ded to meet specific operational requirements by use of a disciplined extension mechanism. It also supports metadata and queries. The best practices and design patterns implemented in each of the API back up OSS/J deliverables. eTOM can define a common map for communications industry business processes and a reference point for internal process reengineering needs, partnerships, alliances, and general working agreements with other providers as a result of endorsement by a large majority of the world's leading service providers. When applied to the full range of Telco operations, maximum flexibility is pro- vided by the technologies of OSS/J. Standard Interfaces OSS/J has the following characteristics: OSS/J uses J2EE as middleware. This is an open standard middleware. J2EE can provide tightly coupled system implementation. It comes with implemen- tation conformance test tools and certification process. OSS/J uses XML over JMS that enables loose coupling among systems and interfaces. OSS/J components are Web services-enabled using WSDL specifications. OSS/J offers open standards for its APIs. The standards come with a source code. They are certifiable at implementation level and come with conformance test tools. Before we conclude the discussion let's look into OSS/J certification. The OSS/J API specification and reference implementation are accessible for free download. OSS solution developers can use the API specification and reference implementa- tion code to develop OSS/J API in products that are planned to be certified. To certify the developed API, the solution developer has to download the technology compatibility kit within the Java community process, which is a test suit that is available for free. The test suite needs to be run against the API developed by the service provider. The test execution will generate a test report that will specify if the test run was successful. On obtaining a successful test run in the report, the solution developer needs to send the test execution report to the OSS/J certifi