Motive, Inc. Simplifies Telecom Service Management with Virtual Data Integration

BACKGROUND: Motive, a provider of broadband and mobile service management software, is helping wireline, wireless, cable and satellite operators worldwide deliver next-generation IP-based services that seamlessly integrate voice, video and data into a single, connected experience. More than 400 million global broadband subscribers are projected to be online by 2010, while the number of mobile phone users worldwide has already eclipsed the 2 billion mark. To manage this growing customer base, communications providers must automate and streamline the operational processes used to deliver new revenue-generating services. Motive’s service management software helps more than 65 of the world’s leading communications providers rapidly and cost-effectively design, deploy and manage new data, video and voice services on any device and on any wired or wireless network.

PLATFORMS: The Composite Information Server runs on a variety of platforms, such as: Microsoft Windows 2000, 2003, XP; SunOS 5.8 / Solaris 9 or higher; Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3, 4, 32/64 bit; SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9.3, v10, 32/64 bit; IBM AIX 5.2, 52000-04; and HP-UX 11.11, B.11.11.0412.5 Gold Base 11i.

PROBLEM SOLVED: Motive provides solutions for global Tier 1 carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and British Telecom. These carriers offer service packages that include Internet protocol television (IPTV) over broadband, mobile video, voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) and many others. Because of the disparate systems required to deliver and manage these offerings, service lifecycle management has become complex yet critical to engender positive end-user experiences and shorten provider time to volume cycles. The Composite Information Server enables Motive solutions to integrate and leverage data federated within the many systems required to deliver provider IP services, also known as the service delivery chain. Additionally, Composite Information Server allows Motive’s self-service and assisted-service applications to provide subscriber-based contextual analysis through data aggregation keyed by subscriber identifiers and delivered to end users through portals and dashboards. By performing an on-demand, distributed query of the service delivery chain, Motive applications access all properties pertaining to a given subscriber’s IP service, account information and network diagnostics. Because the Composite Information Server permits fast and easy access to heterogeneous data and Web services, users of the Motive applications can troubleshoot, provision and ensure a service in the context of both the particular service and a singular subscriber. Additionally, service providers using Motive applications now have a single view of their services, by various categories or by subscriber. These views are easily and quickly configurable.

PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY: The Composite Software toolset delivers a real-time approach to data federation and virtualization, enabling enterprises to respond faster to business requests, reduce their data integration costs and keep pace with ever-changing business needs. Motive’s call center applications provide aggregated service configuration and diagnostic information so call center personnel or customers in self-service mode can quickly understand the nature and source of problems. The Composite Information Server pulls these diverse and disparate data services together, thereby “hiding” the complexities of data location and access from users.

STRENGTHS: The product’s main strengths are its ability to source Web services, cache data and permit its parameterization for data filters from extremely large database environments to permit quick access to user applications such as help desk, call center and customer self-service, while keeping cache refreshes to a minimum.

WEAKNESSES: Although the Composite Information Server is functionality excellent as a whole, we had to tailor the Java Message Service (JMS) capability to meet our specific needs. We expect this to become part of the standard product in a future version.

SELECTION CRITERIA: The price was right, and Composite’s toolkit was the only product on the market that met our needs.

DELIVERABLES: We currently deliver Composite-supported views of complex data into our customers’ environments for use in many applications that require federation across multiple disparate data/Web services sources.

VENDOR SUPPORT: Vendor support is consistently reliable and fast.

DOCUMENTATION: The training and documentation are easy to use and support our needs for rapid application deployments.