-generation IMS into a Service-Oriented Architecture offering. The key emphasis here is a suggested analysis methodology that addresses how to migrate to SOA based on an existing legacy service layer. A case study using telecom solution applications will be discussed. The Web 2.0-ification section will first illustrate the characteristics of Web 2.0 and identify which telecom capabilities can fit in a Web 2.0 context. A case study of how to Web 2.0-enable using Ajax and Mashup technologies both in data level and GUI level will be discussed.To conclude, this technical paper describes techniques to SOA-lize legacy application and then to Web 2.0-ify the same or similar applications. These suggested techniques should be easily applicable to any other industry when Web 2.0 technologies are adopted.