This document provides the release notes for Oracle Communications Service Catalog and Design (SCD) release 8.3.

This release positions SCD as a central orchestrator for end-to-end product, service, and fulfillment design, seamlessly integrating with OSM for automated deployment and runtime management. The focus on manifest-driven modeling, robust entity mapping, lifecycle governance, and environment-aware deployment lays a solid foundation for scalable, flexible OSS transformation. In this release, SCD OSM supports only TMF-based cartridges and exclusively supports the OSM Central Order Management (OSM COM) implementation.

Software Compatibility

See "Service Catalog and Design Compatibility" in Service Catalog and Design Compatibility Matrix for a full list of software requirements.

New Features in 8.3

This section includes information about new features introduced in release 8.3.

New Application and Renamed Applications

A new Fulfillment application has been introduced, allowing users to import capabilities cartridges, view fulfillment patterns, fulfillment systems, and fulfillment functions.

The following Solution Designer applications have been renamed:

  • Administration is now Common Elements. Use the Common Elements application to manage Data Elements, Converters, and Sequence Identifiers.

  • Initiatives and Workspaces have been consolidated into the Publishing Center application. Use Publishing Center to manage initiatives, workspaces, and lifecycle stages.

These updates streamline navigation and enhance end-to-end fulfillment modeling within Solution Designer.

Enhanced Product Fulfillment Capabilities

This section includes information about new features introduced to enhance the product fulfillment capabilities.

Key capabilities include:
  • Importing capabilities cartridge manifests to expose fulfillment patterns, systems, and functions within SCD.
  • Creating and managing product fulfillment models, including configuration of decomposition rules such as routing policies and granularities.
  • Mapping product specifications to customer-facing services (CFS) and fulfillment patterns.
  • Managing the full initiative lifecycle with streamlined publishing and workspace management.
  • Supporting model validation, finalization, and automated publishing of complete solutions.
  • Enabling comprehensive operational management for designed solutions within SCD.
These enhancements deliver end-to-end design time support for modeling, validating, and managing complex service fulfillment solutions.
The key enhancements are:

Product Fulfillment Models Creation

This release introduces comprehensive support for creating Product Fulfillment Models in Solution Designer. Product Specialists can leverage imported capabilities cartridges to design fulfillment models from the top down or bottom up, including selecting commercial domains, mapping product specifications to Customer Facing Services (CFS) and fulfillment patterns, and configuring decomposition rules such as routing rules and granularities. The enhanced interface supports parameter mapping, commercial parameter management, and validation checks to ensure completeness and consistency. These capabilities enable you to model, validate, and deploy fulfillment logic aligned with business and technical requirements directly within Solution Designer. See "Creating Product Fulfillment Models using Guided Mode" in Solution Designer User's Guide for more information on product fulfillment models.

Capabilities Cartridge Manifest Import and Management

Solution Designer now provides support for importing and managing Capabilities Cartridge Manifests. Service Catalog Admins can manually import capabilities manifests into SCD, which serve as a prerequisite for building product fulfillment model. Key features include:

  • Support for importing and managing multiple versions of capabilities cartridge manifests.
  • Automatic recognition and exposure of cartridge details such as fulfillment functions, patterns, modes, and systems.
  • Parsing and tracking of entity references and metadata within the manifest, with built-in validation to flag missing or broken references.
  • Enhanced user experience with version-selectable cartridges and clear communication of technical context and entity notes.

For more information on capabilities cartridge, see "Working with Fulfillment" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Commercial Domain Management

Product Specialists can now create, update, search, and delete Commercial Domains. The key features include flexible association with fulfillment models and product specifications, advanced search and filtering, and safe deletion controls for improved domain management. See "Managing Domains" in Solution Designer User's Guide for more information on managing commercial domains.

Initiatives Lifecycle and Publishing Enhancements

Service Catalog Administrators can now dynamically add new lifecycle stages using the Lifecycle Designer tab in the Publishing Center application. Additionally, when publishing an initiative, you can select the target workspace. For information on how to add a new lifecycle stage, see "Defining a User-Defined Lifecycle Stage" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Introduction of OSM Participant

Solution Designer now supports publishing SCD initiative content directly to an OSM Participant or OSM Cartridge Assembler (OCA). The publishing process includes capabilities manifest details for accurate solution alignment, and environment-specific configurations are managed by the OSM participant. Enhanced validation and revision control are provided, ensuring that if multiple initiatives are sent to the same OCA instance, SCD and OCA coordinate to process only one, with clear messaging in the event of any conflicts. For more details, see "Publishing Initiatives to OSM Participant" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Enhanced Service Catalog Modeling Capabilities

This section includes information about new features introduced to enhance the service catalog modeling capabilities.

