The Catalyst Program is the BSS/OSS proving ground. It provides service providers, systems integrators, and hardware/software vendors the environment to work together to solve common, critical industry challenges through collaborative short term projects that culminate in live demonstrations. Solutions built by Catalyst teams are based on TM Forum standards that enable ease of integration across multiple Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products.
Unique to the Catalyst program, each of project is sponsored by active service provider participants who define the project scope and business requirements. The demonstrations are then created by the participants who use existing or enhanced COTS products to create real, pragmatic solutions to meet the service providers’ needs. The results are demonstrated live twice a year at the Europe & Americas TeleManagement World events.
A Catalyst program may be used as the “proving ground” for a range of projects, from a specific validation of a technical specification to an exploratory project that is moving technology ahead via demonstration. Typical projects include:
Proof-of-Concept projects: explore the feasibility of an idea or concept. Results of these types of projects will be used to determine if further study is required to develop the idea into a solution.
Technology Exploration projects: prove out technology as a basis for future solutions. These projects have an emphasis on applying new technology.
Specification Validation projects: test specifications developed by TM Forum working teams or industry bodies to see if they are implementable based on real product development and integration. The project team will report any findings back to the specification development team. Using this pragmatic approach contributes to the development and market uptake of tried & true standards.
Supplier Proving Ground projects: prove that a service provider-chosen set of vendors can work together to build an end-to-end solutions to the defined problem area. These types of projects may also aim to demonstrate the interoperability of the off-the-self products. In most cases, the interoperability testing projects demonstrate working hardware and software in“live” multi-vendor network architecture.
After a product is fully developed and successfully shown in a catalyst project, the solution provider may choose to promote their product as a Catalyst-Developed-Product . On occasion, the TeleManagement Forum may invite several vendors to demonstrate at a TeleManagement World. These live demonstrations represent commercially available solutions and can either be single or multi-vendor demonstrations.