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Again, for operators, the fulfillment of the service order is likely to require not just the allocation of virtual desktops, IT environments and applications, but the provisioning and activation of communications services and SLAs. Priorities and contention ratios will need to be set within the network itself, for example, to optimize its performance towards business-critical Cloud services and to ensure that SLAs are met. These can only be managed through fully convergent platforms or, alternatively, through a technical catalog which can orchestrate the required actions and dependencies.

Billing and charging for Cloud services is another area where telcos can bring vital expertise – usage based charging, often for very small, high volume chargeable items is something in which carriers have grown expert and efficient over the years and which is highly applicable to the projected business model for Cloud. CSPs are also familiar and proficient with the need to settle with third parties for the shared delivery of services.

3. Support in real-time mode

Charging and changing service levels in response to customer requests and customer behavior will be critical to the maintenance of customer satisfaction with the Cloud service proposition.

Customers will expect services to flex in response to their short term as well as long term needs, so real-time customer behavior and usage monitoring is an essential enabler, feeding into the kind of policy management that will ensure a consistent response across the customer base with minimal delay or intervention.

Customers for carrier Cloud services will also expect to see assurance of committed bandwidth, and notification when full capacity is being reached – with the option to increase their supply, very likely on a temporary basis. This will require CSPs to be alert to customer needs and behavior, to release additional