Using the Reference Architecture Blueprint Tool to Evaluate ICT Provider’s Software Stack

Amartus team got a very exciting opportunity to once again use our unique Blueprint tool. We agreed without hesitating as this is exactly our cup of tea.

In detail, we were asked to analyze the customer’s architecture to automate the lifecycle of connectivity services. We took a deep-dive into the software stack and delivered a comprehensive  analysis with a set of recommendations and next steps. 

The customer, which is a global Tier-1 ICT Provider, was aiming to develop an architecture that would allow them to automate the lifecycle of their connectivity services. „Say no more!” we thought, as we’ve already successfully completed a couple of similar projects for other customers. Obviously, our extensive experience in the matter was a huge advantage.

The main objective of the project was to transform the Customer’s software architecture (starting from product through service to resource) in order to start introducing automated use cases. Customer’s architecture was a mix of older components and a couple of newly acquired modern ones so the project was quite complex. In addition, there was a top-down software stack that was responsible for provisioning cloud services (private and public – AWS). Keep on reading to find out what our secret sauce was.

 

What was the challenge?

Amartus’ job was to take a 10000-foot view on the architecture, drill down into detailed flows of business processes and evaluate if this architecture is suitable to fulfill the requirements of the customer.

One of the objectives was to recommend steps that should be taken to make the architecture future-proof and to remove silo of cloud services. Our expert team consisting of industry professionals with broad overview of current trends and visibility into what other service providers are doing was asked to assure if customer’s target architecture will meet their needs. The challenge was ambitious, and that’s our favorite kind of task.

How did we solve it?

To resolve customer’s issues and deliver solution tailored to their needs, we decided to use our own unique tool called Reference Architecture Blueprint. The tool is based on extensive knowledge and best practices of relevant standardization and industry bodies that help evaluate existing or planned architecture and highlights fits and gaps, so it matched the job perfectly.

Reference Architecture Blueprint covers Business & Technical Orchestration & Management framework for both inter & intra-provider Products and Services. It provides comprehensive views on Life-Cycle & Processes, Models & APIs, and a final Realization View of the architecture. One of the ideas of the Blueprint is to allow for verification of key providers’ use cases and mapping of relevant life-cycles, processes, models, APIs, and components to existing or in-evaluation landscape.

Even with the tool, it would be impossible to complete such a complex task without close cooperation with the customer. And that’s exactly what we did throughout the whole project. Working in close relation with the customer, we shared our expertise, analyzed current architecture and processes, and performed mapping of the Bandwidth on Demand use case against Reference Architecture. It was exactly what the customer needed.

 

Where’s the network innovation?

Amartus team used our own Blueprint – unique tool for evaluation of ICT Provider’s architecture. It’s a comprehensive look at industry best practices and real-world implementation. It helps to engage with ICT Provider, understand key use cases, processes, and pain points and, as a result, defines steps and roadmap to implement Provider’s target architecture. The Blueprint can be adapted and applied to any ICT Provider that might need a deep dive into their own architecture. So, if you’re a Provider in need of domain knowledge and expertise, look no further! Our expert team is here to help you with your next project, even the most complex one.

 

The diagram below shows a small piece of the Blueprint – it illustrates co-dependent layers of the system’s architecture (product layer, service layer, resource layer, function layer). Each layer has its own lifecycle separated into two stages: design-time and run-time. Diagram also presents exemplary objects that reside within those layers – like connectivity, NFV, or Cloud.

Do you have a similar project in mind?

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