To remain competitive, service providers must deliver highly differentiated services faster than ever before. But over the years, IT infrastructures-including BSS/OSS-have evolved into expensive, complex collections of monolithic applications interconnected with specially built point-to-point interfaces. Although these infrastructures utilized the best IT technology available to improve business process automation and reduce operations costs, they have become difficult, costly, and time-consuming to change, causing long delays in time-to-market for new services.

Fulfillment solutions, in particular, are often considered too complex to integrate with upstream IT systems. Using an SOA strategy, though, inventory systems can be easily and safely integrated into a fully automated provisioning process for telecommunications offerings such as VoIP or IPTV. Reducing costs, slashing cycle times, and improving data integrity are all key objectives. This session will highlight service providers' experience with SOA and integration models for automated network provisioning with a focus on network resource allocation.

Beau Atwater Executive Director - Strategy & Standards, Global Solutions Telcordia

Mr. Atwater is responsible for setting the technical direction for the new-generation system OSSs, including computing and solution architecture. He started his career at Telcordia in applied research developing novel chemical and physical sensors. Mr. Atwater moved on to Telcordia Global Services, where he designed management systems for sensor webs using IP-based protocols. He has held several positions within software systems, primarily focused in systems engineering and solution architecture. He was accepted into the 1998 NAE Frontiers of Engineering Program for the top 100 young engineers.

Brian Buggy Vice President, Strategy, OSS Division Amdocs

Mr. Buggy is responsible for the creation of the technical strategy and direction for the Cramer suite of products. He was instrumental in the concept and development of the product and the company and helped establish several significant components of the business, including Cramer's professional services offering and product management. Mr. Buggy held lead technical positions in the private network division at Siemens, and at IPL, a United Kingdom-based software company. He received a master's degree in engineering and a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from Dublin City University.

Francesco Caruso Director of Enterprise Integration Research and Senior Research Scientist Telcordia Technologies Inc.

Mr. Caruso's current interests include distributed systems, Web and Internet technologies, component architectures, SOA, and database management systems. He is a technology evangelist, playing the key role of introducing new technologies and their capabilities to Telcordia's product lines. Mr. Caruso is currently involved in several major standards organizations: the TeleManagement Forum (TMF), NGOSS and MTOSI initiative, and Object Management Group (OMG). He received a university degree in computer science from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1992, graduating with highest honors.

Biru Chattopadhayay Practice Head, EAI and SOA Practice Tech Mahindra

Mr. Chattopadhayay has 17+ years experience in IT, mostly in middleware and application integration space. At Tech Mahindra, he leads the EAI/SOA Practice globally. This Practice is basically focused on OSS/BSS integration solutions using most popular SOA product in the industries. Mr. Chattopadhayay has also worked for BEA and Oracle in various capacities (consultant, developer and management). He has computer science degrees from US universities.

Bob Titus Vice President, Global Converged Solutions NetCracker

Mr. Titus is responsible for overseeing the design and delivery of solutions that enable service providers and large enterprises to deliver next-generation services over converged networks. He previously was with Accenture, where he worked in the company's Communications and High Tech practice as an SME in its Network Service Line of Business. Mr. Titus' responsibilities included developing OSS market offerings and providing network sales, delivery, and operational consulting for tier-1 communications service providers, including Bell Canada, TELUS, Pacific Bell, Nextel, and Sprint-PCS. He graduated with honors from Bowdoin College.