The AXIOSS Active Catalog formalizes the componentization principle which has underpinned much of Axiom Systems´ development over recent years, decoupling management of the product lifecycle from OSS, BSS and network engineering. It provides a design and assembly environment within which service components can be defined and commercial products can be created from robust, tested and reusable building blocks, allowing a bilateral approach to service design:
- Bottom up, creating, testing and publishing components which can be reused with confidence across multiple services and service variants.
- Top down, allowing marketing professionals to combine service components into commercial products, and allowing customers to further adapt their product using pre-tested options and variants.
"As service providers steadily broaden service portfolios, the individual development and management of new services in a ´siloed´ environment will become increasingly unsustainable", said Brian Naughton, VP Architecture and Strategy at Axiom Systems. "The Active Catalog extends the componentized approach adopted throughout the AXIOSS suite and provides marketing professional with the ability to combine, configure and bundle service components in a code-free environment."
The AXIOSS Active Catalog bridges the gap between offline product management lifecycles and operational and service execution environments, removing the complexity of front and back office systems to that a service provider can focus on customer centric service design, creation and delivery.
The AXIOSS Active Catalog forms of a key part of the Product & Service Assembly Initiative, a TeleManagement Forum catalyst project which is being demonstrated at TMW Dallas. Initiated by Axiom Systems, the collaboration involves Atos Origin, BT, Cable & Wireless, Celona, Huawei, Oracle and TeliaSonera, and has resulted in the successful development of an end-to-end reference architecture for Product and Service Assembly.
Dave Millham, OSS Architecture & Innovation, BT Group, who is actively involved in the catalyst and is also speaking at TMW Dallas about adopting a production line approach to service assembly, said: "The biggest challenge facing service providers today is reducing the burden of getting new products to market. The PSA catalyst demonstration, incorporating the Active Catalog, shows that improving the agility of front and back office systems has a dramatic impact on the time and cost implications of devising and launching new telecom products."
The Active Catalog module will be previewed on stand 206 at TeleManagement World Americas 2006 in Dallas, Texas, between December 5th and 7th 2006. The product can be seen in operation as part of the Product and Service Assembly catalyst which is being demonstrated at the event.
The Active Catalog module will be entirely compatible and fully pre-integrated with AXIOSS when made commercially available in mid-2007.