to appropriate processes and information models. Additional Reading 1. www.tmforum.org GB929: Applications Framework Map (TAM). Latest release of TAM documents can be downloaded from the Web site. 2. Lawrence Harte and Avi Ofrane. Billing Dictionary, BSS, Customer Care and OSS Technologies and Systems. Fuquay Varina, NC: Althos Publishing, 2008. 3. Kornel Terplan. OSS Essentials: Support System Solutions for Service Providers. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. 4. Andreas Molisch. Wireless Communications. New York: Wiley-IEEE Press, 2005. 5. Andrew McCrackan. Practical Guide To Business Continuity Assurance. Norwood, MA: Artech House Publishers, 2004. 6. James K. Shaw. Strategic Management in Telecommunications. Norwood, MA: Artech House Publishers, 2000. 7. Christos Voudouris, Gilbert Owusu, Raphael Dorne, and David Lesaint. Service Chain Management: Technology Innovation for the Service Business. New York: Springer, 2008. Chapter 24 Information Models This chapter is about information models. Two of the most popular information models in telecom domain, the Common Information Model (CIM) and Shared Information/Data Model are discussed in this chapter. TeleManagement Forum (TMF) and Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) have developed a map- ping between these two information models. 24.1 Introduction Information models are important for application scalability. For example, consider a simple order management solution that uses two fields, first name and last name to represent the name of a customer. Another application for customer support uses three fields, first name, middle name, and last name to represent the name of a customer that contacts the support desk for assistance. The data collected and used by one of these applications cannot be used directly by the other application due to discrepancy in the number of fields used to collect the customer name. If the customer support application wants to check the order details of the customer by interacting with the order management module, then the customer 