Open APIs

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Hi Sweety
It is the responsibility of the catalog implementer to ensure that she creates consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.
Presumably a specific implementation of the product catalog API could include such validations and return errors on POST or PATCH when inconsistencies are found.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 01, 2019 23:36
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Thanks Jonathan.

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 02, 2019 03:17
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety
It is the responsibility of the catalog implementer to ensure that she creates consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.
Presumably a specific implementation of the product catalog API could include such validations and return errors on POST or PATCH when inconsistencies are found.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 01, 2019 23:36
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Jonathan makes an interesting point about the responsibility of the implementer to 'create(s) consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.'
What we found in ODA Production which is looking at model driven automation in  GB999 ODA Production Implementation Guidelines R19.0.1
( this is being updated and simplified for current release ) is that there are aspect of product an associated services that ned to be captured as metadata. Concretely this is the sort of material that Jonathan refers to and is often implicit in Product brochures. But for model driven approaches especially where model Driven Lifecycle management is needed these need to be captured in a machine readable form ( see also IG1176 TOSCA Guide for Model-Driven Automation R19.0.1  which is being updated for current release) Today most CSPs are focused solely on automation of operational processes not lifecycle processes  but for virtualisation cloud autonomous networks  one needs these additional metamodels and additional machine readable metadata.


------------------------------
Dave Milham
TM Forum chief architect
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 02, 2019 03:17
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety
It is the responsibility of the catalog implementer to ensure that she creates consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.
Presumably a specific implementation of the product catalog API could include such validations and return errors on POST or PATCH when inconsistencies are found.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 01, 2019 23:36
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Thanks Dave for this insight
The question is, how much of product configuration is subject to automation. One can understand, perhaps, that RFS and CFS specs could be derived from the NFV definitions. But product specs are commercial in nature, with trivial or in some cases non-trivial mapping between the underlying service spec characteristics and the product spec characteristics that ultimately influence the offering and the offering price.
I would suspect that this would not be easy to drive from a model.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 03, 2019 03:31
From: Dave Milham
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Jonathan makes an interesting point about the responsibility of the implementer to 'create(s) consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.'
What we found in ODA Production which is looking at model driven automation in  GB999 ODA Production Implementation Guidelines R19.0.1
( this is being updated and simplified for current release ) is that there are aspect of product an associated services that ned to be captured as metadata. Concretely this is the sort of material that Jonathan refers to and is often implicit in Product brochures. But for model driven approaches especially where model Driven Lifecycle management is needed these need to be captured in a machine readable form ( see also IG1176 TOSCA Guide for Model-Driven Automation R19.0.1  which is being updated for current release) Today most CSPs are focused solely on automation of operational processes not lifecycle processes  but for virtualisation cloud autonomous networks  one needs these additional metamodels and additional machine readable metadata.


------------------------------
Dave Milham
TM Forum chief architect

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 02, 2019 03:17
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety
It is the responsibility of the catalog implementer to ensure that she creates consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.
Presumably a specific implementation of the product catalog API could include such validations and return errors on POST or PATCH when inconsistencies are found.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 01, 2019 23:36
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Actually the metadata work in IG 1176 was triggered by a need to automate commercial operational and technical on boarding as described in 
IG1141 Procurement and Onboarding Suite R18.0.1  
and was originally conceived for NFV VNF but actually the solution proposed work for any type of software. Initial IG 1141 focus was general software licensing 

 complex dependencies
we did develop a proposal based on eBNF in TR 255B pg 15 which works for feature and resource functions ( which can be included in Product spec according to the SID.

