UCSM - Unified Communication Services Manager – a MULTI-provider Pooling And Sharing System

  • Status
    Completed
  • Status date
    2023-08-21
  • Activity Code
    3A.140
Objectives

The main objective of this project was to design and develop the technological core components of the Unified Communication Services Manager which can be tailored to individual operational scenarios and commercially exploited.

The more detailed project objectives were to:

  • define, collect & consolidate User- and Provider-Side requirements

  • define the system & software architecture and interfaces

    • unification and harmonisation across providers

    • intuitive and easy-to-use mission, service & order management

  • design and implement the core components

  • perform unit, system, integration and end-to-end tests

  • outline the evolution of UCSM over mid- to long-term (2-10 years)

Challenges

UCSM is based on a preceding study in to the Pooling & Sharing of Secure SATCOM Services and the collective expertise in the consortium.

It addresses the following core challenges:

  • unification of SATCOM industry offerings & provider interfaces

  • survey and addressing of user needs (interface & services offered)

  • matchmaking between

    • communication needs and actual services

    • user and provider(s)

  • being flexible enough to address a broad set of operational scenarios and business needs

Benefits

UCSM simplifies the process of specifying (SATCOM-centric) communication needs and performs a matchmaking with the providers’ offers. The whole service lifecycle, from specification, via booking & provisioning to monitoring can be handled via UCSM, thereby unifying the management of communication services.

This project built the core components of such a MULTI-provider Pooling And Sharing System, which

  • is a one-stop order and procurement platform for satellite communication services

  • finds service offers that best meet the users’ requirements

  • enables faster procurement cycles and faster deployment

  • enable a high degree of automation, and

  • can be tailored for use cases ranging from a single-provider “sales frontend” to a multi-national (e.g. EU) procurement platform

The project focused on the great potential that digitized processes can bring. It seeked to unite the expertise and excellence of the players in the SATCOM field without cutting them down.

Features

  • MULTI-provider Pooling And Sharing System

  • Simple searching and booking SATCOM-centric services

  • Easy comparison of service offers from multiple providers

  • Intuitive User Interfaces, API Access

  • Templates for missions & services

  • Workflows for reoccurring tasks

  • Secure handling of provider, user and contractual data (EU GDPR and ISO27k compliance)

  • automatic and semi-automatic business document generation (e.g. order forms) and exchange between disparate systems of users and providers

System Architecture

UCSM is a platform for a unified market and broker of SATCOM-centric services, which incorporates various providers through standardised interfaces, workflows and data.

The services available via UCSM can be based on commercial, user-supplied and (prospectively) national SATCOM resources and assets, with the focus being SATCOM-centric communication services, including

  • the terrestrial distribution e.g. via teleports,

  • provisioning of associated hard- and software,

  • logistics, training and maintenance.

Architectural features:

  • Tailorable system and software architecture to support future operational needs and requirements

  • Distributed Services Architecture  and “Cloud-Native” approach:

    • high deployment flexibility, ranging from quasi-monolithic deployment to cloud-based (on-prem or even public)

    • geographically distributed deployments with High Availability

  • Project HW/platform as reference platform (COTS HW, Linux and other Open Source Solutions, Container + Orchestration)

  • Platform/Infrastructure-independent Software/System => no vendor lock-in

Plan

The UCSM development project was an ARTES Technology Phase project and had a nominal duration of 24months. It was kicked off  in 11/2019 and was executed in four distinct phases:

  • an initial design activity,

  • the user-centric design and implementation,

  • the provider-centric design and implementation and 

  • the validation and verification.

In parallel, evolution of capabilities and plans for operationalisation were being worked on, in preparation for the further development and commercial exploitation.

The final review was held in 04/2023.

Current status

The contract / development project is completed.

Related links
CGI press release

Documentation

Documentation may be requested

Prime Contractor

Subcontractors

Last update
2024-12-21 20:46