oss opportunities in open source software — crm and oss standards

BT Technology Journal • Vol 24 No 1 • January 2006 127

OSS opportunities in open source software — CRM and OSS standards

G Bruce, P Robson and R Spaven

In many industry verticals, open source software is proving to be a credible alternative to proprietary software. Whencompared to proprietary software, open source software can offer a number of benefits such as stronger customerinvolvement, lower costs and better quality. Despite these benefits, the take-up of open source software by incumbenttelecommunications providers has been virtually zero, choosing instead to focus on major proprietary commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) packages due to prior strategic investments and negative preconceptions about open source software.Although an immediate change in take-up is not expected, the pressure to reduce operational support systems (OSS) costsis steering telecommunications providers to research potential opportunities for using open source software within theirOSS. This paper addresses some of those opportunities. The general opportunities are presented using specific examplesfrom current research. Potential short-term opportunities, using readily available open source customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) applications, and potential mid- to long-term opportunities, using open source OSS integrationsoftware, are analysed and evaluated. The paper concludes with a recommendation on what telecommunications providersshould do to further investigate the opportunities presented by open source OSS.

1. IntroductionOpen source is a popular term referring to software towhich the source code is freely available for modificationand enhancement. Much has been said about thematurity, take-up, benefits and risks of open source [1,2]. The applicability of open source to tele-communications, in general, and telecommunicationsOSS, in particular, is less widely discussed; however,telecommunications providers are waking up to theopportunities presented.

An earlier paper [3] discussed both the potentialapplicability of open source to telecommunicationsOSS, and the potential cost benefits. The paperprovides initial calculations showing a potential savingof at least 8% from applying open source software overthe total life cost of BT’s OSS, assuming the entire OSSsolution uses mature open source software. The papergoes on to make two more statements — firstly thatmuch greater savings can be made from open source soft-ware if less effort is needed to customise the softwarefor BT’s requirements and ongoing maintenance, andsecondly that the integration of COTS and open sourcesoftware through the use of open interface standardswould further reduce the cost of integration and orches-tration of those components. This paper builds on thosetwo latter statements, by exploring two opportunitieswhere significantly greater than 8% savings can be made:

• to use mature and available open source CRMapplications ‘as is’ for the bulk of an OSS solution,

• to invest in the development of open sourceintegration software to enable the integration ofexisting COTS and open source OSS applicationswithin an open standards-based OSS solution.

While open source is mature and industry-strengthin many areas, such as operating systems, applicationservers and security tools, the same cannot be said forapplications. However, there are exceptions —numerous solution providers have sprung up and arenow providing open source business applications, suchas CRM, enterprise resource planning (ERP), contentmanagement and business intelligence, which are beinghailed as the ‘third wave’ of open source adoption [4].The first wave being the adoption of open sourceoperating systems, namely Linux, and the second wavebeing the adoption of open source infrastructure, suchas middleware, browsers and databases, both waves ofwhich are now well established in the market-place. Ofthe open source business applications becomingavailable, many provide CRM functionality and somecan now be considered mature enough to providetelecommunications providers with new opportunities.

However, when considering potential OSSapplications, the telecommunications market-place and


BT Technology Journal • Vol 24 No 1 • January 2006128

its affinity to open source also requires someconsideration. For example, it is unlikely that emergingopen source OSS applications will be used in large-scale‘carrier-grade’ telecommunications networks in thenear future until the software and the organisationsproviding the software are thoroughly proven. A morepromising opportunity for emerging open source OSSapplications is within the small to medium-sizedenterprise (SME) market segment. This opportunitypresents itself through the following indicators. Firstly,given that there is evidence of the SME segment beingthe fastest growing segment in the economy [5, 6], thisis likely to provide telecommunications providers withnew revenue opportunities. Secondly, the SME segmentis showing signs of being particularly interested in opensource technology, as a way of driving down operationalcosts, and is certainly more able to exploit the benefitsof open source, since, according to Forrester Research,IT departments less frequently face the challenge ofcombining a mix of legacy and commercial systems withopen source software [7].

Based on current research, open source CRMapplications and their suitability for deployment in anSME environment is further explored in section 2.

To examine potential open source OSS opportunitieswithin the standards arena, a public research activitywas undertaken by the TeleManagement Forum (TMF)[8]. While not producing a solution suitable forcommercial deployment, the results of this activityconcluded that there are opportunities to develop opensource integration software for inclusion into large-scalecarrier-grade OSSs. This is significant as the focus herehas now turned to development of open source ratherthan reuse, to carrier-grade OSS solutions rather thanSME OSS solutions, and to developing a genericstrategy to integrate OSS applications rather than toprovide specific integration solutions. In addition, thisactivity also confirmed:

• that the open source approach to softwaredevelopment would assist with the developmentand adoption of the TMF integration standards,

• that work should be continued within the TMF todevelop appropriate open source software suitablefor commercial deployment,

• that many of the currently available open sourcesoftware components are suitable for both SME andlarge enterprise environments.

Based on current research, open source OSS inte-gration software and its suitability for deployment in alarge-scale carrier-grade environment is furtherexplored in section 3.

