ODA blog series: “Interoperability mismatch” to “Plug and Play” ecosystem

Communications service providers (CSPs) are facing a dilemma. While their revenue and growth continue to stagnate, they are under tremendous pressure to simultaneously cut costs, deploy 5G, create differentiated customer experiences and overhaul the way they develop and deliver new services.

What is fundamental to solving these issues, whilst not necessarily a new concept, is the ability for both operators and vendors to work together to provide new solutions both quickly and effectively. Even if an operator, with their vendors, does achieve some form of integration success, it will be bespoke, developed to a non-industry standard and ultimately, over time, create the same technical debt and slow deployment of customer services they originally sought to eradicate. What is needed is a set of Open Standards that are industry-led that can be implemented across the telecoms industry to close the “interoperability mismatch”.

Open Digital Architecture (ODA) replaces traditional operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) with a new approach to building software for the telecoms industry, opening a market for standardized, cloud-native software components, and enabling communication service providers and suppliers to invest in IT for new and differentiated services instead of maintenance and integration. ODA transforms business agility, customer experience and operational efficiency by creating simpler IT solutions that are easier and cheaper to deploy, integrate & upgrade.

Introducing Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

Those of us that have been in telecommunications for a while will know TM Forum’s drive over the last 20 years, to create a common understanding within the industry by introducing a common language that allowed operators and vendors to understand the business problem (eTOM), inter-operations processes, data models (SID), application definitions (TAM) and governance processes.

Though, it was the introduction of TM Forum Open APIs that really started to provide a tangible, coded and certified way for vendor software to be integrated within a CSP’s environment. TM Forum Open APIs are already removing the guesswork to successfully solve the connectivity requirements, both vertically and horizontally, within an operator's operational ecosystem. However, this is not enough if we truly want to create a wide integration methodology.

TM Forum is now taking the next new exciting and dynamic step to closing the industry-wide “interoperability mismatch”. Within ODA, our member-led initiative has created the components and canvas concept which will deliver a new way to manage IT and business operations. It is an industry-led capability that aims to replace traditional operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS) with a modern, cloud-native approach to building software for the telecoms industry. It will create a “plug and play” methodology, between CSPs and vendors, which will dramatically improve the time to market of new customer focused services, whilst simultaneously reducing the amount of technical debt they build up and reducing the CAPEX and OPEX costs.

In our next blogs, we will discuss how all of this innovation leads to growth, for both operators and vendors, through concepts like “ODA for networks” and deploying ODA within any cloud-native environment. We will discuss how Open Digital Framework (ODF), foundational standards helping CSPs to create the next-generation operating models that leverage AI within automated networks and implement concepts such as intent-based operations.

Read ODA blog series:

• Interoperability mismatch” to “Plug and Play” ecosystem
• Leading companies prove real-world value of TM Forum Open APIs
• The creation of industry-wide Open Standard for a “plug and play” ecosystem
• Creating next-gen telco interoperability on cloud native networks
• Taking autonomous networks from theory to reality