Open APIs

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  • 1.  Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 11, 2022 07:59
    Is there any default prototype to establish the Tenants Portal to expose and operate the Open API's ? Example below ,




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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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  • 2.  RE: Tenants Portal

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 12, 2022 15:05
    Hi Daniel
    I'm afraid that I don't really understand your question. What do you mean by "Tenants Portal"?
    Is your organization interested in developing software to implement Open APIs, or perhaps to consume Open APIs from vendor software, or both?
    Additional context information would be useful to help the community help you.

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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: Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 12, 2022 15:49
    Hi Jonathan , I hope you're fine and thanks for reply my message . We've a deliverable to implement a user interface (UI) called "Portal dos Tenants"  to somebody operate the API's  using a friendly front-end but I  don't know if there is or there isn't a good practice to expose, implement it . 
     Please find attached some idea where I've  highlighted my doubt. Should we implement internal system using a friendly front-end to expose it or is recommended implement a specific interface, tool , fields , etc aligned with Open API Tmforum project?  Please let me know if now it's clear or not. Thanks in advance.


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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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  • 4.  RE: Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 13, 2022 07:45
    Hello Daniel

    Is the portal intended to support developers to help understand your APIs better?
    Or is the intention to expose the applications to end users as a simple set of micro-applications?

    Platforms like Azure API Management have developer portals to take the APIs and expose sandboxes and other tools so that should cover the first use case.

    If the intention is the second use case then I am not sure a naked exposure of the APIs as they are is that useful.

    Some APIs (like a premises look up) map quite well to a single API if users just want to look up an address.
    But many others need to be orchestrated into customer experiences using some form of server side service.

    In a past engagement, we did create a portal that exposed a  web page for each API but customer feedback suggested that users wanted to be guided through a journey one or two API calls at a time starting with premises location on to product qualification and then into ordering. To do that we decided to maintain the logic and state server side and not orchestrate these calls in the browser. So we created applications for various journeys and exposed these via web pages.


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    Derrick Evans
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  • 5.  RE: Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 13, 2022 13:58
    Thanks Derrick . One of deliverables,  is to expose the applications to end users as a simple set of micro-applications.  The idea is create applications for various journeys and exposed these via web pages. Anyway , I imagined that OpenAPI project could share a best approach to establish it.  If not each CSP  will implement it by on its own . In addition , we also have to expose the Api's to support developers to help understand . If there is not a best approach aligned with OpenAPI project each CSP  will implement it by on its own too . In this case, as you mentioned, I will see Azure API Management developer portals to take the APIs .

    Thanks in advance,


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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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  • 6.  RE: Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 14, 2022 10:05
    Hello Daniel,

    So I do not speak for the TMF API team or the TMF but in my experience.

    Most CSPs in terms of developer on boarding and support would tend to use the developer portal and tools associated with their API management portals.

    In terms of exposing APIs as micro-applications I suspect most would point various web resources already out there. I am not sure the TMF has a particular take on micros services and web apps per se.

    The only things I would say is that if you are exposing the TMF APIs from your internal systems to external users you might want to think of the following points.

    1) Are all the operations supported by the API valid for external use?
    2) Is all the data exposed via the API intended for the end user and would they understand what they are being shown?
    3) How does an end user navigate from the use of one API to another as part of a user journey?
    4) If there is composition and orchestration be careful not to expose that as client side logic which could be hacked by the end user (instead do your composition, orchestration and filtering server side and expose a different API to the client rather than the TMF APIs).





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    Derrick Evans
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  • 7.  RE: Tenants Portal
    Best Answer

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 14, 2022 16:46
    Edited by DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS Jan 17, 2022 08:49
    Daniel
    Not sure this is a complete answer but in developing the ODA Technical Architecture IG1222 we had input on how to handle front ends and link to backend systems using what was called Back end for front ends (BE4FE) so the orchestration logic could be captured in this (BE4FE)  between systems of Engagement and System of Record . The process is held in (BE4FE) systems and our members developed a API 

    TMF701B Process Flow Management API Conformance Profile R19.0.1   

    to mange these processes

    have a look at 

    IG1222 ODA Technical Architecture Suite
    Specifically Part 4   section 5 and Section 6 
    We also had input on PACE  architecture which is related in section 6.2

    The approach proposed  is captured in some of the process flow example being developed in the ODA Component work 
    see  IG1228 How to use ODA – Using Open APIs to realize Use Cases v7.0.0

    Specifically Use Cases UC003 and UC004 ( even those these are B2C the same principles would apply to B2B web front ends ( I think)
    Note there will an update to this document at the end of the current Sprint ( end Jan 2022)  and work in progress is at 
    IG1228 How to use ODA – Using Open APIs to Realize Use Cases v8.0.0 - End to end ODA - TM Forum Confluence  ( note member only at this point in time but should be public in 6-8 weeks) 
    Hope this helps.

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    Dave Milham
    TM Forum, Chief Architect
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  • 8.  RE: Tenants Portal

    Posted Jan 17, 2022 08:51
    Thank you Jonathan / Derrick / Dave !!! Have a great week !!!

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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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