New Bike!

Last week i got new Yamaha Gladiator bike

Design Techniques

Some usefull java design techniques articles by Bill Venners

http://www.artima.com/designtechniques/

NGOSS Vs OSS/J

NGOSS (New Generation Operations Systems and Software):

1) The NGOSS program has focused on the business and systems aspects of OSS-solution delivery (essentially the problem and solution statement)

2) The NGOSS initiative has delivered business-process and system frameworks, methodologies, UML information models, and resources to help members in the development of NGOSS-compliant components

3) NGOSS concentrating on the technology-neutral aspects


OSS/J (OSS through Java):

1) OSS/J program has focused on the implementation and
deployment aspects (essentially the solution realization and deployment using Java technology).

2) The OSS/J initiative has delivered freely-available, testable API specifications, reference implementations, and test kits

3) OSS/J concentrating on the technology-specific aspects of network management.

4) The OSS/J initiative has delivered freely-available, testable API specifications, reference implementations, and test kits


Both programs have the ultimate goal of promoting the delivery of reusable OSS solutions to service providers. As the two programs evolved, it became clear, at a high level, that the programs were complementary: NGOSS concentrating on the technology-neutral aspects and OSS/J concentrating on the technology-specific aspects of network management. Collaboration has been demonstrated with the development of OSS/J Core Business Entities that are based on TM Forum Shared Information and Data Model entities.

Java in Telecommunications – Telemangement Forum and OSS/J

By Gero Vermaas

Source:http://blog.xebia.com/2007/04/19/java-in-telecommunications-–-telemangement-forum-and-ossj/comment-page-1/#comment-8950

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

NGOSS consists of:

• Enhanced Telecom Operation Map (eTOM).
  Describes the business processes that each CSP typically has to run it's business. The processes are grouped into domains (product, customer, service, resource etc.) as illustrated in the figure on the right. When visiting a CSP you'll often see a more detailed version of this model used as wallpaper.

• Shared Information/Data Model (SID)
  Provides an information model consisting of so-called Aggregate Business Entities (ABE) and the relationships between them. The ABEs do not contain all relevant attributes, it is an abstract model. Even though it is abstract, is has proven to be very useful to ease communication and it is used as a basis for OSS/J.
  The SID model is organized in domains (eTOM domains) where the entities in a domain have a high degree of cohesion and coupling between the domains is loose.

• Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA):
  This is still under development, but the intention is that it describes the structural underpinnings and building constructs to support analysis, design, implementation and deployment of NGOSS open distributed computing solutions.

• NGOSS Compliance test
  A suite of tests to validate compliance to NGOSS standards

The idea of applying eTOM, SID and TNA of course is to create Lean Operators that can adapt quickly to new market conditions and deliver excellent value to it's customers.

Both eTOM and SID ease communication (both on a human-to-human and machine-to-machine level) by defining a common vocabulary for the CSP industry. For example, when discussing with vendors both can refer to eTOM domains or SID ABEs to specify what they search for (CSP) and what their products cover (vendor).

I've personally used to SID model to do domain modeling several times now. Initially I used to start with my own 'common sense' model, but discovered that I ended up with a model that was less flexible and less complete than the SID one. So now I always start with the SID model and check if there are aspects that can be left out or must be added to meet the business requirements.

The OSS/J APIs focus on Operations Support Systems (OSS) like Trouble Ticketing, Inventory Management and Order Management. The main goal of the OSS/J APIs is to slash the integration costs associated to the integration of Operations Support Systems. Initially the OSS/J Community was a separate organization, but since the summer of 2006 it is an integral part of the TMF. TMF stated that OSS/J is the preferred way to implement the concepts layed out in TMFs SID. Since the start of the OSS/J initiative, the Java Community Process has been used to develop the specifications.

