Part 4 of 5: Rethinking Control in the Era of eSIM
In conversations with organizations evaluating eSIM adoption, one issue appears repeatedly: confusion between eSIM management and eSIM orchestration.
While eSIM represents a major leap beyond physical SIM cards, it also introduces a fundamentally different operational model. What often feels like a minor semantic difference can quickly lead to significant operational, scalability, and security challenges if misunderstood. Clarity is not optional; it is mission critical.
To ensure successful adoption let’s understand the technology and its components as they help define the nuances for clarifying management vs orchestration. With eSIM, details matter – on many levels far beyond connectivity. Afterall, revenue assurance and security are often two material interests in these discussions.
SGP.32: The IoT Standard for eSIM Management
SGP.32 is a GSMA standard designed to simplify remote provisioning and lifecycle management of eSIMs in IoT environments. It introduces a lightweight, flexible architecture that enables:
- Secure, over-the-air profile downloads and updates
- Zero-touch provisioning without human intervention
- Optimization for massive, low-power IoT deployments
SGP.32 aims to reduce complexity, improve scalability, and increase operational efficiency. However, achieving these benefits depends heavily on the governance, discipline, and expertise used to operate within such a dynamic environment. The increased flexibility users desired now brings substantial responsibility and accountability.
Core SGP.32 Components – Grasp the core components
SGP.32 defines a streamlined architecture that includes:
- IoT Profile Assistant (IPA), hosted on the eUICC (IPAe) or within the device (IPAd)
- eSIM IoT Remote Manager (eIM)
- Subscription Manager components (SM-DS and SM-DP+)
Together, these components enable secure profile download, activation, updates, and lifecycle control.
eSIM Management vs. eSIM Orchestration
Although closely related, eSIM management and eSIM orchestration address very different operational needs.
eSIM Management
eSIM management focuses on subscription-level control, including:
- Remote provisioning and activation
- Profile updates and deactivation
- Lifecycle management of eSIM profiles
- Compliance with mobile network operator requirements
In essence, eSIM management ensures that individual eSIM profiles are correctly configured, secure, and functional.
eSIM Orchestration
eSIM orchestration operates at a higher, system-wide level. It coordinates devices, connectivity, subscriptions, and processes across large estates of devices by:
- Managing multi-step, conditional workflows
- Ensuring devices have connectivity before changes occur
- Coordinating carrier selection and rate plan assignment
- Integrating monitoring, analytics, and exception handling
A Practical Example
- eSIM management updates SIM credentials when a device enters a new country.
- eSIM orchestration ensures the device has connectivity to perform that update, selects the appropriate carrier and rate plan, executes the change safely, and validates the outcome end to end.
Orchestration extends eSIM operations both upstream and downstream, far beyond the SIM itself.
Comparison: eSIM Management vs. eSIM Orchestration
| Aspect | eSIM Management | eSIM Orchestration |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Individual eSIM profiles | Entire device estates |
| Focus | Provisioning and lifecycle control | End-to-end process coordination |
| Primary Function | Activate, update, retire profiles | Automate workflows and dependencies |
| Connectivity Awareness | Assumed | Explicitly managed |
| Carrier & Rate Plan Control | Limited | Centralized and policy-driven |
| Scale | Suitable for small, low risk deployments | Essential for large, diverse IoT deployments |
| Governance | Operational | Strategic and operational |
Why Orchestration Matters at Scale
For large and diverse IoT deployments, orchestration becomes essential. It enables:
- Unified control of legacy (brownfield) SIMs and new eSIM devices
- Consistent governance across heterogeneous device fleets
- Improved reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency
- Flexible carrier strategies and automated exception handling
When combined with standards like SGP.32, eSIM orchestration enables scalable, automated workflows across mixed environments without sacrificing control.
Orchestration and the Shift to API-Driven Networks
Cellular networks have historically operated as Operational Technology (OT), exposing limited control through predefined interfaces. With 5G Standalone, networks increasingly resemble IT platforms, driven by APIs and software-defined control.
This shift allows end users to manage their device estates with far greater precision, moving from basic configuration commands to policy-driven, automated orchestration. In this context, eSIM orchestration is not optional; it is the natural evolution of eSIM management.
Key Takeaway
SGP.32 simplifies eSIM management, but orchestration is what makes large-scale IoT deployments reliable, secure, and governable. The landscape of orchestration is complex with ever evolving execution dependencies across traditional RSPs, legacy connectivity management platforms (CMPs) and device management systems.
Simetric’s SPoG unifies the variability and workflow across the entirety of the device ecosystem (SIM and eSIM enabled) to provide administrators and security professionals with a single, agentic governance pane for provisioning to subscription management to workflow intelligence all the way through platform-to-platform interoperability with ServiceNow.