While the TeleManagement Forum (TMF) is making efforts to draw the cable industry into an effort to normalize OSS and BSS systems on a worldwide basis (see TM Forum creates Cable Interest Group above), Sigma Systems has been working with the expert group at the TMF charged with developing a specification for OSS/J Order Management APIs. The OSS/J order management API will enable service providers to effectively integrate OSS service management and BSS systems.

This working group combines the efforts of two groups that had been working separately, though in parallel, until last year – the OSS through Java (OSS/J) initiative and the TMF.

The latter was founded in 2000 to develop a set of J2EE, open interface standards for the telecommunications industry, including integration of BSS and OSS. The TMF is developing an OSS standards blueprint for New Generation OSS (NGOSS). OSS/J had come up with a suite of Java, XML, and Web Services APIs aligned with NGOSS that quickly link OSS applications together throughout their lifecycle. In May 2006, the OSS/J initiative partnered with the TMF.

This new order management API standardizes how an order capture system (billing or CRM) communicates with an OSS service management system, such as Sigma Systems’ Service Management Platform (SMP) 4.0, to handle product, service or work orders provisioned across a CSP’s service delivery network.

“The newest release of OSS/J APIs is a significant step towards accelerating convergence in the communications industry,” said Martin Creaner, president of the TM Forum. “It is a key milestone in our goal to make it easier for the industry to put the NGOSS framework into practice.”