OSS/J can be summarized as:

• Defining separate OSS/J APIs per eTOM domain, eTOM is used to group functionality into APIs. Currently there are 12 OSS/J APIs defined. Examples are Inventory Management, Order Management, Trouble Ticketing, Billing Mediation.
  One of the APIs is the Common API. This API forms the basis for the other APIs and defines the elements that are used on more than 1 API. Examples of these elements are the 'meta' operations used by clients to discover capabilities of an API implementation and the Managed Entities (see next bullet that are used by multiple APIs.
  Apart from the Common API, each API can be used independently of the other APIs, however, in some business scenarios it makes sense to use multiple APIs.

• Takes the Aggregate Business Entities from SID to define the OSS/J Managed Entities and their relationships. Examples of Managed Entities are Customer, Role, Service, OrderItem. Compared to the ABEs in SID, the Managed Entities are a more concrete representation. However, extension of these Managed Entities is typically needed when implementing an OSS/J API and there are strict guidelines (OSS/J Design Guidelines) that define how Managed Entities may be extended to guarantee interoperability.
  Integration costs are reduced because all OSS/J APIs base their Managed Entities on the SID ABEs, and the Common API defines the Managed Entities shared by multiple OSS/J APIs. As an example, a Order Management server typically needs to integrate with an Inventory Management system to query or update the inventory as orders are processed. Because they use the same (base) definitions for their Managed Entities, this integration is smooth.

• Provides 3 integration profiles:

  • EJB: Tightly coupled and bound to Java.

  • XML/JMS: Less tightly coupled, asynchronous and could be used with other languages.

  • WebServices: Loosely coupled and can be used with other languages.

    Each OSS/J APIs exposes the same functionality through the 3 integration profiles. You can pick the integration profiles that meets your requirements best.

• Defines the interaction patterns. Basically there are two main patterns:

  • Request – Response (or Exception in case of errors): synchronous (or asynchronous in case of JMS integration profile)

  • Events: Asynchronous, used to inform subscribers of actions that took place (for example: Order state changed)

In addition to these basic patterns, each OSS/J API defines how and in what sequence operations defined in the API should be used.

• For each API a fixed set of operations is defined. These operations are used to manage and query the Managed Entities used by the API. Fixed means that it is not possible to add new operations (as opposed to extending the Managed Entities which is allowed and often needed). It is possible to define so-called Named Queries such that you can define specific queries when needed. APIs typically already contain several named queries as part of the API definition.

Sounds complicated? Well to be honest, the learning curve for the first OSS/J API you work with is a bit steep. However, once you know one, the others are pretty simple and the initial efforts starts to pay off.

Demand in the marker for products that comply to the OSS/J specifications is increasing. This of course convinces vendors to make their products OSS/J compliant (see certified products) and also creates a market for companies that build adapters that can provide a OSS/J compliant interface to non-compliant products.

The next post will zoom in on the Order Management API. This is the API that is the subject of the JavaOne and TelemanagementWorld sessions in May.

Java in Telecommunications – Introduction

By Gero Vermaas

Source:http://blog.xebia.com/2007/03/30/java-in-telecommunications-introduction/

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.

As an aside, with the convergence of TV, Internet and telephony it is better to use the term Communication Service Providers (CSP) to capture the whole domain of TV, Internet and telephony.

Java Specification Requests (JSR) for CSP industry can be grouped as follows:

• All JSRs targetted at the mobile devices (38)

• The JAIN family of JSRs (28)

• The OSS/J family of JSRs (12)

(Total number of JRSs 339, so more than 20% is related to CSPs).

Next to these specifications the CSP industry also makes heavy use of the better known parts of the Java platform like Java Standard Edition, Java Enterprise Edition, etc.

The first group of JSRs, Java on Mobile devices, is probably the best known use of Java in telecommunications industry. The enormous number of Java enabled devices consists for a large part of mobile phones and Sun will definitely highlight this again at JavaOne this year. The J2ME, MIDP, CLDC specifications are all targeted at these devices. They make it possible to create applications and games that run on many mobile devices. An example is GCalSync, which synchronizes Google Calendar with the calendar on your mobile).

