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Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

  • 1.  Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 12, 2019 10:03
    Hi all,

    I am wondering which component in TMF will be responsible for product-service mapping (on instance level, not specification level).

    Assuming a customer wants to change a specific product of his subscription (e.g. the bandwidth of a fixed line access or the disk space of an e-Mail product). Typically this will be done via a product order.

    Now I observe that
    • TMF622 (Product Ordering) requires product ids in the product order (ProductOrder > OrderItem > Product) where​​as TMF641 (Service Ordering) requires service ids in the service order (ServiceOrder > ServiceOrderItem  > Service)
    • service ids are, however, typically not known to the BSS / customer / agent
    • in order to generate corresponding service order(s) out of the incoming product order we need a mapping from product ids to service ids (on instance level)

    So there must be a component somewhere in Product Order that maps product ids to service ids using a certain "product-to-service instance inventory". Which component is it and is there some API for it? 

    Thinking further, for usage ticket pricing the above mentioned inventory could be used vice versa in order to guide an incoming data record (usage ticket) with some technical OSS key to the relevant BSS product / contract that should be charged for this usage.

    Maybe @Jonathan Goldberg, @Ludovic Robert, do have valuable hints.

    BR Thomas

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    Thomas Dupré
    Deutsche Telekom AG
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  • 2.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 13, 2019 09:31
    In our OSS Product, there's one module called Service Inventory which contains product-to-service mapping, OSS can find the corresponding service based on the product id from the product order.

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    yanfeng li
    Whale Cloud Technology Co., Ltd
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  • 3.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 13, 2019 09:31
    Hi Thomas,
       Please find the answers for your concerns:-

         1. I am wondering which component in TMF will be responsible for product-service mapping.
    <Rakshith>  Product to Service linkage will happen via product specification. Same product specification can be used by single service or multiple service.  Component is Product Hub, where product offerings are modeled which is published to Billing and COM (customer order management) during the design time. 
    Any change in the product attributes will be republished to both Billing & COM.  you can refer more details in "GB978 Catalog to Catalog Interface R17.5.1".

    2. in order to generate corresponding service order(s) out of the incoming product order we need a mapping from product ids to service ids (on instance level).
    <Rakshith> COM receives a product offering in product order which is decomposed into multiple Service orders (in SOM layer) based on the services using product specification. for each service, service id is generated in Inventory system and returned back to SOM which intern sent to COM.  

    Please amend, if required. 

    Thanks,
    Rakshith
     



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    Rakshith B C
    Capgemini
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  • 4.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 13, 2019 09:31
    This topic of Product Service relationship  is being discussed as part of the BOS pioneer project and contributions to the ODA Functional Architecture team -as well as the API team.
    See contributions :
     Business Operating System (BOS)        ttps://projects.tmforum.org/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=96571694
    Under ODA Functional architecture: 
    ODA-136  Business Operating System (BOS) Reference Implementation Project
    these are exploring how the processes work across mostly the ODA Core Commerce area . However the point you raise about mapping from one set of identiefiers to other serivce related identifiers is proablay somehting that sould be explicted docuemented in these contributions ( mapping proably have to be held for both the Order process andalso longer term across  inventory systems
    I believe Ludovic is quite heavily involved in those discussions and will surely have further insights.

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    Dave Milham
    TM Forum Chief Architect, TM Forum
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  • 5.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    Posted Mar 13, 2019 09:32
    Hi Thomas,

    the product-to-service mapping should be done using the Product Catalog, at least this is recommended in a Catalog driven architecture to secure dynamicity and faster time to market.
    You can refer to the TMF620 Product Catalog Management API Rest Specification where in the Respource model you have the relation between Product Specification and Service Specification Reference:


    In addition you have the TMF633 Service Catalog Management API to further decompose the service specification and also, as you mentioned, the access to the inventory (TMF638) to understand the actual services deployed for the customer and determine the changes as applicable.

