Semi-automatic service integration of telecom and internet services in a service delivery platform

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the most appropriate way to (semi-)automatically integrate external Internet and Telecom services into a Service Delivery Platform for a Telecom operator, thus making them available to the community of developers. Another aim was to show how the concept can be implemented in a service-oriented manner.

Both the literature review and design science methods were applied in this thesis. The literature review was conducted to identify and assess the existing Service Description Languages for Representational State Transfer (REST) architectures, and automatic code generation alternatives. For this, the concept centric approach was used. The design science focused on implementing a prototype for the automatic code generation service, which shows how the concept developed can be materialized. The artefact constructed consists of a use case based on the Google Language Application Programming Interface (API).

The results of the literature review indicated that an Extensible Mark-up Language (XML)-based description meets the requirements for the service specifications on a Service Delivery Platform. Furthermore, the study revealed that an engine which uses the description as the data model and a template as input, processes the data, and outputs a Java file is the most suitable solution for the automatic source code generation. The template engine chosen to develop this was the Apache Velocity open source software project, and the service was integrated within an Open Services Gateway initiative framework (OSGi) bundle.

The principal conclusion drawn was that (semi-)automatic code generation can be achieved on a Service Delivery Platform by using a template-driven approach. This solution meets the requirements regarding the generality of the project, and works for services with an indefinite number of compulsory and optional parameters. Therefore, the data model can be customized for any RESTful service which exposes its interface, and service-oriented architecture design principles such as loose coupling, composability and reusability are enabled.