2. Open source CRM

2.1 The open source CRM market

The market for CRM applications is currently dominatedby a number of commercial proprietary offerings,Siebel, Netsuite and Salesforce.com to name a few.While these models have served the majority oforganisations well for a number of years, the opensource CRM model is growing in appeal and credibility,particularly for organisations on tight budgets orlooking for alternative ways to integrate their existingapplications with CRM applications. Over time, it is ourbelief this growth in appeal and credibility is likely tospread to larger organisations.

That said, open source CRM offerings are stillrelatively new, and there is a lot of scepticism abouttheir viability. ‘Open source is a great alternative tojump-start a custom-built application, but it still is notas functionally rich as a packaged application’, saysSheryl Kingstone, CRM program manager at Boston-based Yankee Group. ‘When evaluating the total cost ofownership, be sure that you are fully comparing ‘applesto apples’, including future upgradeability and time tostay on top of competitive differentiating technology’[9].

There are a lot of open source CRM projectsavailable — Sourceforge.net lists 89 projects. Many ofthese projects are immature or lack the support neededfor successful implementation within an SME en-vironment. Using Google [10] page rankings andSourceForge [11] activity measures, an initial short listof the most popular CRM projects was selected forfurther investigation.

A summary of suitability, for successfulimplementation within an SME environment, of theinitial short list of CRM projects is given in Table 1.When looking at the support for different packages,there are several factors to consider. The availability ofdocumentation is important, including technicaldocumentation. If this documentation is only availablefor a fee, then other community developers may bedeterred. The amount of activity within the communityis important to an open source project, as a thrivingcommunity will drive updates for the software, andincrease the number of bugs reported and removed.Another point to look for is evidence that the project ismature enough to use in a production environment.This is usually easier to find when the project is usedwithin a large community.

Looking at the support for each application, as wellas their licences, four of the applications stand out assuitable for a closer investigation. These are Compiere,Hipergate, OFBiz and SugarCRM. Each of these



applications uses an open licence, has a large supportbase, and is mature enough for use in a productionenvironment. These applications are examined moreclosely in the following sections to see how well theywould fulfil a CRM role within an SME environment.

2.2 eTOM — a useful model to provide OSS requirements for CRM

When looking at CRM applications, it is helpful toconsider the definition of CRM, and the requirementsfor a CRM system. The extended telecommunicationsoperations map (eTOM) (see Fig 1) [26] frameworkrepresents the whole of a service provider’s enterpriseenvironment, defining business process in a series ofgroupings. One of the functional process groupingsshown as a horizontal layer is customer relationshipmanagement.

The ‘operations’ processes in this ‘level 1’ overvieware further broken down to ‘level 2’ processes, as shownin Fig 2. At this level, the CRM processes are CRM

support and readiness, customer interfacemanagement, selling, marketing fulfilment response,order handling, problem handling, customer quality ofservice (QoS)/service level agreement (SLA) manage-ment, billing and collections management, andretention and loyalty.

The most detailed level provided by the eTOM is the‘level 3’ process decompositions; at this level of detailindividual processes are identified and described. Thisallows clear identification of areas that are potentiallyrequired to be satisfied by potential CRM applications.

These processes cover the entire breadth offunctionality within an enterprise, and the CRMprocesses will cover aspects that would probably needto be addressed by several applications workingtogether. Billing is an example of an area of CRM thatwould probably require a specialist program, or at leasta tailor-made alteration to an open source program.

Table 1 Overview of initial shortlist of open source CRM projects.

Anteil [12] Anteil OpenCRM is a company-backed project, with support provided on an hourly fee basis. Public support for theproject appears extremely low, with only 2 developers listed on SourceForge. There is also a lack of any documentationfor the project, possibly to encourage revenue-generating support requests.

CentraView [13] CentraView has slightly more developer support than Anteil, 11 developers are registered on SourceForge. Freedocumentation does exist, in the form of an installation guide, start-up guide, programming guidelines and datamodel. However, this documentation has limited scope, and additional support is available only to customers payingfor a hosted service, or at an additional fee.

Centric [14] While the Centric CRM looks like a capable system, there are some irregularities in its licencing. The main intent of thelicence is to allow modification, but forbid any distribution or reselling of any modified code. Because of this, it wouldbe difficult for a third-party to use this package without breaking the terms of the licence.

Compiere [15] The largest and most supported of the CRM projects is Compiere. It has a reported 800 000+ downloads. It alsoincludes ERP functionality, covering modules such as marketing and sales, field service, production, inventory control,procurement, distribution, human resources, finance and accounting. Support is thorough, and the application is in avery mature and refined stage of development.

Daffodil [16] Daffodil CRM is the only CRM project examined that uses an embedded database, Daffodil’s own One$DB. Databaseperformance is important in a production environment for CRM systems, so this could be seen as a weakness. Beyondan installation guide, there appeared to be no technical documentation for this project, and developer support ischarged for. There does not appear to be any community involvement with the project.

Hipergate [17] This project appears to have a decent amount of support behind it, although there are only 6 developers registered onSourceForge. There is extensive documentation, including API JavaDoc, available from their Web site. The APIs shouldallow for Hipergate to be a flexible solution, but the functionality of Hipergate seems limited compared to largersolutions such as Compiere.

Ohioedge [18] Ohioedge CRM looks like a proficient company-backed package; however, developer documentation as well as supportis only available for a fee.

