TR255 Entity Provisioning for Network Functions and Network Services R16.0.1

The purpose of this document is to define a provisioning API for network services and the components supporting such services. Provisioning for the connectivity needed in support of network services is also provided.

The operations that comprise the API are divided into two basic kinds, i.e., intent-based and detailed-based. In the case of intent-based, the consumer does not have a view or the ability to directly affect the components of a given entity. For the detailed-based, the opposite is true.

Very generic terms are used for the actors in the various use cases, e.g., Network Service Consumer and Network Service Provider. Definition of a functional block architecture, such as ETSI NFV reference architecture framework is avoided, since reference architectures can lead to misinterpretation where the functional blocks are seen as product boundaries and typically limit the possible use of a given API. This in turn leads to very slow and contentious standardization. The view of the document authors is to first define an API for a given purpose and then profile / specialize the API for a given reference point.

The various operations in this API can be packaged in various ways to suit product needs. However, not all subsets of operations may make sense for a given product. In the end, what subset of operations to use is an implementation decision to be made by the user of this API.