------------------------------
Dave Milham
TM Forum chief architect
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 03, 2019 10:48
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Thanks Dave for this insight
The question is, how much of product configuration is subject to automation. One can understand, perhaps, that RFS and CFS specs could be derived from the NFV definitions. But product specs are commercial in nature, with trivial or in some cases non-trivial mapping between the underlying service spec characteristics and the product spec characteristics that ultimately influence the offering and the offering price.
I would suspect that this would not be easy to drive from a model.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 03, 2019 03:31
From: Dave Milham
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Jonathan makes an interesting point about the responsibility of the implementer to 'create(s) consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.'
What we found in ODA Production which is looking at model driven automation in  GB999 ODA Production Implementation Guidelines R19.0.1
( this is being updated and simplified for current release ) is that there are aspect of product an associated services that ned to be captured as metadata. Concretely this is the sort of material that Jonathan refers to and is often implicit in Product brochures. But for model driven approaches especially where model Driven Lifecycle management is needed these need to be captured in a machine readable form ( see also IG1176 TOSCA Guide for Model-Driven Automation R19.0.1  which is being updated for current release) Today most CSPs are focused solely on automation of operational processes not lifecycle processes  but for virtualisation cloud autonomous networks  one needs these additional metamodels and additional machine readable metadata.


------------------------------
Dave Milham
TM Forum chief architect

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 02, 2019 03:17
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety
It is the responsibility of the catalog implementer to ensure that she creates consistent definitions. For instance, not to attach a POP that is driven by characteristics to PO that doesn't have those characteristics in the contained PS.
Presumably a specific implementation of the product catalog API could include such validations and return errors on POST or PATCH when inconsistencies are found.

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Dec 01, 2019 23:36
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed inputs.

While I understand the first part on relationship - where same POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s) for re-usability, but in the second part where you provided an example on how Product Specification characteristics are used for PO and POP, I have some additional questions:

As I understand from the example you provided - As POP is referenced by PO, which belongs to a particular Product Specification, so the set of characteristics defined for the PS will be available for the corresponding PO and POP.

But as you described above, same instance of POP could be referenced by multiple PO(s), so in this scenario, if these PO(s) belongs to different Product Specifications(s), then how the set of characteristics are derived for the referenced POP?

Thanks,
Sweety

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 28, 2019 05:31
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hi Sweety

For your first question, it might be helpful to imagine the product catalog being made up of reusable building blocks. The relationships will always be from the using block to the block being used, and not in the other direction. Thus the same ProductOfferingPrice (POP) can be referred to by (i.e. used by) multiple ProductOfferings (PO). This gives maximum flexibility to the implementer, she can create specific POPs for each PO, or re-use the same POP in multiple POs, depending on the business needs.

For your second question, the model does not support independent Characteristics on a POP, nor on a PO. Characteristics are defined at the ProductSpecification (PS) level and used by the PO and POP. To give a specific example, for broadband internet access:

• The PS Internet Access would have a ProductSpecCharacteristic Bandwidth, with allowed values (ProductSpecCharacteristicValue) 20 MBps, 50 MBps, 100 MBps, 1 GBps
• The simple PO Budget Internet would refer to the PS Internet Access, and have a PSCVU for Bandwidth in which only 20 MBps and 50 MBps would be allowed
• The PO Budget Internet would have a POP Budget Internet Price, and this POP would in turn have PSCVU referring to this same set of values, indicating that the price (recurring charge) would be affected by the value using a pricing rule.
• Alternatively, the PO would have two POPs, Low Speed Price and Medium Speed Price, each with a fixed price, and each with a different PSCVU, one referring to 20MBps and the other referring to 50MBps - the front end at order capture time would have to choose the relevant price according to the chosen bandwidth captured in configuration.

Hope this helps in your understanding.

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Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

Original Message:
Sent: Nov 27, 2019 04:37
From: Sweety Nagpal
Subject: Relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in entity ProductOfferingPrice

Hello TMF Experts,

I am looking at TMF620 Product Catalog Management TMF specification.

In ProductOfferingPrice entity relationship model, I don't see a reference to ProductOffering. I just see one way relationship from ProductOffering to ProductOfferingPrice (0...*). Is there a road map to support this?

Also, I see a relationship to ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse in ProductOfferingPrice entity model. How a set of characteristics are identified for this reference, when there is no reference to ProductOffering/ProductSpecification from ProductOfferingPrice entity?

And, please provide an example on how these characteristics could be used for ProductOfferingPrice.

Thanks,
Sweety

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Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
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