Open For Business [19] Open For Business (OFBiz) is designed as a base package that provides the foundation to be built on for a customCRM, ERP and eBusiness package. Documentation is extensive and includes APIs. There is also large communitysupport, as well as evidence of the package being used in production environments and on eCommerce Web sites.

OpenCRX [20] This is a well maintained project, with regular updates and a well-defined road-map. However, the community supportlooks small. Installation guides, user guides and customisation documents are available, but there is little in the way offull technical documentation.

OpenSourceCRM [21] The only information for the OpenSourceCRM project is on SourceForge. There is no documentation and there is littleobvious community support.

SourceTap [22] This project is based on OFBiz, and claims to be a sales force automation (SFA) tool. Documentation is extensive;however, the licencing model has been extended from the OFBiz licence, so that there is a free licence for ‘open sourceuse’, but commercial use is charged for.

SugarCRM [23] This is another of the larger open source CRM packages. The company offers pre-packaged rack-mount servers forcommercial use, as well as fee-based support. The open source branch of the project is well supported with its ownWeb site [24]. Documentation, themes, extensions and customisations are readily available.

vTiger [25] This project is based on SugarCRM. There does not appear to be any major points which differentiate the two projects;however, vTiger offers plug-ins for several mail clients. The community base for vTiger is smaller than the communityfor SugarCRM.



Trabas [27], an open source VoIP billing application, isone such application that may be suitable.

2.3 Does open source satisfy the functional requirements for CRM?

To analyse the functionality provided by the shortlist ofopen source CRM applications, they are comparedagainst release 4.5 of the eTOM ‘level 3’ processspecifications for CRM. Against each ‘level 3’ process,each application is marked either non-compliant,partially compliant or fully compliant, depending on theability of each application to fulfil the role described foreach ‘level 3’ process. Table 2 provides a convenientway to capture this information and to make directcomparisons between all four CRM applications.

As probably expected, the shortlist of open sourceCRM applications provide good coverage in CRMsupport and readiness, customer interfacemanagement, and problem handling, since these areashave the biggest interest for the enterprises at whichthese applications are being targeted. On the downside,customer QoS/SLA management, and billing andcollections management have little to no coverage fromthe shortlist of open source CRM applications.

Like most of the applications investigated here,Hipergate performs well in the customer interface

management and problem handling areas. It also leavessignificant gaps in the customer QoS/SLA management,and billing and collection management areas.SugarCRM concentrates on the project and contactmanagement aspects of CRM. This leaves many areaswithout coverage and, specifically, the facilities forinvoicing are not present in SugarCRM. OFBiz provideseCommerce functionality, which means that it fulfilsslightly more of the processes than SugarCRM orHipergate. Compiere focuses more on ERP than theother applications, but also integrates CRM as a logicalview of all customer- and prospect-related activities.Compiere covers a wide selection of the processes. Gapsin support exist at the customer QoS/SLA management,and billing and collection management areas.

2.4 Does open source satisfy the non-functional requirements for CRM?

This section covers some of the non-functional aspectsinvestigated for the short-list of open source CRMapplications. While the ‘hard’ non-functional aspects,such as reliability, availability and scalability, are notcovered in this paper, some of the ‘soft’ non-functionalaspects, such as architecture, user interface and cost,are and they should provide somewhat of an insight intonon-functional aspects without the need for a morevigorous study of the ‘hard’ non-functional aspects.

Fig 1 eTOM level 1 processes.

strategy andcommitment

infrastructurelife-cycle

management

productlife-cycle

management

operationssupport and

readiness

fulfilment assurance billing

marketing and offer management

service development and management

resource development and management(application, computing and network)

supply chain development and management

strategy, infrastructure and product

customer relationship management

service management and operations

resource management and operations(application, computing and network)

supplier/partner relationship management

operations

strategic and enterpriseplanning

enterprise riskmanagement

enterprise effectivenessmanagement

knowledge and researchmanagement

financial and assetmanagement

stakeholder and externalrelations management

human resourcesmanagement

enterprise management

customer



Table 3 compares each of the short-listed opensource CRM applications against some of the ‘soft’ non-functional aspects, namely application developmentlanguage, supported databases, user interfacesprovided, and supported application environmentplatforms.

Being open source, all applications are available forfree — however, supported commercial offerings areavailable. SugarCRM offers an Enterprise edition at$449, which comes with e-mail, Web and telephonesupport. A number of commercial products are basedon OFBiz, such as, JIRA [28], an issue-tracking andproject-management system that can cost anything upto $4800. Hipergate offers hosting, the corporateoffering of which comes in at Þ7600, including Xeonhardware costs. Lastly, Compiere offers support servicescosting up to $15 000 per system per year.

The four applications all contain Web-basedcomponents. All, except SugarCRM, are written in Java

and make use of Java Server Pages (JSPs). The databaseis important in determining the performance of theapplication and all the applications make use of well-known databases. MySQL and PostgreSQL havebecome the industry standard open source databases,while Oracle and Microsoft SQL are high-performanceproprietary offerings. OFBiz is able to work withdifferent databases through the use of a dataabstraction layer. Compiere and OFBiz run using a J2EEserver such as the open source JBoss application server.

