Microservices-based Architecture: The Must-Have for Dynamic Customer-Facing BSS/OSS Platforms

The Age of Monoliths

Two basic approaches, loosely coupled versus tightly coupled architectures, have been around for a long time, with the latter being the mainstream until recently. The key to the tightly coupled architecture is that one gets a self-sufficient, hand-crafted application with all components closely fitting together. As a result, infrastructure requirements are easy to calculate and manage and will not change significantly over time as the application itself is built to remain relatively static.

The static nature of enterprise applications was largely determined by the nature of the businesses. Operational scenarios were fixed without the need to quickly evolve or try out business hypotheses. Data and code relationships would be fixed, with a single-purpose UI on top and a limited number of published APIs mainly required for data sync with other systems.

Most enterprises would also rely exclusively on their own datacenter hosting, and considering hardware resilience requirements, availability, and network connectivity requirements, the cost optimization balance favored tightly coupled systems.

Technology shifts: virtualization & Cloud, rich UI/UX platforms

From the technology perspective, groundbreaking changes were brought about by virtualization & public cloud and the evolution of web/mobile UI/UX platforms that became suitable for rich UI/UX clients.

Virtualization and cloud deployment enabled infrastructure sharing, an essential change in how hardware could be used, managed, and paid for. It opened doors to experimenting with software without lengthy and costly infrastructure rollouts, and it provided higher performance and availability on demand.

Default browsers such as Chrome, Edge, and Firefox have become feature-rich UI/UX platforms. It is no longer necessary to depend on a local desktop client to render frontend functionality. Both Android and iOS smartphones and tablets became suitable for feature-rich User Experience for both internal use and customer-facing apps like e-shop and self-service.

These changes enabled a shift to a different paradigm of building applications: a loosely coupled approach, primarily exemplified by the emergence of microservices-based architecture, low-code platforms, flexible integrations, and dynamic web and mobile clients. Applications built this way benefit from capacity on demand, agility, and availability brought by public cloud, provide modern customer experience, and remain cost-effective and flexible in their use of infrastructure and DevOps resources.

Software landscape shifts

The highest demand and potential for change in the enterprise BSS/OSS landscape is now in dynamic customer-facing platforms enabling new technologies and the rollout of new business models.

In telecom, large-scale legacy systems for non-evolving services will often remain untouched for cost-efficiency reasons. Exceptions may arise when deployment infrastructure reaches end of life. Such systems will be isolated, supplanted, and kept running deep in the back office for as long as the networks they support exist.

For recently rolled out and quickly evolving services, especially in customer-facing platforms, the transition to modern microservices-based architecture is already well underway. Highly dynamic outward-facing systems, such as customer and partner portals, and even full stacks from CRM to Provisioning and Revenue Management that enable 5G rollout, innovative B2B models, MVNO offerings, and second brands, are now seen as viable and future-proof when built on microservices with process automation at the platform core.

Compax Microservices-based BSS/OSS Platform

Compax BSS/OSS Platform represents the modern microservices-based approach to building enterprise applications used in mission-critical projects for highly demanding customers across various industries.

The BSS/OSS Platform covers the full BSS/OSS stack, from CRM and Customer & Partner Portals to Customer and Service Order Management, Service Provisioning & Activation, Billing and Finance, and Business Process Management. At the core of the platform is a highly flexible no-code Workflow Engine that provides a business-friendly interface to automations and integrations realized as microservices-based workflow items.

Essential characteristics of the BSS/OSS Platform include a fully modular architecture with an open data model, the microservices-based backend, and the modern UI client built using REST APIs and supporting the latest AAA mechanisms for both customer-facing and employee-facing applications.

Essential benefits include:

• Easy and quick product extensions and production updates required for Agile Delivery and Dev(Sec)Ops
• A clear separation between the backend and the experience layer, allowing multiple native clients for optimal user experience
• High scalability and availability as well as optimal infrastructure use, especially for public cloud deployment
• Flexible, no-code extensions of data and data relationships as required by dynamic quick-win implementations
• Business process flexibility and reuse of automated business operations via the microservices-based Compax Workflow Engine and its library of more than 1600 automated operations

To conclude, microservices-based architecture, as a technological change, has led to a series of other disruptive changes. The implementation methodology enables Agile Delivery and Strategic Product Management, changing the way the core and custom code is built and maintained.