Overview
A global leader in connectivity solutions for IoT, automotive, and smart devices sought to replace their legacy Over-the-Air (OTA) platform with a more advanced, flexible, and secure solution. One of the features the existing platform lacked was support for HTTPS (SCP81), limiting the ability to handle efficiently large volumes of data, deliver secure updates and manage sensitive data.
Simartis delivered an in-house developed, modular OTA platform that enables RAM, RFM, and APDU management, provides SMS and HTTPS support, and ensures a robust integration with 3rd party systems through a dedicated REST API.
The new solution delivered by Simartis addressed the customer’s security concerns, allowed a smooth migration of the SIM card database and a seamless integration with the customer’s own systems and SIM applications.
The project kicked off with a proof of concept (PoC) phase, where the customer was granted access to a dedicated testing environment to validate the platform's features against its own business needs and expectations.
Requirements and challenges for the implementation project
- Make use of data only communication with HTTP capable SIM cards
- Complex SIM Ecosystem: Managing a global fleet of USIM, IoT/ M2M SIMs required a flexible solution in terms of interoperability.
- Remote applet management: handle through OTA 3rd party applets through their entire life-cycle
- Database Migration from different sources: The migration of a large SIM card database from the legacy OTA platform needed to be smooth and without service interruptions. Additional sets of OTA keys were imported from a distinct source, so data had to be merged, adapted and brought up to date prior to migration.
- Integration with Existing Systems: The solution needed to integrate with the customer’s infrastructure for flow automation purposes and on-event based updates.
- Operations Efficiency: Required the ability to read SIM card data and receive end-result notifications for OTA performed operations.
- Key Management: Transport key definitions for protecting the OTA keys were essential to meet customer’s security policy and industry best practices highly recommended by Simartis.
Solution
Simartis modular OTA platform was designed to address the customer’s use cases with the following key features and capabilities:
- SIM Card Details provisioning flexibility: The customer was provided with three different provisioning options (Dedicated API method, User-friendly GUI and SFTP), Secure Storage and Use of this SIM Card Data
- HTTPS (SCP81) support so that the customer can use a reliable and high-capacity bearer, enabling secure and encrypted communications for massive OTA SIM data updates in a short period of time.
- Administrative HTTPS sessions initiated by the OTA Server making use of wake-up SMSs (in the absence of a polling mechanism at SIM Card level)
- Comprehensive APIs: A rich set of REST APIs for integration with the customer’s systems and workflows, enabling streamlined operations.
- Advanced OTA Operations Management: Remote Application Management (RAM), Remote File Management (RFM) and Custom APDU Management for efficient and timely SIM content updates
- SIM Card Data Read Capability: Enabling the reading of SIM card data via OTA commands.
- End Result notification sent to the customer’s chosen system for OTA processed operations, facilitating retry logic automation.
Deployment and Implementation
The deployment of the OTA solution followed a structured process, starting with a comprehensive kick-off meeting and continuing with the Scope of work sign off, Prerequisites collection and validation, virtual machines allocation, Systems Remote Connectivity set-up, OTA Application Installation & Configuration, Training, a dedicated User Acceptance Testing session and the Go live.
A dedicated Key Ceremony for the Transport key definition and integration into the OTA solution was also made part of the project delivery and was conducted by Simartis, the goal being to have an additional mechanism of protecting the OTA keys and enhance security.
Results
Having access to Simartis OTA platform, the customer gained significant benefits, such as:
- Enhanced Security: through the layered architecture of the solution, a dedicated secure zone to manage sensitive information, a “zero-trusts” policy, multiple security mechanism and encrypted OTA communications.
- Seamless Migration: The SIM card database was migrated from the legacy system without any disruption to operations.
- Operational Efficiency: The platform’s rich set of APIs, along with its RAM, RFM, and APDU management capabilities, streamlined complex operations, reducing manual intervention.
- Flexibility in Provisioning and using stored card details: multiple provisioning flows and segmentation options lead to faster campaign definition and run, hence faster updates delivered to end customers.
Feedback
The collaboration went smooth during the entire implementation project. Having a knowledgeable, hands-on technical team on the customer side and a project team with over 15 years of experience on Simartis side prevented any deviations from the initial plan in terms of scope and timeline.
Therefore, the survey filled in by the customer post implementation indicated a high level of satisfaction regarding the implementation.
The training provided by Simartis helped the customer gain autonomy in Operating the Platform.
Future Outlook
With the new OTA platform in place, the customer plans to:
- Do Real-Time Updates: Enable immediate deployment of new features and capabilities to connected devices.
- Expand into New Markets: Use the flexible OTA solution to support additional IoT and M2M use cases.