Hipergate is an open source Web-based applicationsuite that claims to cover a full range of technicalrequirements in any organisation. It runs on top ofTomcat, and works with a variety of open sourcedatabases. It has been designed to be modular, so thatindividual applications can be added or removed asrequired. Hipergate’s stated philosophy is ‘to providesmall and medium-size companies with practically allthe functionality they require in each department and toprovide a solid base to large companies so that they can

Fig 2 eTOM operations breakdown to level 2 processes.

operations support andreadiness

fulfilment assurance billing

customer relationship management

service management and operations

resource management and operations

supplier/partner relationship management

operations

CRMsupport and

readiness

customer interface management

selling

marketingfulfilmentresponse

orderhandling

problemhandling

billing andcollections

managementcustomerQoS/SLA

management

retention and loyalty

SM and Osupport and

readiness

serviceconfigurationand activation

serviceproblem

management

servicequality

management

service andspecific

instance rating

resourcetrouble

management

resourceperformancemanagement

resource data collection and processing

RM and Osupport and

readiness

resourceprovisioning

S/PRMsupport and

readiness

S/Prequisition

management

S/P problemreporting andmanagement

S/Pperformancemanagement

S/P settlementsand billing

management

supplier/partner interface management

customer



later add on proprietary extensions.’ Documentation isextensive, with a full API reference freely available, aswell as user and programmer guides. Hipergate’sextensive documentation and available APIs make it agood candidate for extension or integration with third-party applications.

OFBiz is touted as the third option in the ‘buildversus buy’ decision. It aims to provide a platform andenough base functionality to allow a business to build

the remaining 20% of customised functionality cheaplyand easily. This is reflected in their software licence,which allows companies to make their own alterationswithout the obligation to share them. The mainplatform runs on JBoss, and can use one of severaldatabases, including PostgreSQL.

It was also designed specifically as a platform to beextended, and the documentation includes frameworkAPIs to make this task as easy as possible.

Table 2 Application compliance to the eTOM level 2/3 CRM processes.

eTOM level 2 process eTOM level 3 process Compiere OFBiz Hipergate SugarCRM

CRM — support and readiness Support customer interface management ● ● ● ●

Support order handling ● ● ◗ ❍

Support problem handling ● ● ● ●

Support billing and collections ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Support retention and loyalty ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Support marketing fulfilment ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Support selling ● ● ● ❍

Support customer QoS/SLA ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Manage campaign ● ● ◗ ◗

Customer interface management Manage contact ● ● ● ●

Manage request (including self-service) ● ● ● ●

Analyse and report on customer ● ◗ ◗ ◗

Mediate and orchestrate customer interactions ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Marketing fulfilment response Issue and distribute marketing collaterals ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Track leads ◗ ◗ ● ●

Selling Manage prospect ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Qualify and educate customer ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Negotiate sales ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Acquire customer data ● ◗ ● ●

Cross/up selling ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Order handling Determine preorder feasibility ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Authorise credit ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Receive PO and issue orders ◗ ◗ ◗ ❍

Track order and manage jeopardy ◗ ◗ ◗ ❍

Complete order ● ● ◗ ◗

Problem handling Isolate problem and initiate resolution ● ◗ ◗ ◗

Report problem ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Track and manage problem ● ● ● ●

Close problem ● ● ● ●

Customer QoS/SLA management Assess customer QoS/SLA performance ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Manage QoS/SLA violation ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Manage reporting ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Billing and collections management Manage customer bill inquiries ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Apply pricing, discounting and rebate ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Create and deliver bill ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Manage customer billing ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Manage collection ❍ ◗ ❍ ❍

Retention and loyalty Establish and terminate customer relationship ● ◗ ◗ ◗

Build customer insight ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗

Analyse and manage customer risk ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Personalise customer profile for retention and loyalty ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Validate customer satisfaction ❍ ❍ ❍ ❍

Key: ❍ Non-compliant, ◗ Partially compliant, ● Fully compliant.



SugarCRM is one of the better known open sourceCRM projects. It is different to the other short-listedCRM packages as it uses PHP rather than Java and JSP.Extending SugarCRM to fill gaps in functionality wouldbe possible. Integration could be done at either thedatabase level or using the simple object accessprotocol (SOAP) interfaces that are provided in thelatest version. SugarCRM 3.5, released recently, hasprovided an external module loader that makes the useof third-party components that much easier. SugarCRMruns on the Apache Web server, within a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP (LAMP) or Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP(WAMP) environment. While there are variousapproaches to cluster Apache servers running PHPsessions, a single high-specification server should becapable of supporting at least 250 users and 100 milliondata rows. Athena Healthcare state that SugarCRMlicensing and implementation costs were a fraction oftheir Salesforce.com fees, with return on investment(ROI) projected at 9 months [23]. Covalent Technologiesmoved from Salesforce.com to SugarCRM in less thanthree days. The SugarCRM team transferred 250 000records and more than 100 custom fields fromSalesforce.com into Sugar Suite. Covalent Technol-

ogies, who support the IT needs of large enterprises,such as Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley and Pfizer,now estimate savings of at least $20 000 annually [23].Figure 3 shows a typical SugarCRM front-end userinterface, highlighting some of its features such astracking leads, managing contacts, and mediating andorchestrating customer interactions.

