SliceNet One Stop API aims at accommodating all the interactions with the SliceNet platform covering both design and operation phases. This main feature requires that all the potential user roles should be provided with different views and different control and management options tailored to their usability and workflow needs. Consequently, the identity of the user utilizing the One Stop API user interface is subject to role analysis for the resolution of the access rights across the platform functional endpoints and information sets – including inventory and monitoring data – as these are stemming from the service agreements and the related foreseen privileges.
This process leads to the composition of the operation space through which the user interacts either with the slice and service instances as vertical user or with the resource instances – ranging from physical to logical and service resources – in provider role (network, communication or digital service provider) during the process of designing network, communication or digital service offerings aimed to be selected and utilized by the consumer role (network, communication or digital service consumer respectively) on top of it. At the interfacing border between the role of each provider with the role of the related consumer, offerings are abstracted to be conceived by the consumer role’s design and/or operation processes and conversely consumer requests are expanded and handled in more complex workflows for the delivery of the higher level requirements. Complex roles are also foreseen that may require elevated access rights to details and functional endpoints spanning across the borders of the individual role.
This variation in slice and service view and control exposure was exercised during the last months with availability of the Plug and Play framework as an enabling control framework towards the provision customized views. Early One Stop API front-end prototypes were integrated with the Plug and Play component towards one of the demonstrations prepared for the first year review event.