Project Leaders:
Enrico Ronco (TI)
Jenny Huang AT&T Labs
Johan Vandenberghe Alcatel-Lucent
TM Forum Staff Support: Tony Richardson
Project Activities
SDF development will take place over a number of Phases.
SDF phase I (June 2007- Jan 2008) established a firm foundation upon which the detailed specifications of Phase II can be built. In summary, Phase I produced:
An SDF Reference Model (which will be further refined as development progresses in Phase II)
TR139 Version 1.0 – which provides an overview of the Reference Model, the main business drivers and technical drivers which led to the Reference Model, a description of the scope of SDF, role of other Industry Groups contributing to SDF developments etc.
Requirements Tool – A short evaluation in Phase I led to IBM’s RequisitePro being selected to support Requirements gathering.
Business Agreement (BA) development – using the above tool some development of SDF Requirements was carried out according to TM Forum’s BA template structure and the SDF Reference Model structure. Continuing this work will be the major theme of Phase II development.
Industry Group involvements – A number of Industry Groups have been invited to work with TM Forum on the development of the SDF. An Industry Group Positioning Document (IGPD) Version 1.0 has been produced as a specific project deliverable in Phase I – this shows the potential positioning of the various Industry Group contributions into the SDF development. This will be further expanded upon and turned into a TM Forum Technical Report (TR141) in Phase II
Project Structure
SDF development is carried out as a program of work activities over several Phases
An SDF management structure consists of the overall Program Lead (TM Forum secondee) with two Lead Supports from member companies (also representing the Service Provider and Supplier viewpoints). In addition a member of TM Forum technical personnel assists program operation, deliverables production, support of Industry Group collaborations etc.
A number of work theme owners from TM Forum membership are identified who co-ordinate and provide focused conclusions to specific work item discussions. Document owners are assigned to each of the major deliverables.
Regular co-ordination conference calls are held at least once / week, and often more regularly for specific shorter-term work items.
Team Details:
TM Forum is extending its Management activities to include end-to-end Management of Next Generation Services - which will include service components from many other Industry providers (eg Content, Cable, Entertainment etc).
A major aspect associated with this is the Service Delivery Framework (SDF)
which is associated with rapid multi-supplier service delivery. For TM Forum this will involve defining the essential Management capabilities - which will be required to adequately support the SDF and also the associated end-to-end service concerns.
The “SDF Team” has been formed to progress this work. This team brings together the previous work activities of the TM Forum Board sponsored “Landscape” project and previous Next Generation Networks Management (NGN-M team) developments.
Present work involves defining the Requirements to fill “Gaps” in existing NGOSS Frameworks and associated specifications (eg eTOM, SID, TAM etc). In addition the positioning of appropriate contributions from other Industry Groups and market sectors will also be an essential facet of this project.
Real-world Application
Since the SDF project covers a major element of New Generation Services (NGS) including Service Convergence (eg FMC), most areas of traditional fixed, mobile, cable operations will be covered. In addition many related areas such as Content Management, IMS (IP Multimedia Sub-System) and Entertainment / Multi-Media services will also be of importance.