Virtualised Oracle communications policy management offers policy, Charging capabilities to service providers

Small, midsize, and large communications service providers (CSPs) are looking for ways to better personalise and monetise the services they offer. But sophisticated policy management capabilities have historically required large investments in hardware and were comparatively bulky — until now.

To help address this issue, Oracle Communications now offers the ability to deploy Oracle Communications Policy Management within a single pair of active/standby commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, which consume less than 4 inches in a rack.

Based on Oracle Communications virtualisation technology, the product offers CSPs the same proven carrier-grade functionality, flexibility, and reliability from Oracle in a smaller server footprint, making it more cost-effective and scalable whether a CSP has 500 subscribers or more than 500 million.

CSPs’ subscribers continue to increase both their data consumption and demand for a more personalized and controllable communications experience. As a result, network policy use cases are more complex and granular than ever, and new service providers—both new entrants and smaller, traditional CSPs—are taking advantage of the demand by introducing new offers.

This dynamic has caused the need for robust policy management functionality that is also scalable—a need that is addressed by Oracle Communications Policy Management.

The Oracle product now enables CSPs, both large and small, to deploy a fully featured policy and charging rules function on a single physical pair of active/standby servers. This model offers CSPs additional flexibility in deploying a sophisticated policy management system, and makes the Oracle Communications proven policy management technology available more widely across the communications industry to:

Smaller CSPs and enterprise service providers with limited capital budgets
Policy management deployments with limited physical space
CSPs looking to reduce the footprint and cost of lab systems

“A more diverse set of companies—including both traditional and non-traditional CSPs, from cable operators to enterprise content and service providers—are launching digital communications offerings,” said Ron Westfall, research director, Service Enablement Ecosystem, Current Analysis.

“This reality means that scalable, elastic policy and charging capable of handling complex and fluid situations is essential for driving innovation in the industry. Virtualisation is one of the key ways to increase and intelligently manage the availability of such functionalities.”

“Oracle Communications has long offered proven policy and charging capabilities to the largest CSPs around the world, putting them in control of how they generate revenue and create an optimal customer experience,” said Doug Suriano, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications.

“Now, we have combined this experience with our expertise in virtualisation to offer these same sophisticated capabilities to CSPs of all sizes and with varying policy management needs.”