Compiere is the largest and most mature of theshort-listed CRM applications. It is described on its Website as a package that does ‘ERP & CRM for the small-medium enterprise’. Founded by a developer fromOracle, the Compiere project was started in 1999, andthe first installation in 2000, which is still in operation,was sponsored by Goodyear Germany [29]. Morerecently, South Africa’s Water Research Commissionhas chosen to use Compiere for its enterprise fundmanagement [30]. Compiere is developed in Java, andincludes both Web and local client access — while thelocal client interface provides a richer capability, theWeb interface, however, provides access to a wideraudience. Unfortunately, as far as the open sourcecommunity is concerned, Compiere was originallydesigned to work with the proprietary Oracle database.

Table 3 Application non-functional features.

CRM Application Language Database User interface Platform

Compiere Java, JSP Oracle/PostgreSQL Web/client J2EE/JBoss

Hipergate Java, JSP PostgreSQL/Oracle/Microsoft SQL Web Apache, Tomcat

OFBiz Java, JSP Flexible Web J2EE/JBoss

SugarCRM PHP MySQL Web LAMP/WAMP

Fig 3 SugarCRM front-end user interface.



However, recent software patches permit developers toport Compiere to work with the PostgreSQL database,allowing it to be run on an entirely open sourceplatform. Compiere has a large support base, therehave been over 800 000 downloads of the softwaresince 1999 [31], and it is the top CRM application onSourceForge, ranked by activity [32]. The CompiereWeb site provides free information on installation andfirst use; however, this information is fairly limited inscope. Paid support is available from Compierepartners, most of which provides a full tailor-madeservice including custom modification and installation ofCompiere. Figure 4 shows an example Compiere localclient interface, highlighting some of the sales orderfacilities.

2.5 Potential to use open source for an SME CRM solution

Looking at the alignment of the four applicationsagainst the eTOM specification, they appear to covermostly similar areas. However, Compiere, in particular,provides functionality not covered by the CRM sectionsof eTOM. If used as part of a suite of programs, any of

these applications are capable of providing functionalityin the customer interface management and problemhandling areas. With some modifications, Compiere,Hipergate, and OFBiz would also be compliant withorder handling. SugarCRM would require moreextensive modification to comply with order-handlingprocesses.

Open source provides advantages when comparedto similar commercial applications, especially whenintegrating with existing business systems. AthenaHealthcare decided to choose SugarCRM overSalesforce.com when faced with the costs of integratinga CRM application with their existing systems [33].

It also makes it easier to extend the functionality ofthe applications to cover particular needs, includingintegrating with a wider OSS. This includes addinginterfaces for use with other applications; for example,all four of the open source applications examined couldbe extended to use OSS/J [34] interfaces as theybecome available.

Fig 4 Compiere sales order user interface.



The decision on which application to use is not clear-cut; Compiere provides the most functionality,including a broad range of ERP functions, but thismakes for a much more complex application to installand use, especially if this extra functionality is not used.OFBiz provides a good framework, including customerinterface management, problem handling, and the basefor eCommerce and order handling. Because OFBiz hasbeen designed specifically as a foundation fordevelopment, it should be relatively flexible. SugarCRMhas the smallest scope of the four projects, but itsoffering is well polished and well presented. There arealso hosted (Sugar OnDemand) and appliance(SugarCube) offerings available for SugarCRM, whichinclude support and upgrades. The SugarCRM hostedoption, ideal for businesses without a strong ITinfrastructure, is priced at less than the comparableSalesforce.com or Netsuite-hosted solutions andincludes full support and configuration. An eWeekreview [35] of CRM notes ‘... Sugar Professional nowoffers a level of integrated marketing, sales and supportthat approaches hosted rivals and is on a par with client/server competitors.’ Hipergate is not as well known asthe other applications, and has slightly less supportavailable, but it is still a solid offering, and providesplenty of documentation to allow extensions andmodifications. It will be important to consider the needsof the individual SME opportunity when selecting one ofthese CRM applications. However, it is not unfeasible tothink that any one of these applications may fulfil anumber of SME opportunities, in which case large costreductions, when compared to using COTS CRMapplications, can be made.

3. Open source OSS standardsThe traditional method of implementing OSS standardshas been to develop software in-house or among a smallnumber of collaborating organisations. Implementationexperiences and interoperability testing then help verifythe standards and provide feedback into the standards-making process — however, the mechanism is notalways so straightforward. Ambiguity in standards maycause incompatible implementations, while implemen-tation and interoperability experiences may not alwaysbe fed back into the standards-making process. Also,commercial pressures often motivate closed systemsbehaviour and proprietary interfaces. To help reduce thenumber of incompatible implementations, providetimely feedback into the standards-making process, andenable more open collaboration, the OpenOSS TMFCatalyst [36] built a proof-of-concept demonstration tolook at how using open source could help overcomethese issues.

3.1 The business problemThe TMF has made a major contribution to thedevelopment of OSS standards. For example, the TMF’s

new generation operations systems and software(NGOSS) [37] is a mature standard that specifies atechnology-neutral service-oriented architecture (SOA).The TMF continues to drive this and other standardsforward through a number of focused activities.However, despite having reached a level of maturity,the standards are still not in widespread use across theindustry. Presently there are several perceivedroadblocks to adoption.

