Mobile Ubiquitous Service Environment

Zhang Ping Yang,Li Yinong

（Research Center for W ireless New Technology， Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications， Beijing 100876，China）

The Mobile Ubiquitous Service Environm ent（MUSE）,estab lished through the coord ination and integ ration of mob ile telecommunications and ubiquitous network,in the pursuit of Always Best Experience（ABE）,rep resents the ma jor development trend for the next generation mobile wireless network.Research on MUSE will involve the integ ration of the com puting m odel system,service p latform system,operating system and term inal structure system,all of which invo lve exp loration and innovation of a new networking structure,its control and managem ent as well as its measurement.The change in network resources triggers the change in network computing models.To let readers have a basic understand ing of MUSE,this lecture introduces MUSE in four sections.This section focuses on the system struc ture of the MUSE service p latform.

6 System Structure of MUSE Service Platform

6.1 Structure ModelM

USE stands up for the development trend of future Internetand w irelessmobile networks.With the targetof Always BestEnvironment（ABE）for users,and from the view ofservice p rovision,MUSE unifies network and term inals into a ubiquitous service environment that is ab le to support mobility and custom ization.The heterogeneity,as wellas the reconstruction,ofsuch a service environment in network and term inal aspec ts is emphasized.The MUSE service p latform also paysmuch attention to the cooperation between network and term inalservice environments（especially to d ifferent operationmodes forpersonaland w ide area w ireless environments,and to rich possibilities ofservice expansion broughtaboutby the cooperation）.Moreover,the service p latform highlights the diversity ofservice creation,app lication-oriented unified interface,and the capability ofshielding any changes of the bottom layernetwork structure.In the concep tionmodelof MUSE,network and term inalare abstracted as the combination of capabilities and mechanisms.These capabilities are rep resentab le,quantizab le,percep tib le and adap tab le,so they facilitate the fulfillmentof the cooperative work and ofefficientand intelligentcontrollability and manageability of the system.

The MUSE service p latform lies between the bottom layer communication network and the upper layermobile environment.The p latform encapsulates the abilities extracted and d rawn from the bottom layer into a standard service enab ler.Itoffers convenientservice developmentenvironment forupper layer Service Providers（SP）and Content Providers（CP）.Itsim p lifies the d ifficulty ofservice development,cuts down the service developmentperiod,lowers the risk ofservice development,and realizes usermanagement,authentication and accounting forend users.Moreover,it supports diversified intelligent app lications,im p roves userexperience,and enab les easy and safemaintenance by p rovid ing unified managementof subscribers and services.

The MUSE service p latform is a system forservice access and p rovision,w ith the purpose ofoffering a flexib le,unified,convenientoperation and managementmodel.The system is dependenton basic service abilities offered by the heterogeneous network to comp lete operation,maintenance and managementofservices.

MUSE is also a service lifecyc le managementsystem.Itsupervises and manages the c reation,dep loymentand execution ofexisting and new services.

Based on the analysis above,the MUSE service p latform architecture is p resented in Figure 1.The service p latform inc ludes two p lanes:the service operationmanagementp lane,and the service lifecyc lemanagementp lane.The formerp lane com p rises com p lex service,service adap tation,service enab lerand servicemanagementsupportmodules.The latter consists ofservice creation,service dep loymentand service executionmodules.The service operationmanagementp lane,oriented to usergroups of the p latform,offers new services to end users,and p rovides maintenance persons and third-party SP/CPw ith a standard p latform interface for servicemaintenance and c reation.The bottom-layer communication network is responsib le forp rovid ing communication g round,inc lud ing heterogeneous networks and access gateways.The bottom-layernetwork adop tsmultip lemature technologies and p rotocols to p rovide various capabilities thatcan be encapsulated.

▲Figure1. MUSE service platform architecture.

6.2 Planes and Their Relationship

6.2.1 Service Operation Management Plane

The MUSE service p latform,above the network communication ground,has service enab ler,service adap tation,and comp lex service layers from top to bottom.Moreover,ithas a service managementsupportpart,which is responsib le foroperation supportof integ rated services.Figure 2 shows the structure of the service operation managementp lane.

（1）Service Enab ler Layer

The service enab ler layer is located at the bottom of the servicemodel.It acquires the capabilities ofnetwork and term inal from the network communication ground,and abstracts them as basic service capabilities.These basic capabilities are then encapsulated into independentservice engines to offer standard and open interfaces to the upper layer.The enab ler p romotes secondary developmentand integ ration ofservices.

Typicalservice enab ler inc ludes basic data service capabilities,basic voice service capabilities（such as voice service and value-added voice service）,and service functions（such as Geog raphic Information System（GIS）and paymentgateway）in ITdomain.The basic data service capabilities inc lude ShortMessage Service（SMS）,Multimed ia Service（MMS）,positioning service,instantdownload ing,information transferring,callcontrol,and Custom ized App lication forMobile Network Enhanced Logic（CAMEL）.

