Telecom Operations Map (TOM) is a network management model by the TeleManagement Forum (part of ITU-T) to replace the aging Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) model. The enhanced Telecom Operations Map(eTOM) is the current version of this model. eTOM describes the full scope of business processes required by a service provider and defines key elements and how they interact. eTOM has been adopted as ITU-T International Recommendation, known in 2004 as M.3050.
In the eTOM framework, four lifecycle stages are defined:
- Fulfillment: operations for providing customers with their requested products and services in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution, which can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer.
- Assurance: includes all activities for the execution of proactive and reactive maintenance activities to ensure that services provided to customers are continuously available and performing to SLA or QoS performance levels. It performs continuous resource status and performance monitoring to proactively detect possible failures. It collects performance data and analyses them to identify potential problems and resolve them without impact to the customer. This process manages the SLAs and reports service performance to the customer. It receives trouble reports from the customer, informs the customer of the trouble status, and ensures restoration and repair, as well as ensuring a delighted customer.
- Billing: involves everything necessary for the collection of appropriate usage records, production of timely and accurate bills, for providing prebill use information and billing to customers, for processing their payments, and performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.
- Operations Support & Readiness: responsible for providing management, logistics and administrative support to the above FAB process groupings, and for ensuring operational readiness in the fulfillment, assurance and billing areas. This group of functions maybe none-real-time and none-customer-facing in most cases.
eTOM has a much broader scope than can be described here. For example, specific functions at the various layers and lifecycles are also defined, along with the interfaces and interactions between those functions.
The following table compares eTOM with some legacy models:
| FCAPS | Fault | Configuration | Accounting | Performance | Security |
| TMN | |||||
| Business Management | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Service Management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Network Management | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Element Management | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| OAM&P | |||||
| Operation | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Administration | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Maintenance | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Provisioning | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| TOM / eTOM | |||||
| Fulfillment | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Assurance | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | No | No | Yes | No | no |
| Operation Support | No | No | No | No | No |
eTOM Framework
eTOM Framework
Related Terms: TOM, eTOM, FAB, TMN, Telecom Management Network, Operation Support System, OSS, FCAPS
Reference Links:
http://www.itu.int: Specification documents for TMN and FCAPS (M.3000, M.3100, M.3200, M.3400)
http://www.tmforum.org/: Specification documents for TOM and eTOM (ITU-T M.3050)