Firstly, while OSS vendors have long-term plans forNGOSS adoption, they will only bring products tomarket when customers regularly begin to signal theirrequirements by specifying NGOSS in formal tenders,such as requests for proposals (RFPs). These customerswill only begin specifying NGOSS when they areeducated as to its value and are confident that anNGOSS-based solution will work. Secondly, the fullbenefit of NGOSS can only be derived when many of thearchitectural components are in place, and thus earlydelivery of NGOSS-compliant components deliverslimited value without the availability of other NGOSScomponents with which to integrate. Thirdly, lack ofexperience or tooling for NGOSS solutions means thatearly adopters find the true flexibility and benefits ofNGOSS hard to achieve.

This problem of building market acceptance foremerging standards is by no means unique to the TMF.Often potential adopters are interested in the standardsbut do not have the time or resources to evaluatesolutions themselves. Standards adoption can beaccelerated by making it easier for potential users toevaluate and share experience using referencecomponents. This can be further accelerated byfacilitating the sharing of example solutions and workedexamples.

The processes undertaken to test, develop andrealise TMF standards utilise only a small portion of theTMF community, which can cause lengthy lead times.Moreover, the validation, testing and development ofTMF standards by implementation are primarilyperformed within TMF Catalyst projects thatdiscontinue upon completion, or internally withincompanies where the results are not widely visible.While this provides much useful information to informthe standards process, a more open and long-livedapproach may speed the early adoption and continueddevelopment of the standards work, and so theOpenOSS TMF Catalyst was born.

3.2 The OpenOSS TMF CatalystThe OpenOSS Catalyst provided a platform to evaluatethe ability of the open source approach to expedite thetesting, development and the realisation of TMFstandards.



The Catalyst assessed and validated the open sourceapproach in the creation of a tool-kit of OSS software,which was used to demonstrate a simple voice overInternet protocol (VoIP) service assurance case study. Toenable the assessment and validation, the tool-kitcomprised:

• readily available open source enterprise software,

• suitable and available open source and COTS OSSapplications,

• commissioned open source adapter software toOSS applications.

Fundamental to the tool-kit, and its continueddevelopment, was the utilisation of dependableenterprise software. For the Catalyst, the main decisionsmade were in mandating the Java 2 platform, enterpriseedition (J2EE) JBoss application server and the Fedoraflavour of Linux. The preference for other enterprisesoftware used in the Catalyst was for open source.Beyond the Catalyst, other options, such as using .NETor Solaris, could be investigated.

For the purposes of the catalyst, a mix of opensource and COTS OSS applications were used to providethe necessary capability for the case study, toinvestigate the integration of such dissimilar

components, and to investigate the open developmentand use of OSS adapters.

Open NGOSS integration standards enable anenvironment where OSS applications originating fromdifferent sources may be integrated with greater easeand lower cost. Currently, the only technology-specificrealisation of NGOSS integration standards come fromthe OSS/J Initiative [34] so, for this reason and tosupport the case study, OSS/J QoS and trouble ticket(TT) API adapters to the OSS applications used in thecase study were developed. Beyond the catalyst,adapters to other OSS/J APIs and emerging technology-specific realisations of NGOSS integration standardscould be investigated.

3.2.1 The VoIP service assurance case studyThe VoIP service assurance case study is describedthrough a number of use cases. Figure 5 provides anoverview of the network environment on which the casestudy was based.

The wholesale IP service provider network wascomposed of a number of core switches and edgerouters. The wholesale IP network provided thebackbone network for the VoIP service provider tooverlay a VoIP network. The VoIP service providernetwork manifests at two locations, and is composed ofsession initiation protocol (SIP) proxy servers and edge

Fig 5 VoIP service assurance case study.

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routers. Utilising this arrangement, the VoIP network isable to provide IP telephony services to its VoIPcustomers. Typically, access to the VoIP customerswould be via local access networks; however, to reducecomplexity in the case study, these networks wereomitted.

Within the VoIP service provider OSS is asophisticated SIP traffic link monitoring system,combined with simple network management protocol(SNMP) monitoring of the routers and servers. Also, itwould be typical for the VoIP service provider OSS toexchange business-to-business (B2B) information withthe wholesale IP service provider OSS, but again toreduce complexity, the wholesale IP service providerOSS was omitted.

In the case study, the following use cases, andcombinations thereof, were demonstrated:

• calls to an unregistered terminating IP-phone,causing signalling failures,

• wholesale IP service provider network failure,causing signalling time outs,

• wholesale IP service provider network degradation,causing signalling retransmissions,

• VoIP service provider proxy server degradation,causing device warnings and errors,

• VoIP service provider customer edge degradation,causing device warnings and errors.

These use cases were made possible using thearchitecture presented in the next section and by usinga network emulation package to simulate networkdelay, jitter and congestion within the wholesale IPservice provider network.

3.2.2 The OpenOSS catalyst architectureTo support the VoIP service assurance case study, andassociated use cases, using open source software andCOTS packages, a minimalist architecture, as shown inFig 6, was devised.

Fig 6 VoIP service assurance architecture.

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At the network layer, a number of Xten [38] IP-phones made up the VoIP customer devices. These IP-phones were served by open source software SIPExpress Media Servers (SEMS) [39] and SIP ExpressRouter (SER) IP PBXs [40] (not shown in Fig 6). Theservice provider VoIP network was composed of anumber of open source software Siproxd [41] SIP proxyservers and simple IP routers, while the wholesale IPservice provider network was emulated by the free NISTNet [42] network emulator.