Expanded Entity Support in Related Specifications

The Related Specifications tab is now available for the following specifications:

  • Custom network address specification

  • Flow identifier specification

  • Inventory group specification

  • IPv4 address

  • IPv6 address

  • IPv4 network specifications

  • IPv6 network specifications

  • IPv4 subnet specifications

  • IPv6 subnet specifications

  • Party specifications

  • Telephone number specification

For more details, see "Relating Specifications" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Inventory Group Based Resource Selection Policies

You can now define standard policies in Solution Designer to design and assign resources based on inventory groups. For example, you can configure policies to reserve and assign phone numbers from a specific inventory range based on the state. For more details, see Defining Inventory Group Based Resource Selection Policies in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Support for Resource Creation in Design Policies

In addition to the resources already supported, you can now define design policies in Solution Designer to automatically create the following resource types:

  • Custom Network Address Specification

  • Custom Object Specification

  • Device Interface Specification

  • Flow Identifier Specification

  • Telephone Number Specification

For more information, see "Defining Standard Policies for Resource Specifications" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

New Specification Types Supported

In this release, support has been added for the following specification types:

  • Business Interaction

  • Entity Identification Specification

  • IPv4 Network Specifications

  • IPv6 Network Specifications

  • IPv4 Subnet Specifications

  • IPv6 Subnet Specifications

  • Network Address Domain

  • Sequence Specification

These additions provide greater flexibility and modeling coverage in Solution Designer.

IP Resource Creation Now Supported Through Design Policies

This release introduces the ability to create IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets automatically by configuring IP Creation policies in Solution Designer. Design policies can now be used to streamline and automate the assignment and management of IP resources. For more information, see "Defining IP Creation Policies" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Enhancements to the Existing Specifications

The following existing specifications have been enhanced to support entity-specific properties, providing improved modeling for UIM runtime implementations:

  • Custom Network Address Specification
  • Flow Identifier Specification
  • Flow Interface Specification
  • Inventory Group Specification
  • Place Specification
  • Telephone Number Specification

For more information, see "About Resource Specifications" in Solution Designer User's Guide.

Expression-Based Default Values for Resource Characteristics

When defining characteristics for resources in Solution Designer, you can now set default values based on the specification's design parameters using mathematical expressions, text concatenation, or both. For numeric characteristics, basic arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are supported. For text characteristics, string concatenation is available. See "Defining Characteristics" in Solution Designer User's Guide for information on adding derived values to characteristics.

Upgraded Technology Support

This release includes enhanced support for the latest technology platforms and software versions. For detailed information on supported databases, operating systems, and other components, see Service Catalog and Design Compatibility in Service Catalog and Design Compatibility Matrix.

Enhancements in Design Studio for Network Integrity

Design Studio for Network Integrity now supports YANG, a standardized data modeling language from the IETF, for defining network device schemas including configuration, state data, and remote procedure calls. YANG processors are included to automatically discover and interact with YANG-enabled devices using NETCONF or RESTCONF protocols. This enhancement enables standards-based network management and streamlined device discovery within your deployment. For more details, see RESTCONF-Driven Network Discovery and UIM Integration Cartridge Guide and NETCONF-Driven Network Discovery and UIM Integration Cartridge Guide in Oracle Communications Network Integrity.

Known Problems and Limitations

This section describes the existing software and documentation problems, any solutions or workarounds recommended to avoid the problems or reduce effects, and the limitations in the software for the release 8.3:

Service Action Parameters Not Generated by Default

Problem: The four data elements Subject ID, Customer ID, Commercial ID, and Service Address are not generated in the cartridge generated by the DevOps engine. When you do not have these data elements as design parameters, these are not added in the service action parameters to the cartridge by default.

Solution: Four data elements Subject ID, Customer ID, Commercial ID, and Service Address are preloaded in the Administration application in Solution Designer. You must configure these four data elements as design parameters in those specifications for which you want to generate service action parameters by the DevOps engine. When you publish the initiative that contains these specifications, the DevOps engine adds the service action parameters in the cartridges.

Automatic Creation of Resources Using Advanced Policies

Problem: When you define a standard policy for creating a resource, Solution Designer automatically creates the resource only for the following specifications:

  • Logical Device Specification

  • Logical Device Account Specification

  • Custom Network Address Specification

  • Custom Object Specification

  • Device Interface Specification

  • Flow Identifier Specification

  • IPv4 and IPv6 Address and Subnet Specifications

  • Telephone Number Specification

A Device Interface Specification is created automatically only when it is related to a Logical Device Specification that has a standard policy for automatic creation. Solution Designer does not create resources automatically for any other specifications.

