Subscriber data management in IMS networks

Next-generation communication services will be driven by increasingly rich and distributed subscriber information. Current wireless networks have evolved such that subscriber information now resides in various elements e.g., home location register [HLR], prepay, voice mail, short message, and location determination systems). Convergence with the Internet promises significantly more personal information, such as presence, calendars, address books, buddy lists, pictures, and video. The home subscriber server (HSS) in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture provides centralized storage for subscriber data. However, some application servers will also have their own subscriber data. As the quantity and variety of applications grow, it will become increasingly useful to provide unified views of subscriber data both within a network and across networks. The Lucent Datagrid™ software provides a telecom-targeted data integration capability, so that applications can use a logical "single-point-of-access" for user profile information inside a service provider's network.