To simplify the OSS requirements, the wholesale IPservice provider OSS was omitted. The VoIP serviceprovider OSS, on the other hand, was composed of amix of one COTS package and a number of open sourceOSS components, details of which follow:

• signalling monitoring was performed by the AgilentNext Generation Network Analysis System (NGNAS)[43] COTS package — this was made available tothe Catalyst under a temporary research licence,

• an OSS/J QoS fault management (FM) adapter wascreated for NGNAS — this was developed solelywithin the Catalyst under the Apache 2.0 licence,

• a performance management (PM) portlet wascreated for NGNAS — this was developed solelywithin the Catalyst under the Apache 2.0 licence(due to resource constraints the Catalyst wasunable to create an OSS/J QoS PM adapter forNGNAS and so the portlet was built using thenative NGNAS PM API),

• device and traffic monitoring was performed by theopen source OpenNMS network monitoring system[44], which is available under the GPL licence,

• an OSS/J QoS FM and PM adapter was created forOpenNMS — this was developed solely within theCatalyst under the Apache 2.0 licence,

• a PM portlet was created using the OSS/J QoS PMAPI — this was developed solely within the Catalystunder the Apache 2.0 licence,

• a correlation engine was developed within thecatalyst under the Apache 2.0 licence to correlatefaults received from NGNAS and OpenNMS — thecore of the correlation engine was the Drools 2.0[45] rules engine, available under the Werkenlicence, and the OSS/J TT referenceimplementation (RI) [46], available under the OSS/Jcommunity source licence,

• trouble ticketing was performed by the open sourceOpen Ticket Request System (OTRS) [47], which isavailable under the GPL licence.

The following open source enterprise software wasused in conjunction with the above OSS software:

• the operating system used throughout thearchitecture was the Fedora Core 3 [48] Linuxoperating system, which is available under theFedora licence,

• the databases used were PostgreSQL 8.0 [49],available under the BSD licence, and MySQL 4.0[50], available under a commercial licence or theGPL licence,

• the applications servers used were JBoss 4.0 [51],available under the LGPL licence, and Tomcat 5.5[52], available under the Apache 2.0 licence,

• the portal server used was JBoss Portal 2.0 [53],available under the LGPL licence,

• for persistence storage, Hibernate 3.0 [54] wasused — Hibernate is available under the LGPLlicence,

• the IDE used was JBoss Eclipse 3.0 [55], availableunder the Eclipse public licence.

The portlets were built into the service provider OSSto permit remote access via Web browsers, such asFirefox [56].

3.3 Results of the TMF researchThe overall experience of using and developing thechosen open source software was very positive, and theOpenOSS Catalyst created an initial tool-kit of OSSsoftware. The OSS case study was successfullycompleted in less than 3 months, with a multi-cultural,geographically diverse team with wide-ranging skills.Given these challenges, and the inexperience of theteam with regard to most of the software used in theCatalyst, the achievements of this proof-of-conceptwere outstanding, and would not have been met if goodquality open source software had not been available.Open source software permitted a totally openexperience, which was much needed in this distributedand resource-limited environment, allowing collab-orating organisations to work to their strengths.

The case study OSS proved to be functionallycomplete and stable, and the software repository is nowavailable for further use and development from theOpenOSS Catalyst project on SourceForge [57]. Someuseful feedback has been made into OSS standardscommunities and into the open source softwarecommunities, some of which has resulted in bug fixes.

The OpenOSS catalyst ultimately gave the greenlight for further, more ambitious work on open sourcewithin the TMF, which is currently work-in-progress [58].



Production of open source within the TMF is agroundbreaking proposition and many legal andpolitical issues need to be overcome. However, thoseinvolved are confident, and work items are beingdiscussed to develop, among other things:

• open source OSS/J adapters to COTS applications,

• open source B2B adapters to COTS applications,

• a common open source framework for OSSapplications,

• open source software NGOSS development tools.

Through collaborative working, BT envisagespotential opportunities in all of these work items and, assuch, is leading what has recently become an officiallysanctioned OpenOSS TMF Technical Programme. Giventime and real development effort there is great potentialto produce open source integration software to enablethe integration of OSS applications in carrier-gradestandards-based OSS solutions, in which case largereductions in the cost of integration can be achieved.

4. ConclusionsThis paper has considered some opportunities for usingopen source within telecommunications providers’ OSS.It is clear that opportunities exist that could providebenefit to the telecommunications providers; however,these opportunities require varying degrees of effortand risk before any possible result is realised.

Thankfully, the range of opportunities is wide andphased. In the near-term, opportunities couldmaterialise by making use of mature ‘of-the-shelf’ opensource OSS applications, such as CRM applications.Mid- and long-term opportunities will be presentedthrough the development of open source OSSintegration software, such as adapters to OSSapplications, and common OSS frameworks.

Telecommunications providers should activelyinvestigate the opportunities presented by open source.This technology has the potential to not only transformthe cost base for an organisation, it can alsosignificantly disrupt established business models andpractices. Two areas are worth further exploration —near-term open source OSS application opportunities inmarkets which are cost sensitive and where barriers toadoption are relatively low such as the SME market, andmid- to long-term opportunities for the large-scalecarrier or large enterprise market where an open sourceapproach to building standards-based OSS can deliverimprovements in organisational agility and lower costs.

