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Frameworx 16.5 is out – packed with just what you always wanted

19 Dec 2016
Frameworx 16.5 is out – packed with just what you always wanted

Frameworx 16.5 is out – packed with just what you always wanted

Santa has come a bit early this year for TM Forum’s members – we’ve just released a whole lot of goodies in Frameworx 16.5. It includes APIs, agile-making assets, analytics, IoE and stuff to make your customers like you more.

Here are the highlights – if you prefer the whole nine-yards formal announcement, knock yourself out – or scan straight to the bottom to hear why we do it from our Deputy CEO Nik Willetts.
API Christmas

The Forum’s Open API collaborative team has delivered its largest suite of assets so far. After the release of the new API crowd sourcing template in June and phase two of the Open API Manifesto, check out the 13 new API specifications – three conformance profiles, test scripts and an Open API governance guidebook (doesn’t quite scan to 12 Days of Christmas/A Partridge in a Pear Tree, but fun trying).

The suite extends the automated capabilities for product, service and resource management (like ordering, inventory, catalog and test management). There are new APIs too for prepay balances, loyalty and change management, bringing the total number of Open APIs produced by the Forum to 31.

Members have also produced the Forum’s first conformance profiles and test scripts, including the Product Catalog API, Trouble Ticket API and Entity Provisioning API to support interoperability and the evaluation of implementations with standard API specifications – and API governance guidebook to ensure consistency.
Look lively – contributions from the Agile teams

The days in the Northern hemisphere might be at their shortest, but there’s been no sleeping on the job in the Agile program. Members working in the ZOOM project (Zero-touch Orchestration, Operations and Management) have completed the first release of a blueprint for a Hybrid Network Management platform, offering a guide to creating a management platform for today’s crazy business dynamics. It will form the foundation for a magnum opus in 2017, which will bring together open source groups to show how they can implement such a platform.
Get onboard

Members’ work on procuring and onboarding virtual network functions is another unique development. Here’s why it matters. First, the shift to virtualization is changing the relationship between network operators and equipment providers. Second, the move to a more agile business environment of continuous innovation and integration means transforming the processes involved in onboarding new functions.

What have we done about it? AT&T, China Mobile, Orange and Verizon have collaborated with ecosystem partners including Amdocs, Cloud Best Practices Network, EnterpriseWeb, Huawei, IBM and Oracle to provide a model-driven approach to onboarding in the award winning Catalyst proof-of-concept project: Enabling the Digital Services Marketplace with Onboarding Automation.

Being agile also demands DevOps methodologies within traditional network operations, so we’ve published a study on the impacts of working across multiple partners in such an environment. It will be followed in 2017 by a practical guide to deploying DevOps methodologies.
Gotten to the core

The Forum’s core frameworks, including the Business Process Framework (eTOM), Information Framework (SID), and Application Framework (TAM) models and best practices remain at the forefront of digital business transformation. Check out the refreshed training courses that show the latest uses of Frameworx for digital transformation.
The Internet of Everything (IoE)

Our recent smash-hit ebook Navigating the IoE Roadmap of Challenges: Insights and opinions for digital businesses lists the top 20 business, technology and market challenges facing all companies in the digital economy. The Forum’s IoE program is prioritizing work on trust and monetization from that list, seeing them as two key factors in the management of complex IoE projects – which have an increasingly multifaceted risk:reward ratio.
From foundations to the ozone layer

The Catalyst project, Smart life: My home, my city, my planet, recently built a prototype foundation of an agile IoE ecosystem at TM Forum’s Innovation InFocus conference. Orange and NTT championed the proof-of-concept project with participants including Amdocs, BearingPoint/Infonova, BaseN, ESRI and NTS Retail to show how to deliver a range of smart services (such as temperature sensors in cars and buildings, personal wearable devices, air monitoring units and more) and how different vertical domains can be interconnected into a seamless service bundle. Oh yeah, it’s good for the planet, too.
Keep your nose clean

Privacy and data protection are imperative to anyone collecting, processing or storing data that relates to individuals – especially given the exponential increase in the volume of data generated across digital ecosystems and the growing demand for privacy from individuals (who need to trust organizations they deal with) and from governments (frequently underpinned by legislation and penalties such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation).

TaDa – the Digital Services Reference Architecture (DSRA) defines a privacy management service which, for the first time, support the management of privacy across the DSRA and introduces the Privacy Management API.
More partners than a dating agency

The not very romantically named TR211 Online B2B2X Partnering Step-by-Step Guide has enabled more partnerships all around the world than many a dating agency – and typically established them on a sound commercial footing to boot. Along with its partner, the TR424 B2B2X Business Scenario Template, the guide has been extended to include new sections on monetization and the platform economy.

The idea is that they integrate key platform concepts with the business, contractual, financial and operational models defined in these tools, so the producers and consumers in the platform economy can add value to their interactions.
Automating analytics – your customers will love it

The newly published Big Data Analytics Guidebook includes a new automated toolkit for data analytics maturity to provide a starting point for assessing an organization’s current state and identifying opportunities for closing critical analytics gaps.
Multi-purpose data

The latest enhancement of the Analytics Big Data Repository (ABDR) addresses critical domains such as the customer and billing. Why? Because Service providers have long captured vast quantities of transactional data from their traditional OSSs (which have used the Information Framework (SID) to make more robust and scalable) but they want data-driven insights NOW, and the ABDR speeds it all up by permitting efficient and straightforward re-use of data for multiple purposes.
Cognitive Digital Agent?

The Catalyst project that won Best in Show at the recent TM Forum Live! Asia conference was Cognitive Digital Agent. This proof-of concept project was championed by Globe Telecom and supported by industry participants Amdocs, Huawei and Infosys. It showed how to create the next generation of customer care services through machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies…you’re going to hear a lot more about topics and soon…
Measure then make better

Measuring customer experience is complicated and ever more complex due to multiple sales channels, automated support systems and the virtualization of networks. The GB995 Guidebook on 360 Degree view of the Customer includes a new method for outside-in scoring of customer experience that’s way beyond the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in measuring customer sentiment. Be prepared to learn the worst (and best)!
This is why we do it

Nik Willetts, Deputy CEO, TM Forum, said of this cornucopia of new assets, “Our singular focus at TM Forum is on helping our members to transform successfully to thrive in the digital world, enabling the journey from communications service provider to digital service provider and the ‘software-defined telco’. This latest round of member-driven collaborative innovation is a giant step forward for our members and the industry as whole.”

There you have it. Don’t digest it all at once – save some for Boxing Day.