Fellow travelers: Object technology roadshow has much to offer, attendees have much to learn

Advocates of the Telecommunications Management Network framework and object-based computing and network management may still have their work cut out for them.

That is what the industry is left to ponder after the recent Telecom Object Forum '97, an eight-day, eight-city seminar tour that schooled carrier operations personnel and project managers on recent developments in object computing technology and applications.

The forum's sponsors and presenters included representatives from Expersoft, Ilog, ISR Global Telecom, Versant, The Yankee Group and the Network Management Forum. The group visited San Francisco, San Diego, Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington, Piscataway, N.J., and Chicago, hoping that coming into carriers' own backyards to give them a better understanding of the advantages of object technology would boost the energy with which carriers are tackling object-related projects.

However, if the last stop on the tour-Chicago-was any indication of the industry's transition to object computing, much still needs to be done. When presenter Barry Wetmore, director of telecommunications at Versant, asked the Chicago crowd of about 40 people if they were familiar with TMN, only three raised their hands.

"A lot of people seem to need more familiarity. That's surprising," said Wetmore.

It also may be disappointing news to an industry that thought it had overcome many of the obstacles to TMN standardization and the object computing paradigm that supports TMN applications, as well as service level re-engineering of creation, activation and provisioning processes.

Among these obstacles is TMN's reputation as a high-level concept rather than a commonly useful framework. The NMF and others have been trying to shake this reputation by tying TMN into everyday workflow processes and promoting a further connection with object technologies such as the common object request broker architecture and Java.

"TMN can be seen as a sledgehammer by some people, but it really isn't," said Jim Agnello, director at ISR Global Telecom. "TMN and object technologies can allow you to things a little bit at a time. We have to show carriers that it works-that you can find a specific problem and solve it with this technology."

How easily carriers will pick up this message remains to be seen. TMN was virtually ignored for several years after the framework was created circa 1988. However, within the last couple of years, carrier executives have begun to talk publicly of their operational commitment to TMN and their demand for TMN tools.

But the Chicago audience's reaction to Wetmore's TMN question begs another look at this "commitment." It might suggest that while carrier organizations have discussed blanket strategies for TMN investment, the message has not been drilled down throughout these organizations to the operational and process people who most need to understand it.

"We have carrier managers and software developers at this conference who should know about TMN and who need to know about it," said Steve Sybert, vice president of worldwide telecommunications at Expersoft.

Although forum attendees in other cities, such as Denver, Dallas and Piscataway, seemed to be further along in understanding TMN, the forum's sponsors may have to consider reshaping their message for a more management-level audience, said Sybert.

The sponsors might also seek help from one of the carriers that has carried out a fairly successful TMN transition, such as Sprint. Meanwhile, TMN advocates, especially vendors, may have to plug away harder at an industry that does not seem willing to give in.