Much less known is the use of Java in the core telecommunications network and in Operations Support Systems (OSS). The core telecommunications network is the network to which your (fixed or mobile) phone connects. This is the infrastructure needed to actually setup and complete a phone call from one device to another. The OSS systems are more in the IT side and take care of activating of services, billing etc. OSS systems often do not play an active role during a phone call. There is of course a connection between these the OSS systems and the core network. For example, for activating services an OSS Service Activation system will activate services on core network elements like switches.

The JAIN family of APIs is targeted at the core telecommunications network. These APIs define functionality to access core telco network protocols, do call routing, handle media and much more. Ax example of a protocol that many people might know is the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This protocol is used in many VoIP implementations and if you've played with VoIP on your computer you probably had to configure SIP Proxies etc. Within the JAIN domain there is even a special kind of application server, the JAIN Service Logic Execution Environment (JAIN SLEE).

Third, but not last, there is the OSS though Java (OSS/J) family of APIs. This family of APIs is targeted at the so called Operations Support Systems that all CSPs have to run their business. The Operation Support Systems cover functionality like activating services on the network, inventory management, fault management, trouble ticketing, order management and billing. One of te main goals of the OSS/J APIs is to slash the integration costs of OSS systems.

So much for the introduction, in the next post I will zoom in on parts of the work done by TeleManagement Forum and the basic ideas behind OSS/J.

Quotes from movie "Peacefull Warrior"

Socrates: Everything has a purpose, even this, and it's up to you to find it.

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Socrates: A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does

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Socrates: I call myself a Peaceful Warrior... because the battles we fight are on the inside

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Socrates: This moment is the only thing that matters.

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Socrates: Where are you?
Dan Millman: Here.
Socrates: What time is it?
Dan Millman: Now.
Socrates: What are you?
Dan Millman: This moment.

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Joy: [to Dan, touching his chest] I don't think your leg was the only thing that got broken.

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Dan Millman: The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination

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Dan Millman: The ones who are hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most.

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Socrates: Those who are the hardest to love, need it the most

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Socrates: There is only the journey

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Socrates: A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability. He's about absolute vulnerability.

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Socrates: There is no starting or stopping - only doing.

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Dan Millman: There are no ordinary moments.

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Socrates: It's the journey, not the destination.

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Socrates: There's no greater purpose than service to others.

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Socrates: Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what's good for you. They don't want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs.
Dan Millman: Let me guess, and you want me to believe yours.
Socrates: No, I want you to stop gathering information from the outside and start gathering it from the inside.

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Socrates: People are not theirs thoughts, they think they are, and it brings them all kinds of sadness.

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Dan Millman: Life has just three rules?
Socrates: And you already know them...
Dan Millman: Paradox, humour, and change.
Socrates: Paradox...
Dan Millman: Life is a mystery. Don't waste time trying to figure it out.
Socrates: Humour...
Dan Millman: Keep a sense of humour, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure.
Socrates: Change...
Dan Millman: Know that nothing stays the same.

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Dan Millman: I took for granted what I could do. I was sloppy with my life; I'm scared but I feel like I got rid of all the old stuff and it was the right thing to do.

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Socrates: Death isn't sad. The sad thing is: most people don't live at all.

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Socrates: Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses.

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Socrates: Do you know what's the difference between me and you?
Socrates: You practice gymnastics, I practice everything!

Movies I've seen in April,2009

1) Ankit, Pallavi and Friends (Telugu)

2) Sasirekha Parinayam (Telugu)

3) How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

4) The Reader

5) The Passengers

6) Siddu From Sikakulam (Telugu)

7) Dasavatharam (Telugu)

8) Villu (Tamil)

9) Iron Man

10) Untraceble

11) She's the Man

12) Fly me to the Moon

13) Mental krishna (Telugu)

14) True Lies