Workflow-a unifying technology for operational support systems

A crucial issue facing telecommunications service providers is the need to provide flexible, cost effective, management systems, which can rapidly adapt to changing customer requirements and market opportunities. A recent trend, which attempts to address this need, has been the development of management solutions comprising (building block) re-usable management components. Frequently the integration of such components requires hard coding and scripting to provide an integrated solution. This paper proposes workflow technology, coupled with distributed infrastructures, as a more cost effective, flexible environment for management component integration. The paper highlights the business and system benefits of such a solution, reviews the current state of workflow technology and standardisation, and presents a case study using CORBA based workflow technology to demonstrate its application in telecommunications management. The case study examines a workflow engine based integration of a number of service accounting components within an existing telecommunications infrastructure. Finally the paper evaluates the applicability of workflow based telecommunications management solutions and identifies important elements required in their successful development