IPTV's missing standard - Middleware

Having spent the last week researching IPTV before presenting a two day session on it, it has struck me we've got one big flaw in our current IPTV architecture.......


Middleware. Why haven't we got a standard for Middleware, all I see at the moment is proprietary solution after proprietary solution. What we need is to come up with a standard for interfaces to STBs (SSL/TLS encrypted HTTP with XML/CSS would be a good start), Billing engines (IPDR would be a good start here - yeah some vendor support this), OSS interfaces for events and alarm status. Hey about a plug-in based interface for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Conditional Access (CA) systems too, which seem to be spawning quicker than "Aliens off-spring".

Sure we've got some standard way of doing things at least, Multicast (Internet Group Management Protocol - IGMP) for channel hopping and RTSP for controlling Video On Demand (VoD), but alas we still seem to be in the dark ages when it comes to a decent spec for the middleware and management systems.

I think we owe it to ourselves to come up with a standard specification and Architecture framework for IPTV middleware to increase competition and reduce costs. I'd like to choose STB vendors, Middleware vendors and OSS/BSS vendors separately for IPTV networks. I have the choice of network equipment already.....

Busy May

May has been pretty hectic, I've been to Germany, Dubai and Now off to Florida next week Teaching VoIP, IMS and SIGTRAN courses. I've also managed to build a proof of concept IP Contact Centre Solution for Oracle to demonstrate to a customer the capabilities of the product.

Alas the MPLS lab has had to take a back seat for a little while. Maybe I'll get a little time in June to finish of the set-up.

I'll be posting small updates via Twitter as I get time, next major post with a lab update likely to be mid June.

So the basics of the lab are all up and running and I now have MPLS label switched packets traversing a network, with LDP publishing the labels and FECs.

I also have the VYATTA and Cisco routers talking nicely to each other using OSPF.

Next job to get some MPLS Traffic trunks established, to get some traffic routing across the network based on some criteria other than the OSPF shortest path.

Then try to get a MPLS VPN sorted.

Onwards and upwards.....

Since my last post

This week I've been busy preparing course content for a VoIP and IMS two day overview, trying to get my Cisco Lab into shape for demonstrating MPLS-TE, MPLS VPNs and routing using OSPF and BGP.

I've also got a Vyatta router talking OSPF to the Cisco stack, and now need to get the OSPF running against my Netgear FSM7328S switch. With the aim of running my IP-phones over one MPLS LSP whilst other traffic goes over a separate LSP.

Why go to all this trouble in a lab setup? I believe the only way to confidently teach a topic is to understand practically how it works.

Welcome

Welcome to the Aeonvista blog, over the coming weeks and months I hope to bring updates to what I [Neill Wilkinson] am doing at Aeonvista.

Aeonvista Ltd is a new ICT consultancy business formed in November 2007. The strapline hopefully gives you an idea of what the purpose of Aeonvista is - opening up new ideas, my aim is to bring creative solutions and ideas to ICT problems for my customers and for the ICT community as a whole. My ethos is to challenge, and be challenged by the new concepts, ideas, technologies and services that will emerge as we speed headlong in to the world of Next-Generation Networks and All-IP networks.

Its going to be a great journey for us all in the ICT industry as we deploy technologies such as: IMS, Server and application virtualisation, MPLS, IP-Contact Centres and Presence aware Unified Communications platforms.

Apart from being an industry practitioner, am also a trainer and try to ensure people in the ICT industry have the knowledge and tools to meet the challenges we all face moving forwards at a seemingly accellerating pace.

I have been writing papers for some time and have been lucky enough to be able to publish my ideas with John Wiley - Next Generation Networks - Technologies and Service. I will be bringing more of my thoughts to this blog and will be discussing some of the flood of news items and announcements that we see every day from the key players in the industry to bring my perspective on what it means for us all.