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In the rapidly evolving landscape of telecommunications, MEF continues to lead the charge in standardizing and automating industry processes. At the heart of this innovation are Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) APIs, which are transforming how service providers, enterprises, and cloud services interact. These APIs define critical reference points between key functions within service providers and extend outward to enterprises and cloud environments, creating a seamless ecosystem for service delivery and management.
Central to this ecosystem are LSO Business APIs, which have become indispensable tools for automating various stages of the business lifecycle. These APIs cover a wide range of business functions, including product availability and pricing discovery, quoting, ordering, billing and settlement, and trouble ticketing. By enabling this level of automation between buyers and sellers, LSO Business APIs significantly enhance the user experience. They accelerate the flow of information, streamline the customer experience, and dramatically reduce the need for manual intervention, leading to faster, more efficient operations across the board.
In its ongoing commitment to industry advancement, MEF has recently made available its latest LSO API release, named LSO Haley. This release introduces into the LSO API suite the ability of potential buyers to request and receive in one action all the availability and pricing options provided by the seller – in the form of the Product Offering Availability and Pricing API. This capability is in addition to the ‘classic’ telecom interaction of ‘product offering qualification’ and quote requests and aligns with the approach taken with cloud-based offerings such as compute and storage.
Key Features of the New APIs
- Product Offering Availability Discovery: The APIs enable buyers to retrieve a comprehensive list of product configurations based on a specified product and delivery context, such as location and relationship to other installed products. For instance, a buyer could use this capability to generate a list of available cloud on-ramps and their supported bandwidths at a specific data center. This detailed information facilitates informed decision-making, allowing buyers to seamlessly move to the Pricing Discovery stage.
- Pricing Discovery: Building on the availability discovery capability, pricing discovery allows buyers to obtain tailored pricing and term options for the selected configuration. By specifying the product and delivery context, buyers receive accurate and relevant pricing details, ensuring the chosen solution meets the buyer’s specific needs.
- Point of Service Specific Queries: The LSO Product Offering Availability and Pricing Discovery APIs allow buyers to query a chosen supplier and retrieve detailed information about specific products, configurations, and pricing structures available. Buyers can assess the offering and determine if it meets their service requirements.
- Complementary to Existing Systems: These LSO APIs complement the existing framework by addressing a specific and growing need in the service discovery and pricing process. While the broader suite of LSO APIs is designed to support various business models and accommodate lengthy decision-making processes—particularly for complex topologies—the new Menu Driven APIs are tailored for rapid, dynamic interactions. They are optimized for Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) integration, enabling highly interactive and self-service-driven exchanges, which are essential for today’s fast-paced telecommunications environment.
These additions to the LSO API suite significantly enhance the efficiency of service provider interactions. These APIs reduce the need for back-and-forth communications, minimize errors associated with manual processes, and provide a standardized method for exchanging critical product and pricing information. This level of automation is particularly valuable in today’s fast-paced cloud-oriented telecommunications market, where rapid response times and accurate information are crucial for business success.
MEF’s ongoing efforts to standardize and streamline telecommunications processes, including the efficient method for product discovery and pricing enabled by these APIs, contributes to a more agile, responsive, and interconnected industry ecosystem. By leveraging work from the industry, including contributions from organizations such as TM Forum, ONAP, and ONF, MEF ensures that its LSO APIs are comprehensive, interoperable, and aligned with broader industry trends. As service providers and enterprises alike adopt and integrate these new capabilities, we can expect to see continued improvements in service delivery, customer satisfaction, and overall operational efficiency across the telecommunications sector.
Learn More
- MEF’s LSO APIs for Business Automation
- Implementing MEF’s LSO APIs
- Haley Release APIs on the LSO Marketplace
