Action Week 2020: Pulling it all together
Figuring out how to implement use cases for autonomous networks, developing “checklists” and APIs for AI, working out how to monetize 5G among partners, and developing a reference implementation for future support system architectures are just some of the goals TM Forum members will advance at Action Week.
Dawn Bushaus
Action Week 2020: Pulling it all together
Held twice a year, Action Week brings together communications service providers (CSPs), their suppliers and others from the ICT industry to collaborate on standards and best practices for business processes and network operations. The meetings are often members' only chance to work together face to face on important challenges.
Since members who work in one Collaboration Community workstream may not know about what is happening in the others, an important effort this week is to explain the relationships and interdependencies between them, particularly how work on the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), autonomous networks and AI intersects. During a combined session, members collaborating in each of the three groups came together to provide updates on their work and then broke into groups to discuss how best to articulate the relationships between them.
Mapping is needed
“There are reference architectures; there are best practices and guidebooks; there’s data governance – there’s a whole plethora of stuff going on,” Kevin McDonnell, Senior Director, Ireland Research Centre, Huawei Technologies, summarized. “We need some kind of mapping exercise.”
McDonnell’s group provided a white board sketch that the full group agreed could serve as a good starting point. It appeared as a simple Venn diagram illustrating intersection of the ODA, AI and Autonomous Networks projects.
“It’s a universe of possibilities, and a universe is a multi-dimensional thing,” said Christian Maître, Director of Global Operations Transformation Deployment at Orange Group. “Instead of having this flat vision, we need something that is 3D or 4D.”
Earlier on, Maître’s team presented a diagram that looked more like the layered ODA architecture.
Another group saw the focus as being on end-to-end services.
Other groups had different visions:
A place to start
This session served as a good starting point to help members understand the relationship among components of TM Forum’s Open Digital Framework, an umbrella set of tools which includes all the assets being developed through the TM Forum Collaboration Program and Catalyst Program.
If you have questions about any of this work, you can send a message to justask@tmforum.org. If you'd like to get involved in TM Forum’s Collaboration Community, please contact Andy Tiller.
Stay tuned this week for more news from Action Week.