What is perhaps most encouraging is that the opensource market is a buoyant and rapidly evolving one. A

telecommunications open source OSS opportunity thatperhaps does not exist today may well manifest itself sixmonths later. This is perhaps all the more reason toactively monitor and research such emergingtelecommunications OSS opportunities.

References

1 Forrester Research Inc: ‘Open Source Usage Is Up, But ConcernsLinger’, (June 2005).

2 Gartner Inc: ‘Hype Cycle for Open-Source Technologies, 2005’,(July 2005).

3 Bruce G et al: ‘The Potential for Open Source Software inTelecommunications Operational Support Systems’, BT Technol J,23, No 3, pp 79—95 (July 2005).

4 Open Source — At LinuxWorld Expo this week, companies toutnew open-source business applications such as CRM, ERP, contentmanagement and business intelligence and the strategicpartnerships being forged to deliver them, Computer ResellerNews (August 2005).

5 Ovum: ‘SME sales strategies’, (June 2005).

6 Ovum: ‘It is time to better serve SMEs’, (July 2005).

7 Forrester Research, Inc: ‘SMBs Accelerate Open Source Adoption’,(August 2005).

8 TeleManagement Forum — http://www.tmforum.org

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10 Google — http://www.google.com/

11 SourceForge — http://www.sourceforge.net/

12 Anteil — http://www.anteil.com/

13 CentraView — http://www.centraview.com/

14 Centric — http://www.centriccrm.com/

15 Compiere — http://www.compiere.org/

16 Daffodil — http://www.daffodildb.com/crm/

17 Hipergate — http://www.hipergate.org/

18 Ohioedge — http://www.ohioedge.com/

19 Open For Business — http://www.ofbiz.org/

20 OpenCRX — http://www.opencrx.org/

21 OpenSourceCRM — http://sourceforge.net/projects/opensourcecrm/

22 SourceTap — http://sourcetapcrm.sourceforge.net/index.htm

23 SugarCRM — http://www.sugarcrm.com/home/



24 SugarForge.org — http://www.sugarforge.org/

25 vTiger — http://www.vtiger.com/

26 TeleManagement Forum: ‘extended TelecommunicationsOperations Map (eTOM)’ — http:// www.tmforum.org/browse.asp?catID=1647

27 Trabas — http://www.trabas.com/opensource/

28 JIRA — http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/default.jsp

29 Stafford J: ‘Inside Compiere’s open source ERP’,SearchOpenSource.com (April 2005) — http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1077007,00.html

30 Tectonic: ‘SA water commission dives into open source’, (July2005) — http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=503

31 Stafford J: ‘Open source takes on business apps giants’,SearchOpenSource.com (April 2005) — http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1076542,00.html

32 SourceForge Software Map — http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/

33 Jaffe J: ‘Unlocking the Enterprise for Open Source’, CNETNetworks Inc (August 2005) — http://news.com.com/Unlocking+the+enterprise+for+open+source/2100-7344_3-5840338.html

34 OSS Through Java Initiative — http://www.ossj.org/

35 eWeek: ‘Sugar CRM review’ — http://www.eweek.com/article2/

36 OpenOSS Catalyst — http://www.tmforum.org/

37 TeleManagement Forum: ‘New Generation Operations Systemsand Software (NGOSS)’, — http://www.tmforum.org/

38 Xten — http://www.xten.com/

39 SEMS — http://sems.berlios.de/

40 SER — http://www.iptel.org/ser/

41 Sipproxd — http://siproxd.sourceforge.net/

42 NIST Net — http://www-x.antd.nist.gov/nistnet/

43 NGNAS — http://we.home.agilent.com/USeng/nav/

44 OpenNMS — www.opennms.org/

45 Drools — http://drools.org/

46 OSS/J API download area — http://www.ossj.org/downloads/api.shtml

47 OTRS — http://otrs.org/

48 Fedora — http://fedora.redhat.com/

49 PostgreSQL — http://www.postgresql.org/

50 MySQL — http://www.mysql.com/

51 JBoss Application Server — http://www.jboss.com/products/jbossas/

52 Tomcat — http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/

53 JBoss Portal — http://www.jboss.com/products/jbossportal/

54 Hibernate — http://www.hibernate.org/

55 Eclipse — http://www.jboss.com/products/jbosside/

56 Firefox — http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

57 OpenOSS on SourceForge — http://sourceforge.net/projects/openoss/

58 TMF OpenOSS Technical Programme — http://www.tmforum.org/browse.asp?catID=2602

Gary Bruce leads BT GCTO research,development and exploitation of opensource software for BT’s OSS.

He has previously worked on signallingsystems and open network APIs, both hereat BT and at Sun Microsystems.

His work on open network APIs led to hisinvolvement in various internationalprojects, adopting key roles within theParlay Group and related initiatives.

Paul Robson is a senior researcher workingwithin the OpenOSS project for BT, whoseaim is to investigate the potential of opensource within the OSS arena.

Prior to this, he has worked on developingJ2EE Web applications for various portalsystems supporting BT’s corporatecustomers in the application hosting area.

Ricky Spaven is a fourth-year ComputerEngineering student at the University ofSouthampton.

He has previously worked on proof-of-concept demonstrations within theOpenOSS project as part of a team fundedby Invocom and BT.

oss opportunities in open source software — crm and oss standards

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