    Hoping it is useful.
    Best rergards,
    Dino

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    Dino Pellegrini
    Solution Architect OSS Services&Network Management
    Ericsson Inc.
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  • 6.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 13, 2019 09:32
    Hello Thomas

    It should be discussed with ODA team but from my perpective, this mapping is hold in the BSS component - product inventory (not know of course by the customer / agent). The product (instance)  has a link to the realizing service (you have this in the product inventory API).
    An optimization could be to let BSS identify the (future) service to be provisonned (no the id in a pure REST implementation that I guess should stay attributed by server)) but through an 'externalId'. We are trying this for example in the ONAP/NBI component where BSS could provide an id to future service and use this in later interaction.

    ... but definitevely a topic to be discussed with ODA team

    Hope it helps

    Ludovic

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    Ludovic Robert
    Orange
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  • 7.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 13, 2019 15:50
    Hi,

    TMF-637 ProductInventory maintains the link between Product and Service (or Resource) in the realisingServiceRef (or realisingResourceRef)

    Regards








  • 8.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Mar 14, 2019 03:08
    Edited by Bostjan Keber Mar 14, 2019 05:09
    Hi Thomas,
    I agree with Dino Pellegrini and Ludovic Robert. Product to service mapping should be done by the unified product catalog as a part of the BSS system. At least this is how we did it at Marand. I wrote about this some time ago in a LinkedIn post:  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/telco-business-transformation-through-centralized-product-keber/

    Hope it helps!

    Bostjan

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    Bostjan Keber, Software Engineering Manager
    Marand d.o.o.
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  • 9.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    Posted Jul 16, 2020 08:05
    @Ludovic Robert   @Bostjan Keber  So, if we have 3 IT departments : BSS IT Department , Integration IT Department  and OSS IT Deparment ...the SOM layer would be managed by BSS Department . Am I rigth ? ​​  Thanks in advance .

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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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  • 10.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jul 16, 2020 08:55
    I think the "SOM layer" should be managed by the OSS department as traditionally OSS  deals with service management. Let me elaborate...

    BSS manages commercial product catalog (product specifications, product offerings, prices) which drives core commerce components (e.g. commercial order management, shopping cart, commercial eligibility etc.) and customer experience layer. However, the commercial product catalog should keep information about the services and resources that comprise products and that are needed for product provisioning. This "information"  is a technical description of product specifications and could be a simple label or unique service/resource specification identifier added to product specs. The BSS layer usually doesn't deal with technical service decomposition and doesn't need too many service details. So, the product spec. / service spec. mapping should be managed by the BSS department and service spec. design & management should be managed by the OSS department.

    If we think about modern architectures (ODA) and OSS/BSS convergence ("digital BOSS"), I think this separation of concerns is still valid. Core commerce components are aware of services, but not of service details as they use end-to-end service management as an abstraction layer to communicate with various domain orchestrators that deal with technical service design & runtime.

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    Bostjan Keber
    Marand d.o.o.
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  • 11.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    Posted Jul 16, 2020 09:25
    Many thanks  @Bostjan Keber ​​ !!

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    DANIEL SOEIRO SANTOS
    Telefonica Brasil S.A.
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  • 12.  RE: Product to Service mapping: From TMF 622 to TMF 641

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jul 16, 2020 10:06
    Bostjan 
    Agree with you that this separation is valid and operationally important .
    In the Open Digital Archtiecture   IG1167 ODA Functional Architecture v5.0.1
     we separate Core Commerce from Production exactly for this reason.
    The  exposure from  ODA Production is of Services.
    In most cases these Services will be provided using the  TMF909 API Suite Specification for NaaS v3.0.1
    with appropriate Service Models  usually based on the Information Framework Customer Facing Service (CFS) concept 

    There is a lot of interest in how to go between Product and Service based models and we are pulling together guidance in what we call vertical /blueprints in the ODA team. 

    We have explored the implementation of ODA Production in GB999 ODA Production Implementation Guidelines v4.0.1  which covers both Service and Resource domains and where the general  implementation model has been derived from the resuslts of six+ 5G related catalysts projects.  This also links to modelling concepts of Reaource Fucntions to support virtualisation and modelling intent based interfaces using the Feature concept embedded in the TM Forum Information Fraweeok and  OPEN APIS.
    We are just publishing some example Service and Resource models for 5G NRM and Slices in  


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    Dave Milham
    TM Forum CHIEF ArchItect
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