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  • 1.  Resource Candidate

    Posted Aug 05, 2020 08:09
      |   view attached
    Hi All,

    We are currently working for creating Resource Catalog Management piece under Resource Domain. We are referring to TMF634_Resource_Catalog_Management_API_User_Guide_v4.0.1. (Attached)

    Can someone help me to explain what is the significance of resource candidate in this?
    Document describes "ResourceCandidate is an entity that makes a resource specification available to a catalog. A ResourceCandidate and its associated resource specification may be published - made visible - in any number of resource catalogs, or in none."

    But above statement is not clarifying the actual use case view of implementing resource candidate.
    I have following concerns
    1) How candidate fits from application (Front End standpoint)?
    2) As mentioned in document, Specification and Candidate are one to one mapped then why this separate entity is required? Why directly specification can relate to category?

    Thanks a ton in advance. Quick help really appreciated.

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    Ajinkya Vaze
    Alepo USA
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  • 2.  RE: Resource Candidate

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 05, 2020 11:03
    Hi Ajinkya
    To be perfectly frank with you, I also find it difficult to explain the significance of ResourceCandidate. It is in the Open API model (also ServiceCandidate in the Service Catalog API) since it was in the Information Framework (SID). I have proposed removing these two entities, both from the SID and from the Open API, since I don't believe they give business value. However this proposal was not accepted so we still have these entities.

    I suspect (although I am not sure) that in some way these Candidate entities come to fulfil a similar function (somehow) to ProductOffering in the Product Catalog, where I could have multiple catalogs (say one for residential segment, one for an MVNO, etc.) and have different offerings in each catalog. So also in service and resource. But I don't see business value in that for service and resource domains.

    If you are planning to implement Resource Catalog API, I believe that you can do so without implementing this particular entity. We have a delay (apologies) in publishing the Conformance Profile for this API, but when we do publish it it will be declared that ResourceCandidate is optional for implementation.

    Hope it helps

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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.
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  • 3.  RE: Resource Candidate

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 06, 2020 02:05
    In our adoption of Service Catalog( similar to Resource Catalog) we found difficulty in identifying a valid usage for Service Candidate (similar to Resource Candidate). It was giving complexity further because the relationship with Service Specification is 1:1.  If it was 1.* , we could have used Service Candidate as means to discover multiple major specification of a service.
    However we have gone ahead and implemented Servie Candidate.  One of the reason is because Service Category relates to Service Candidate, not Service Specification.

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    Varun Nair
    Telstra Corporation
    Note: This is an opinion based on my research and not an official TMF response.
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  • 4.  RE: Resource Candidate

    Posted Aug 06, 2020 14:18
    Hi Varun,

    Thanks for your response. We also were rethinking exactly on similar issue w.r.t 1:1 relationship between resourcecandidate and resourcespecification. However I understand from conformance perspective it is necessary but did it help solving any real use case?

    Thank in advance.

    ------------------------------
    Ajinkya Vaze
    Alepo USA
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  • 5.  RE: Resource Candidate

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 06, 2020 18:51
    Hi Ajinkya,
    Apart from the link to the service category, the other purpose we fit service candidate as the representation of a Service in the catalog.

    For example for exposing mobile service :  There will be a candidate called as Mobile Service.  Once you add this Service Candidate in the catalog, you are actually telling the consumer world that a new service is now available in the catalog. You can interpret TMF documentation like this.
    Now if the consumer wants the specification of the mobile service, they can access the candidate and from the spec reference, they can access the service specification.

    If you have a dynamic consumer catalog, this will help your consumer catalog not getting tied to a particular version of the service specification. You can create a candidate to candidate reference and whatever Service Specification tied to the candidate at any point of time, would be the retrieved as service specification for activation.

    Note : This approach goes for a toss when you want to support multiple active version of service spec, then will you will end up in having multiple active version of the candidate as well. (due to the 1:1 relationship)

    Hope this perspective helps in your decision making.

    ------------------------------
    Varun Nair
    Telstra Corporation
    Note: This is an opinion based on my research and not an official TMF response.
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Resource Candidate

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 07, 2020 16:04
    Hi,

    I would like to explain how we currently are using the ResourceCandidate.

    UC1: Different suppliers for the same ResourceSpecification

    There is a specification available:

    1) Juniper MX480

    We can buy this from 2 different suppliers:
    1) Candidate A: supplier A with lead-time= 1 week and cost= 80000€
    2) Candidate B: supplier B with lead-time= 12 weeks and cost 70000€

    We extended ResourceCandidate with arrays for relatedParty, resourceCandidateTerm and resourceCandidateCost.

    UC2: Composite resources

    1) Juniper MX480 Chassis
    2) MPC10E-15C-P-BASE Linecard with 12 x 100Gbps
    3) Composite
    1 x MX480
    6 x MPC10E-15C-P-BASE

    We can have resourceCandidates for the preconfigured bundle but at the same time resourceCandidates for the line-card.
    Usually the preconfigured resourceCandidate is ordered; but the NOC can order a single line-card for using a lower level resourceCandidate


    UC3: mobile numbers with different process

    Logical resource: mobile number.

    1) Candidate A: number from Service Provider block
    2) Candidate B: number via number portability process


    Regards




  • 7.  RE: Resource Candidate

    Posted Aug 06, 2020 14:13
    Edited by Ajinkya Vaze Aug 06, 2020 14:13
    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for your response. We will reconsider about implementation of resource candidate.

    ------------------------------
    Ajinkya Vaze
    Alepo USA
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  • 8.  RE: Resource Candidate

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 06, 2020 02:34
    I find it easiest to reason about (Resource, Service) Candidate by looking at Product Catalog. They all follow the same pattern however in Product Catalog where you would find Candidate you have Product Offering.  Product Specifications are used in design time to create Product Offerings with Product Offering Prices which may go into a Catalog and be made available in production to use in instantiating Product Inventory (subscriptions). Similarly a Resource Candidate "makes a resource specification available to a catalog".  So Resource Candidates  are created in design time and during production use only Resources made available by a Candidate should be used, through their Resource Specification, to instantiate Resource Inventory.

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    Vance Shipley
    SigScale
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  • 9.  RE: Resource Candidate

    Posted Aug 06, 2020 14:22
    Hi Vance,

    Thanks for your response. "makes a resource specification available to a catalog" that is what is little confusing me as resource catalog document (Attached) specifies relationship between resourcespecification and resourcecandidate is one to one. I am trying to understand what is the value this additional candidate object will add from use case standpoint. 

    Trying to relate your response with real use case. Lets say there areTwo Resource Catalogs
    1) South Zone
    - Network Equipments (Category)
    - Devices (Category)
    2) East Zone
    - Network Equipments (Category)
    - Devices (Category)

    There are specifications available as follows
    1) Netgear Router XT100
    2) TP-Link Switch TI-SG1016

    Can we say that we will have two candidates w.r.t each of the specifications above.
    1) Netgear Router XT100 - Candidate X
    2) TP-Link Switch TI-SG1016 - Candidate Y
    And both X, Y will be available to catalog?

    1) If this is the case why cant specification directly link to category? What business value is added by candidates X, Y?
    2) If above example is not correct is there other use case fits in?

    Thanks a ton in advance.

    ------------------------------
    Ajinkya Vaze
    Alepo USA
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