（2）Service Adap tation Layer

▲Figure 2. Service Operation Management Plane.

The MUSE service p latform catches its user's p references in the lightof the user's choices ofnetwork and term inal,ofsituation and change tendency of the environmentwhere the user stays,of the user's personalized setting,and of the user's historicalrecord.In order tomeet personalized demands of the user in a specific time,p lace orsituation,the p latform changes the content,p rovision method and rep resentation form of services intelligently,p roac tively,dynam ically,and adap tively based on the information itcaught.This is service adap tation.

Having multip le intelligentcapability modules for controland decision-making,inc lud ing data convergence,context-aware,and Quality ofService（QoS）negotiation,the service adap tation layer can dynam ically collect,selectively extractand intelligently analyze the user's environment information,and can then make p roactive decision and real-time feedback.In this way,the layermay fulfill the secondary developmentand integration of the basic service capabilities offered by the service enab ler layer,and quickly create comp lex services tomeetspecific demands.

（3）Comp lex Service Layer

A com p lex service is the p roductof the service adap tationmechanism integ rating the basic service capabilities thatare encapsulated by the service enab ler.Unlike basic service capabilities,com p lex services can be given to users as an independentand comp lete app lication w ith intactservice logic.As for the app lication developer,the com p lex services can be treated as modules for constituting more com p lex app lications.

Generally,the com p lex services can be seen as a series ofstandardized app lications such as file transm ission and location-oriented services.

（4）Service ManagementSupportPart

The service Managementsupport partis responsib le for themanagement,operation and maintenance of the MUSE service p latform.Moreover,itoffers unified managementstrategy to utilize the resources of the communication g round.The partp rovides common support functionality oriented to end user service operation and to SP/CP network capability operation.Italso offers a managementportal formaintenance persons.Moreover,the partp rovides the third party Operations SupportSystem（OSS）and Business SupportSystem（BSS）w ith open interfaces and func tion division for their integ ration into the MUSE service p latform.This facilitates integration ofd ifferentsystem s,and avoids repeated construction.

（5）Background Operation System

The backg round operation system is the peripheralsystem of the service p latform,and the third party p rovider offers operations support for it.The system,such as New-Business Operations SupportSystem（NBOSS）,offers the functions ofboth BSS and OSS.The BSS functions inc lude billing settlement,business accounting and customer care,and the OSS function is supportofnetworkmanagementand maintenance.Moreover,the system is com patib le w ith related standards,which makes interoperating ofdifferentsystem s possib le.

▲Figure 3. Service Lifecycle Management Plane.

6.2.2 Service Lifecyc le Management

Platform

The service life cyc lemanagement p latform is composed ofService Creation Environment（SCE）,Service Dep loyment Environment（SDE）and Service Execution Environment（SEE）from top to bottom,as shown in Figure 3.

（1）SCE

The SCE,inc lud ing the service catalog,service integ ration development environmentand a series ofdevelopment toolsets,is responsib le for the definition,developmentand testing ofservices.

Itis logically divided into the service creation domain and the service lifecyc le domain.The former domain im p lements servicemodel,system architecture design,and service developmentand test.The latterdomain dealsw ith service definition,p rojectmanagement,and mod ificationmanagement.

（2）SDE

Based on service dep loyment tools and mechanism,the SDE is capab le of

setting service p rototype and dep loying services.Itd istributes and installs the service software（such as service logic）,created by the SCE,into network elements.This

guarantees thatusers can access the services theywant from the nearest network element.SDE also supports resourcemanagement,which helps the system adm inistratormanage the existing services in d istributed networks.

（3）SEE

SEE is in charge ofservice execution.Itis composed of three parts:service orchestration,control service,and integrated OSS/BSS.The service orchestration part,based on a certain standard p rocessing flow,assemb les and integ rates the basic service capabilities offered by the service enab ler,and executes service logic.The controlservice supports access control,identity,and personalization.Besides,itc reates a measurementengine forbilling data records,aswellas an eventnotification engine.

▲Figure 4. Relationship between two planes of the MUSE service platform.

6.2.3 Relationship between Planes Figure 4 illustrates the relationship between the service operation managementp lane and the service lifecyc lemanagementp lane.

The service enab lerabstracts the capabilities from the bottom layer network and term inal.The capabilities,togetherw ith the outputs ofSCE and SDE,are im ported into SEE to offernew com p lex services to end users.Besides,themanagementsupportparthelps operate these new services.Standard and open interfaces between the OSS/BSS integ rated module in SEE and themanagementsupportpartare used to integ rate OSS/BSS system s offered by the third party.

The Muse service p latform pays attention to changing users'environment and situation.It focuses on intelligent service p rovisioning and d iversified service c reationmodes.Italso enab les services to adap t to changes of the bottom layernetwork and term inal.Moreover,based on the basic service capabilities offered by the heterogeneous network,the Muse service p latform perform s operation,maintenance andmanagementofvarious services.（to be continued）