Original Message:
Sent: Jun 07, 2025 17:01
From: Juan Casanovas
Subject: CheckAvailability in TMF645 for 5G Network Slicing: Feasibility vs. High-Level Catalog Checks?
Thanks a lot for your response and for the helpful recommendations.
I had indeed used the community search and found a couple of useful references:
TMF645 - Check Service Qualification - qualificationResult
Usage of TMF 645
which makes me thing about (but I have serious doubts about it):
- TMF645 (high level feasibility) : For catalog-driven or rule-based qualification (e.g., based on static coverage maps, pre-defined policies):
- Use Synchronous (200 OK)
- Justification: Fast lookups are possible; no need to delay the client.
- TMF645 (lowlevel feasibility): For feasibility that requires OSS/resource layer checks (e.g., involving NSMF/NSSMF or live network conditions):
- Use Asynchronous (202 Accepted)
- Justification: These involve external systems and may take time.
Now, regarding to the level of feasibility, thank you so much for pointing out to the agent and TMFS014 , it was super helpful.
My understanding is that in the TMFS014 – 5G Slice Management Use Case v4.0.1, the slicing flow assumes that feasibility checks may require runtime validation:
> _"It may be necessary for the Quantitative and Qualitative analysis algorithm to cross-check the slice profile corresponding to the core slice subnet with the slice profile for the RAN and Transport domain."_ in the (Section 4.4)
I understand that this might imply that domain-specific orchestration (via NSMF->NSSMF) is required to ensure the feasibility of a requested slice, especially in terms of real-time capacity, latency, and deployment constraints. That the NSMF can confirm that catalogs contain intended or design-time capabilities, but these may not reflect the current network state. For example, a URLLC slice may be defined in the catalog, but unavailable in a given region at a given time, but I'm still not able to see the idea of being able to invoke the TMF645 checkAvailability sync API call to make this low-level feasibility request.
I'm looping in my colleague @Peter Bruun, who's our internal guru on TM Forum :D
BTW, something that took my attention was that the in the TMFS014 shows that TMF641 is invoked before TMF645 feasibility, interesting...
- TMF641 carries the intent ("I want a Platinum slice with 5 ms latency").
- During the processing of that order, the system performs feasibility checks (which can use TMF645 internally or equivalent orchestration logic)
- The order is only fulfilled if feasibility is confirmed - otherwise, the customer may get a quote adjustment or fallback options.
Kind Regards,
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Juan Casanovas
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 05, 2025 11:57
From: Matthieu Hattab
Subject: CheckAvailability in TMF645 for 5G Network Slicing: Feasibility vs. High-Level Catalog Checks?
you should post in the API community, where API experts have API discussion.
I would also advise that you query TMF645 in the community search engine, this particular API was discussed so many times
you should also use TMF AI agent, it can answers most questions.
i.e. I put your question there and it found how to do 5G network slice with TMF645 In a jiffy (spoiler: it's asset TMFS014, which you can download from the main website or from the wiki)
my 2 cents.
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Kind regards,
Matthieu Hattab
Digital Sales Domain Architect
Lyse Tele AS
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 04, 2025 04:37
From: Juan Casanovas
Subject: CheckAvailability in TMF645 for 5G Network Slicing: Feasibility vs. High-Level Catalog Checks?
Hello community,
This is my first post here on the TM Forum Engage platform, and I'm looking forward to learning from your experiences and best practices.
I'm working on aligning our OSS/BSS implementation with TM Forum Open APIs and I'm currently focusing on TMF645 – Service Qualification API, particularly the checkAvailability operation in the context of 5G network slicing.
From my understanding, the checkAvailability (CheckServiceQualification) operation is meant to confirm whether a requested service (e.g. a 5G network slice) can be offered to a customer at a given location. However, I'm looking for clarification on the intended depth of this check in practical 5G slice orchestration implementations.
Specifically:
-
Is checkAvailability intended to perform real-time, low-level feasibility checks (e.g., RAN/Core domain resource evaluation via NSMF/NSSMF), or is it generally meant for high-level catalog/policy-based eligibility assessments? For instance, should this be a lightweight synchronous response based on known slice types, coverage maps, and policy thresholds? Or can it involve actual resource-level queries?
-
Can you share examples or guidance on how CSPs typically implement this in 5G slicing? For example, if a customer requests a URLLC slice in a region that lacks appropriate RAN deployment, would checkAvailability consult live network data or simply return "Unqualified" based on a static policy or slice capability model.
When referring to catalog/policy-based eligibility assessments, I'm trying to clarify whether the intent of the checkAvailability operation in TMF645 is to rely solely on the NSMF's internal service catalog and policy models, or whether it is expected to involve dynamic status or resource checks against real-time network conditions.
For example, if the NSMF has a predefined catalog of available network slice types (e.g., eMBB, URLLC, mMTC) and associated coverage or capacity rules (like which cities support which slices), is the TMF645 response expected to come exclusively from that catalog informatio, meaning it would answer based on static models or thresholds (e.g., "slice type X is generally supported in region Y")?, or is it also considered acceptable (or even expected) for the NSMF to consult live data sources or domain-specific NSSMFs (e.g., RAN/Core subnets) during a checkAvailability request to determine whether a slice of the requested characteristics is feasible right now, based on current utilization, congestion, or operational constraints?
Any insights would be very helpful :D
I'd love to understand how others are using TMF645 for validating 5G network slice availability in real-world deployments.
Thanks in advance!
#General
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Juan Casanovas
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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