LAS VEGAS, TeleManagement World, OCTOBER 31, 2002 - Members of the TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) today unveiled the New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) for the Optical Transport Network (OTN) Catalyst project at TeleManagement World held at the Mirage Events Center in Las Vegas. The OTN Catalyst project addresses the challenges of managing services across next-generation optical networks. The project is sponsored by Verizon Communications, a leading telecommunications service provider, and includes CIENA Corporation, Cisco Systems, Emperative, Micromuse, Quallaby, Satyam Computer Services, Sun Microsystems, Inc, Telcordia Technologies and TIBCO Software Inc.

The TM Forum's Catalyst projects link together leading Operations Support System (OSS) vendors and network equipment manufacturers with leading systems integrators to automate key processes and deliver seamless solutions for service providers. The NGOSS for the Optical Transport Networks Catalyst project will demonstrate the rapid introduction of services, automated provisioning, service assurance and integration capabilities in a multi-vendor environment necessary to operate a next-generation optical transport network.

The NGOSS for the Optical Transport Network Catalyst project will show service providers how to leverage the capabilities of next-generation optical transport networks, expedite the time-to-market of new services and deliver competitive SLAs. In addition, it has applied emerging TeleManagement Forum (TMF.814) and Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF UNI 1.0) standards to help service providers quickly assimilate new technology and reduce integration efforts.

The OTN Catalyst project is also working towards achieving NGOSS Powered status. The TM Forum will grant the NGOSS Powered label to the Catalyst project if they successfully implement and pass all NGOSS tests. Once the TM Forum's NGOSS compliance team has reviewed the results, the OTN Catalyst project will be granted the NGOSS Powered label at the TeleManagement World event.

In addition, the OTN Catalyst project will offer a concurrent session on Tuesday October 29th at 2:00 PM PST entitled, "Get to Market Faster: Managing Next Generation Optical Transport Networks" that will be hosted by Timothy M. Krause, Manager of OSS Planning, Verizon Communications.

The project incorporates processes such as handling the provisioning and management of services and network inventory to support the customer lifecycle. Each team member brings specific expertise to support the solution as follows:

• CIENA provides the CoreDirector, optical core switch, OXCs as part of the infrastructure foundation. CIENA's ON-Center Management Suite manages the configuration of the CoreDirector devices and collects data.
• Cisco Systems provides the industry leading Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) and the Cisco Transport Manager EMS as part of the OTN infrastructure. Cisco Transport Manager manages the configuration and data collection for the SONET transport and Gigabit Ethernet service interfaces.
• Emperative's ProvEn Optical provides inventory and service provisioning for the multi-vendor optical network. ProvEn Optical will provide the map between network resources, services and customers to the service assurance and the performance management systems by enabling a quick correlation between network problems and the services or customers affected.
• Micromuse's Netcool/OMNIbus provides fault management and service assurance for the optical network. It monitors the network and isolates where faults occur, providing real-time visibility into the network and reliable service delivery.
• Quallaby's PROVISO aggregates SONET/SDH and Gigabit Ethernet data for end-to-end performance management, SLA management and a customer-facing report portal.
• Satyam Computer Services, an end-to-end IT solutions company helping service providers to re-engineer and re-invent their businesses to compete successfully, acts as the project's systems integrator.
• Sun Microsystems supplies the computing platform, including Sun servers and Solaris 8 Operating Environment, for all of the OSS and network elements.
• Telcordia Technologies provides its Surveillance Manager product, which manages fault and service assurance by receiving and correlating alarms from various domains and performs root cause and customer impact analysis, which enable network reliability.
• TIBCO Software provides the integration platform for the applications and systems in the OTN Catalyst project, enabling the integration of OSS applications, and the sharing of processes between them, all using interfaces that map to and TIBCO BusinessWorks to externalize processes and codify interface contracts per NGOSS specifications.

About TeleManagement Forum

TeleManagement Forum is a non-profit, global organization providing industry leadership by driving the development of New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS). TM Forum members collaboratively produce pragmatic solutions using off the shelf, plug and play technologies that streamline key business processes for the management of communications and information services. As an industry association, the TM Forum also sponsors a broad range of education and information services to its members and the industry at large. Currently, the TM Forum has more than 330 members from 36 countries including all types of service providers, equipment manufacturers, software suppliers, and systems integrators. For more information visit: www.tmforum.org

About the OIF

Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is a rapidly growing, non-profit organization with more than 250+ international member companies, including many of the world's leading carriers and vendors. As the only industry group uniting representatives from data and optical networks, the OIF helps advance the standards and methods of optical networks. OIF's purpose is to accelerate the deployment of interoperable, cost-effective and robust optical internetworks and their associated technologies. Optical internetworks are data networks composed of routers and data switches interconnected by optical networking elements.

With the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products, the OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Formal liaisons have been established with The ATM Forum, IETF, ITU-T Study Group 15, MEF, NPF, T1M1, T1X1 and the TMF. More information on the OIF can be found at www.oiforum.com.

Disclaimer: The term Catalyst used in this communications does not refer to the Cisco Systems family of Catalyst products.