One of the most challenging tasks for strategic mediation platforms is the reconstruction of the existing processing models of centralized platforms, as the new mediation hub must be placed at heart of where strategic data highways cross. Typically, this is performed in an incremental way, to mitigate risk. However, many risks can still arise, and, in these conditions, the imperative decision has to be the selection of appropriate technology.
Mediation platform products are well suited to deliver a sure way to mitigate said risk. From the very start, mediation solutions had to deal with the diversity of protocols and interfaces in the industry. Additionally, it was imperative to build adjustability and expansibility into their input and output elements, to handle vendor-specific requirements of expanded general standards.
The best products are telecom-grade proven and deliver high performance, scalability, accuracy, and durability. It is critical for the hub to attain the highest expectations for high availability and processing capacity. This should be attained through hardware with self-sufficient architecture and virtualization readiness, to enable flexible throughout adjustment and the possibility to escape possible hardware lookup. Usually, to implement the proper information flows among different telecom systems, progressive transformation logic must be used.
Modern mediation offers ready-to–use components that allow agile and easy implementation of classic processing steps.
Creating or modifying flows is possible with basic development effort, essentially through configuration and, preferably, with GUI interface support.
On the other hand, the platform has to stay available enough to not restraint business logic and allow modeling. Usual telecom problems, such as communication session binding/stickiness maintenance should also be supported.
Considering all this, a typical example could be billing offload. With supplementary functions like detailed counters for service usage events informing charging system only when a predefined limit is exhausted.
This type of integration layer service also has a role in limiting or avoiding time and costs – consuming billing system adjustments. It could also help to limit the signal traffic that has an impact in the charging system.
Avoiding a huge concern this way, regarding the billing system, helps shorten time-to-market considerably.
Mediation platform vendors also try to facilitate other frequent telecom practical areas, like Diameter Routing, to handle the signaling storm, or IMS to P-GW communication to sustain oncoming VoLTE deployments. These functions, developed as modules on the platform’s infrastructure, could create common templates to be adapted to specific installation conditions. The advantage of this approach is the possibility to rely on known technology and reusing current skills.
The extended evolution of today’s mediation systems had an important role in the introduction of mature products that supply fundamental operational functions, such as collecting statistics and performance evaluation. This has an impact not only in O&M activities, but it also helps in allowing improved integration budgets forecasting.
Download the “System integration in telecommunications via a strategic mediation platform” whitepaper, written in collaboration with our strategic partner DigitalRoute, to see how to regain control over the integration spaghetti using a strategic mediation platform. Throughout the paper, we take a closer look at a practical approach and we share our experience and conclusions from real-life projects.