An application or service (for example: web services) can be a relatively coarsely grained software that implements functions/processes and acts on or uses data. In daily life we see applications such as word processors or mail clients; in OSS terms we would regard an application as something such as a CRM component, a billing system or an inventory solution – although we also understand that these can be decomposed to some extent – for example a billing system will include a number of smaller applications, such as a rating engine.

An “application” is defined as a set of one or more software artifacts comprising well defined functions, data, business flows, rules and interfaces. This would include:

· A Data Model, for data used to interface to and within an application

· Policies, for governing external and internal application resources

· A Flow Model, for functionality with the application

· Contract specifications for externally visible interfaces to the functionality within the application

Applications are implement-able as deployable packages and are procurable in the system market place.

The Telecom Applications Map is not a part of either the SID or the eTOM definitions but links to both in an easily understandable way and also provide a mapping between the telecom application map eTOM and SID.

Phase one of the project produced the definition and approval of the requirements that a Telecom Applications Map must fulfill.

Phase 2 of the project provided additional detail in the Operations (Fulfilment, Assurance, and Billing segments of the eTOM) primarily in the Resource Management, Service Management, and Customer Management layers. This release also provided further detail in the Market / Sales, Product, Supplier / Partner, and Enterprise Management layers.

This third phase of the project will continue to develop the document to provide this grouping - describing and naming a set of applications/services, together with the data they act upon/use and the function/process they perform and an element of decomposition/grouping. Grouping some of the level 1 categories into an Operational Support & Readiness (OSR) eTOM segment was introduced, along with the addition of supporting contracts for some of the level 1 categories.