Several important Inventory Interfaces have been deployed in commercial projects across the communications industry. In particular, the TM Forum OSS/J Inventory API, the TM Forum MTOSI Inventory APIs and the 3GPP IRP addressing network synchronization have been implemented and successfully used in various solutions. 

While, most of the time, these Interfaces have been used separately in specific domains, and integrated on an ad hoc basis where required, Service Providers are now looking for more agile interfaces which can be applied independent of the domain and integrated more easily. 

For historical reasons, the OSSJ, MTOSI and 3GPP Inventory Interfaces are not compatible and each address a specific portion of the problem space. As a consequence, the cost of integration remains sub-optimal for Service Providers.
To address this situation, this project is working to:

• analyze the three Inventory Interfaces mentioned above,
• collect and select use cases and requirements,
• define a new Inventory Interface which will be applied to multiple domains in a flexible way, thus reducing integration cost for Service Providers.

The Inventory project will assess the existing Inventory interfaces with a view to near term consolidation and ongoing evolution to the TM Forum Integration Framework.

• Inventory for:
  • Resource
  • Service
• Consider a flexible approach where different specific information models could be used
  • from the Telecom domain (e.g. incorporating wireless and wireline models),
  • or  from other domains (e.g. Information Technology).