TM Forum and BT has unveiled the Cloud Service Broker (CSB) Catalyst, a new TM Forum rapid development and demonstration project that will define and create a trusted and governed cloud management platform, to simplify the delivery of complex cloud services to enterprise customers.

The collaboration, which also involves Comptel Corporation, Infonova, OpenNMS Group and Square Hoop, will look at the role of the CSB in addressing enterprise cloud customer concerns in areas such as application performance, security and vendor lock-in. The platform will be demonstrated at Management World 2010, taking place May 18-20, 2010 in Nice.

In this TM Forum Catalyst project, developed by BT’s Innovate & Design organisation, BT Global Services will serve as both an enterprise consumer and retailer of a number of complex cloud services. The project, consisting of a definition and development phase and a final demonstration, will explore the aggregation, delivery and operation of cloud services while addressing a variety of trust and governance requirements.

The CSB Catalyst will address a number of the key concerns for Cloud adoption highlighted by TM Forum’s Enterprise Cloud Buyers Council (ECBC). The ECBC represents the interests of large Enterprise buyers and is the cornerstone of TM Forum’s managing Cloud Services Initiative – an ecosystem of cloud buyers and sellers of which BT is a key member. The goal of the ecosystem is to drive Tm Forum’s Cloud Services Initiative in order to improve the understanding of the needs of enterprise cloud buyers and to remove any potential barriers to the uptake of cloud technology.

Comptel will provide an order portal and active service catalog, to manage the different components of a service, as well as a service designer to aid the rapid assembly of cloud services. These concepts were initially demonstrated though previous catalyst collaborations with BT, namely the Product and Service Assembly (PSA) initiative and the Service Model catalyst.

Infonova will provide a billing catalog and billing engine, to manage the monetization of cloud services, and to enable the enterprise customer to be virtual operators of these services.

OpenNMS will provide monitoring services as part of service assurance

Square Hoop, through product catalogs, will orchestrate what is presented to the enterprise customer by aggregating product, service and billing information.

Gartner’s “The What, Why and When of Cloud Computing”, June 2009 predicted that “as cloud computing evolves, combinations of cloud services will be too complex and untrustworthy for end consumers to handle their integration”, and that as cloud services are adopted, “the ability to govern their use, performance and delivery will be provided by cloud service brokerages.”

With more than 700 corporate members in 195 countries, TM Forum is the world’s leading industry association focused on enabling best-in-class IT for service providers in the communications, media and cloud service markets. The Forum provides business-critical industry standards and expertise to enable the creation, delivery and monetization of digital services.

TM Forum brings together the world’s largest communications, technology and media companies, providing an innovative, industry-leading approach to collaborative R&D, along with wide range of support services including benchmarking, training and certification. The Forum produces the renowned international Management World conference series, as well as thought-leading industry research and publications.

BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.

In the year ended 31 March 2009, BT Group’s revenue was £21,390 million.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.

For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt