ISE Magazine, December 2019

DECEMBER 2019 WWW ISEMAG COM 33 PROGRAMMABLE APIs 5G and APIs With the advent of 5G communication services APIs will play a key role in development of industry verticals and cross vertical applications Open APIs are vital to the creation of next generation platform solutions TM Forums Open APIs and Global System for Mobile Communications Association GSMA APIs are taking the lead in defining Telecom API standards The Open APIs offer the operators separation of payload specification from the API operations and allow the APIs to be used in many situations Primary quantifiable benefits include a dramatic reduction in partner onboarding time from a few months to weeks as well as new revenue channels created through developer portals A Software Development Kit SDK is a set of packaged software development tools that allows developers to create applications for a certain software environment software framework or hardware platform i e computer system video game console operating system or similar development platform SDKs are increasingly targeting CPaaS based network based platforms Unified Communications UC Services As you are aware Unified Communications or UC is a product or set of products messaging voice audio video etc that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types UC allows a user to send a message on one medium and receive the message on another medium e g one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e mail or a cell phone UCaaS provides unified communications services from the cloud UCaaS services allows companies the option to shift their telecommunications funding from a capital investment CapEx to an operating cost OpEx The operating cost option allows companies to increase or decrease their communications services without the need for capital The growing sophistication of enterprise unified communications means that companies must invest not only capital they must invest more in support costs required to support UC services and more in their IT staff in order to be able to support UC Using UCaaS allows companies to optimize their telecommunications infrastructure and support costs by adding or removing UC services and platforms It also allows companies to use the latest telecommunications features and versions with no capital funding outlays Telecom App Development Design Considerations Developing Telecom Apps developers need to consider and design for 3 critical things 1 Security Most modern Telecom API products offer adequate security support to provide network firewalls AAA Authentication Authorization and Accounting Auditing IP network Encryption protocols and intrusion detection systems 2 Data Privacy Developers not only have to design for data security they must also consider Data Privacy and the issues of data ownership data rights who can do what with the data data custody data care and data integrity The ability to track data from cradle to grave becomes an important means of determining ownership and who is doing what to and with the data This ensures data integrity as well as managing service level agreements identity and digital rights 3 Interoperability One of the key issues with Program Telecom is interoperability This is especially the case with telecom APIs as there are so many ways to access information Trying to support them would be prohibitive Programmable Telecom and the Enterprise There is a considerable amount of discussion about how Programmable Telecom will be used in consumer mobile services However Programmable Telecom provides a variety