Posted by Gero Vermaas in the late evening: February 26th, 2008
Posted by Gero Vermaas mid-morning: November 16th, 2007
Last week I visited the TelemanagementWorld conference and with Andreas and John we did a session to explain why the Order Management API is perfect for converging environments like Telco, Cable, ISP, Mobile. The presentation can be downloaded from the TMForum web-site (session SYS33). But, because it is only accessible to TMForum members or a visitors of the conference, I’ll provide a summary below.
Posted by Gero Vermaas in the early morning: September 25th, 2007
The Order Management API 1.0 has been released. The Order Management API is (as far as we in the JSR264 Expert Group (EG) know) the only open and standards based API available for order management and is relevant for any organization developing an order management solution. By using this API as a basis for your Order Management solution you can reuse the knowledge of others (not reinventing the wheel), reduce your integration costs and create a flexible Order Management solution.
In a previous blog post I already described the features of the API in detail, so I’ll just repeat the most important features:
The JSR264 specification can be downloaded from the JCP website. The Reference Implementation (RI) and Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) are available at the TelemanagementForum website. More information on JSR264 can be found at the JSR264 java.net site.
Posted by Gero Vermaas at around evening time: June 6th, 2007
In the previous episodes in this series we started from a high level Java in the Telecommunications industry, zoomed in on Telemanagement Forum and the basics of OSS/J, described the basics of the Order Management API and now we’ll discuss why the Order Management API fits perfectly in an Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Why is this a relevant question? Virtually any organization does with order management in one way or another and many organizations are currently evaluating or realizing SOAs. Reason enough to check if the Order Management API fits in an SOA.
Posted by Gero Vermaas in the early afternoon: May 14th, 2007
In the previous two episodes in this series we described the position of Java in the Telecommunications industry, Telemanagement Forum and the basics of OSS/J. This episode focuses on the Order Management API (JSR 264), this is one of the OSS/J APIs being developed using the JCP process (proposed final draft 2 will be released May/June ’07). It is also the API we covered during last weeks session at JavaOne.
Order management is a common process and virtually every organization does some sort of order management to ensure that it can process requests from it’s customers and deliver the requested product (for example book, car, drivers license) or service (for example telephony, health insurance, TV). The Order Management API is (as far as we know) the only open and standards based API available for order management and therefore is relevant for many organizations developing an order management solution (not telecommunications only). By using this API as a basis for your order management solution you can reuse the knowledge of others (not reinventing the wheel) and reduce your integration costs.
Posted by Gero Vermaas mid-afternoon: April 19th, 2007
As promised in the first post in this series, we’ll now zoom in on the Telemanagement Forum (TMF) and OSS/J. This post will be a bit theoretical, but I promise that the next one will be more practical 
Telemanagement Forum is an organization that strives to improve the interoperability in the Communication Service Provider (CSP) industry through its New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) program. Members of the TMF are not only the telco’s, but also network equipment vendors and system integrators. All of them provide input to the NGOSS program
Posted by Gero Vermaas mid-afternoon: March 30th, 2007
Why a blog on Java and telecommunications? There is no other industry for which the Java Community Process hosts so many specifications and I wonder if people are aware of this. Additionally, in May I’ll be doing a session on both JavaOne and Telemanagement World conferences. A nice trigger for a series of blog postings that starts with an overview of where Java plays a role in the telecommunications industry and with each subsequent post zoom in on the subject of the sessions: OSS/J Order Management and SOA.