Solution: For all the other specifications, you can define an advanced policy for resource creation and implement the required logic in the extended designer class.

Domain Names Cannot Have Single Character

Limitation: In Solution Designer, domain names must have more than one character and cannot have a single character.

Use Calendar Control Type for Date and Time

Problem: In the Data Elements page, when you use Text Field as Control Type for Time, and Date and Time data types, UIM run-time user interface displays those fields as plain text fields and does not provide the calendar icon and format.

Workaround: In the Data Elements page, select Calendar as the Control Type for Time, and Date and Time data types.

Return No Numeric Value for Query Based Drop-down Elements

Problem: In Data Elements with Dropdown as Control Type, Query based as Data values, when the SQL or JPQL query that you write returns a numeric value, UIM run-time user interface displays Invalid Query error message.

Workaround: When you write the SQL or the JPQL query for query based drop-down data elements, ensure that it returns only a string value.

Intermittent Error While Importing Workspace in Design Studio

Problem: When you import Design Studio workspace into Design Studio and have multiplicity configured for nested Feature Group data elements in that workspace, you may receive Maximum multiplicity conflict error in Design Studio.

Solution: You may need to close the Design Studio environment and reopen it.

Network Integrity Actions and Processors Not Visible in Studio Projects View

Problem: In Design Studio for Network Integrity, when importing Network Integrity projects into a Design Studio workspace by specifying the root folder, the actions and processors are not visible in the Studio Projects view. However, it is visible in the Package Explorer view in the model folder of the project.

Workaround: You may need to close the projects in Design Studio and reopen them.

Design Studio is Unresponsive When Reopening all the Cartridges

Problem: In Design Studio for OSM, reopening all the cartridges at once makes Design Studio unresponsive after following the steps:

  1. Import OSM TMF cartridges.

  2. Upgrade all the projects and build the cartridges.

  3. Close all the cartridges and restart Design Studio.

  4. After Design Studio starts, reopen all the cartridges at once. Design Studio becomes unresponsive.

Workaround: The workaround for the stated problem is as follows:

  • Reopen only the necessary cartridges one by one instead of reopening all the cartridges at once.

  • You can also delete the closed cartridges from Design Studio without deleting the content and reimport them into Design Studio.

Resource Selection Policies with Numeric Characteristics

Limitation: When you create a design policy for a resource specification of type as Standard policy, Standard policy type as Resource selection, with a condition having a numeric characteristics and operator other than Is equal to, the appropriate resource specification may not be associated in UIM especially with operations such as Is more than or Is less than.

UIM stores all the characteristics as Text so the numeric characteristics are converted to Text. When the condition is run for the resource selection policy, the condition is not satisfied due to the comparison of text values as the condition query constructed is also text based instead of numeric values. For example, the numeric comparison of 10 Is more than 5 is true whereas the string comparison of 10 Is more than 5 is false. Therefore, when a service order is requested, the expected resource specification may not be associated based on the resource selection policy.

Deleting Revised Fulfillment Models Leaves Product Specification Revisions

Problem: Deleting a revised fulfillment model does not remove the related revised product specifications used in that model.

Workaround: You can manually delete all revisions of the associated product specifications in the Product Specifications application in Solution Designer.

Publish Failure Due to Duplicate Commercial Parameters

Problem: Creating multiple commercial parameters from a single data element in a product can cause a publish failure in OCA due to duplicate IDs for the commercial parameters.

Workaround: Define only one commercial parameter per data element in the product. If multiple parameters are needed, create separate data elements with unique names and use each to define a different commercial parameter. This ensures unique IDs received by OCA.

OSM Runtime Limitation When Default Value is Set for Parameters and Characteristics

Limitation: Defining a default value for Text, Numeric, or Hex Binary data element types (for Commercial Parameters, Design Parameters, or Characteristics) in Solution Designer causes the field to behave as an enumerated value at OSM runtime. As a result, only the default value is accepted and you cannot override it at runtime. Oracle recommends not setting a default value for Commercial Parameters, Design Parameters, or Characteristics in Solution Designer.

Deprecated Features

This section lists the deprecated and removed features in Service Catalog and Design 8.3 release.

Design Studio for ASAP Not Supported

Design Studio for ASAP is not supported in this release due to compatibility constraints with Fusion Middleware and Java. To model activation with ASAP, Oracle recommends to continue using SCD Release 8.2.0.x.