A "TINA light" service architecture for the Internet-telecom scenario

The service scenario which integrates traditional telecommunications and the Internet is one of the most promising in the near/medium term. In order to be able to provide services within this scenario, the service provider must provide himself with a platform, which effectively supports all the service aspects, from creation to deployment, to efficient execution, to the different areas of management. The service architecture (SA) and network resource architecture (NRA) issued by the TINA-C identify the elements of such a platform, for the purpose of achieving high generality and reusability of its components. However, within the service scenario of our interest, the TINA SA and NRA can be significantly simplified, for the purpose of achieving lower implementation efforts and higher run-time efficiency. On the other hand, issues related to the management of services, and particularly subscriber side service management have not yet been fully addressed by TINA-C. This paper presents a lightweight service architecture and a derived service platform, largely inspired by TINA SA, but with a number of simplifications/optimizations allowed for by the peculiarities of the Internet-telecommunications service scenario and by the chosen engineering environment. For this reason, such an architecture could be described as "TINA light", hence, "Lite", Within the Lite platform a real service has been implemented and deployed: a network centered Web call center, which we named WebCentric/sup R/; it is presently under commercial trial. Both service and management issues, including subscriber service management have been addressed and implemented.