Open APIs

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  • 1.  Standardizing APIs

    Posted Mar 20, 2017 17:04
    Standardizing APIs in telco is quite significant work. Is there real life example of return of such investment?  How strictly standards should be followed to have benefits and avoid over investment? Is there different approach recommended for internal / external interfaces?

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    Pawel Idczak
    Orange Polska
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  • 2.  RE: Standardizing APIs

    Posted Mar 21, 2017 06:13
    The effort to standardise API's in telco has a long history.  In particular, I recall the Q3 interfaces ( http://www.cellsoft.de/telecom/dcn.htm) of the early years of the millennium, and how we hoped they would lower cost and complexity.

    Of course, the use of past tense is proof of how successful that was.

    None the less, the whole idea is a good one.  We now have very widely used technical norms such as REST, and we have a growing number of shared use stories that we can leverage.

    I think the answer to the question will be in the business case for each standardised interface, namely can my business leverage the use story for my advantage.  If so, then use the standardised interface, if not, build your own.  The rationale lies in the particular business case for each element of value add that you are building.  Obviously, there are some spaces where the shared user story is almost always the way to do things.  In particular, B2B exchanges are common, and standardised interfaces see a high level of reuse.

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    Hugo Vaughan
    IBM Corporation
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Standardizing APIs

    Posted Mar 22, 2017 05:50
    I agree with Hugo's observation and would offer  some additional thoughts and examples :

    • George Glass from BT presented  at our Action Week(AW)  Lisbon 2016 Keynote some really impressive systems saving achieved though system development of APIs across the entire IT estate. A later presentation from him at our AW Vancouver 2016 showed some impressive agility improvement form moving to a platform based model base don exposed Open APIs.
      You could plug you own estimates into these examples and work out the likely  cost and operations benefits in your own context.

    • In the work we have been doing on Application of Platform and Open APIs concepts  to Network and  Resources  in TR 262 Hybrid Network Management Platform we started with the user stories that we needed to address for Zero touch and agility.
      We  have developed usage profile patterns for Open API and are develop new Open APIs to address those areas where early business gains can be achieved . These are mostly to do with implementation  of Closed control Loop or autonomic management control of partitions / layers within networks. These are in our Minimum Viable Product definition for what we now call HIP. 
      This is exactly what Hugo recommended - start  with the User Stories/ Use case that are likely to deliver maximum gains in this case network / resources use case to support zero touch provisioning and operations .
    • The other area we have investigated in depth is automated onboarding of well enable virtual function packages from  business, operational and technical perspectives. A subject for another post.


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    Dave Milham
    TM Forum Chief Architect
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    Original Message


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