Messaging: The Changing Landscape

Faced with globalization, a shifting marketplace, regulatory and competitive

pressures, today's telecommunication carriers must continually differentiate

products and services to increase the average revenue per user (ARPU) and actual

margin per user (AMPU), all while improving customer retention rates. Next

generation messaging (NGM) services offer carriers an opportunity to

dramatically differentiate themselves from competitors and to target offerings

toward specific market sectors.

However, as traditional voice mail systems evolve into IP-based next

generation messaging systems, carriers also experience a tremendous amount of

digital data growth that must be managed and stored for customers. As a result,

carriers will need to dramatically enhance their information management and

storage technology to support the system's capabilities while improving the

efficiency of customer-facing business activities, such as billing and customer

service.

Next Generation Messaging



The next generation messaging evolution will assimilate all other message

types to enable users to send a compound message without really knowing or

caring about the capabilities of the recipient.

So, when one user sends a message to another, the message will be

'groomed' by the network so it can be delivered to a device irrespective of

the client type. The network may also be able to add value elements such as

predictions based on past behaviors, current location or even link to calendar

sensitive issues such as travel schedules or holidays. In that scenario, the

network is pivotal in making decisions concerning format delivery, timing and

all other message parameters.  In other words, the network continues to add value.

NGM and Content Storage



In addition to evolving messaging technologies, telecom operators will

require other technology enhancements to drive revenue.

The explosive growth of customer digital media in the form of photos and

music files will be a potential area of revenue generation, both as a

value-added service, as well as with additional bandwidth utilization.

For instance, offering online photo albums and music facilities require

back-up, storage, share, print and jukebox capabilities. It is unlikely that NGM

content stores and 'my photo', 'my music' and 'my video' will exist

in isolation. Rather, a customer receiving a complex message may well elect to

store components of the message in different ways, moving a photo to the online

album for example. Similarly, the online stores will offer the user a rich

choice of data to compose and enhance their messages.

The Challenges 



Today's IP based voice mail systems typically plan for 1-10 MB per

user. This is a function of the volume and relatively transient nature of the

data with a typical voice mail being held for three days. However, a trend

towards rich data will result in both an increase in data volumes and likely, an

increase in the duration for which messages are held. Future messaging systems

will typically have a requirement of 10-100 MB per user. However, as noted

above, adding the online photo/music/video store to the environment could well

drive storage requirements to the multi-GB level. This will likely increase

memory capabilities of the network storage devices used to access the messaging

system.

While the ability to handle data volume alone is important in the storage

layer, the input/output performance of the system is also a critical factor.

This can be seen in the requirements for today's voice mail systems. Clearly,

as the volume of data increases, this factor becomes even more important,

particularly when the 'real-time' nature of messaging is considered.

In summary, today's messaging systems are transactional in their nature.

However, the trend is towards a system with both transactional and bulk storage

characteristics. Designing a 'right cost' architecture to support such

systems will be critical to their success.

As the carrier progresses to handling more and more personally orientated

data, not only do the volumes increase, but the value attached to data also

increases significantly. And, carriers will have to guarantee this data will not

be lost, can be retrieved in the case of disaster and give a concrete guarantee

covering the integrity of the information stored on behalf of their customers.

Rajesh Janey, vice president,

North and East, EMC India



vadmail@cybermedia.co.in