Contact
point: consortium_director@tinac.com or
general_manager@tinac.com
Press Release
18. November 1997, Santiago de Chile
TINA Consortium continues under a new
organization.
The Telecommunications Information Networking
Architecture Consortium (TINA-C), which has delivered a set of validated architecture
resulting from five years of collaboration, has decided to extend the collaboration.
In a revised structure, the consortium will
continue for three more years in order to resolve specifications for particular
inter-business interactions within the overall commercial vision and facilitate the
market-driven adoption of the architecture. In the new structure, the Consortium will be
driven by Working Groups that will fine tune the architecture in the following areas:
management of distributed telecommunications objects, mobility in a transparent way,
service management components, and specific targeted applications such as high-quality
multimedia services, Internet/intranet, and universal mobility.
In 1998, TINA-C will conduct demonstrations of
the use of the architecture in real business scenarios, refine and finalize the
architecture specifications, and continue to liaise with other standards bodies and fora.
The Consortium will have fulfilled its goal in 2000 with large-scale deployments of
TINA-conforming products and TINA-based services.
Annex 1 Rationale for the continuation of
the consortium
The TINA architecture is reaching maturity,
and efficient TINA platforms are emerging. Now it is time to integrate it in appropriate
standards, as well as to demonstrate its applicability in larger-scale services. The work
program and the organization of TINA Consortium for the period 1998-2000 are now defined
to support identified business objectives. In particular, the following list of potential
business cases serves as the vehicle for the definition of the technical objectives of the
Consortium in its next phase:
Management of Heterogeneous Networks and
Services.
Next Generation Mobility.
High-Quality Internet/Intranet.
Integration of legacy networks and services.
An important area of application of TINA is
Intelligent Networks where some functional entities can be distributed through TINA
Service Architecture components running on a DPE. This requires that some migration paths
be provided, in the context of IN and other service standards (e.g., TMN, CTI).
To support these business cases, TINA-C will
focus its effort, during the period from 1998 to 2000, on the rationalization and
simplification of the Architecture, in particular with emphasis on migration and
integration issues:
specification of the Reference Points to
enable the federation of existing and future heterogeneous Service Management and Network
Management systems;
clarification of the additions required in
the area of Distributed Processing Environment to the OMG specifications, and continued
effort to foster the adoption of corresponding specifications by the OMG;
rationalization of the support of call
control, signalling, and mobility to define a unique solution in TINA, applicable in ITU-T
IN long-term, UMTS and other future telecom call-based architectures;
definition of a framework for Service
Management and specification of a minimum set of management areas, turning TINA-C into a
Service Management Forum;
keeping abreast of new emerging
technologies, such as mobile code and intelligent agents, and their introduction into the
architecture;
contribution and influence to relevant
standardization bodies (NMF, OMG, Next Generation Mobility, ATMF, ITU-T SG11, etc.).
Also, to demonstrate the strength of TINA
solutions, large-scale TINA Trials interconnecting industrial products and services based
on the TINA architecture are planned.
Annex 2 The new structure
The Consortium Forum, consisting of
representatives from all member companies, is responsible for all important decisions of
the Consortium, including reviewing and making decision on both technical and
administrative activities, and appointment of officers of the Consortium Administration
Office and representatives of the Architecture Board.
The Architecture Board is chaired by
Consortium Director and consists of the chairs of Working Groups and the Special Interest
Group, and other representatives. It is responsible for technical coherence of the
Workplan and of the Architecture, and for setting up Working Groups and Special Interest
Groups.
The Working Groups are responsible for the
tasks assigned by the Architecture Board, including producing Request for Refinement
proposals and draft specifications responses, which are based on response to Requests for
Refinements.
The Special Interest Groups are responsible
for considering new directions for the work of TINA-C. Non-members of the Consortium can
participate in this group.
The Consortium Administration Office is headed
by the Consortium Director, who is also a non-voting member of the Consortium Forum. The
Consortium Director is assisted in influencing and publicity aspects by the Associate
Director. The Consortium Administration Office will be located in New Jersey, USA.
The Consortium Steering Board has agreed on
the nominations of Deb Guha and Hendrik Berndt as candidates for the Consortium Director
and Associate Director respectively.
The Legal Agreement describing the new
Consortium organization will be approved by the CSB at its last meeting on December 2,
1997 in Sorrento, Italy, and the new structure will become effective as soon as the
undertaking have been signed by Member Companies.
Annex 3 Member classes
The Consortium is being expanded and will have
two classes of membership, to enable smaller businesses and academia to join. Both member
classes have the right to representation in all bodies of the Consortium and the same IPR
rights as all others, including the right to access to all working documents. In addition,
full members, whose fee is higher that those of Associate members, are entitled to vote in
the Consortium forum, and their employees are eligible for representation in the
Architecture Board and for chairing Working Groups and Special Interest Groups.
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