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lying in multiple operations systems. Together, these components have the ability to create a unified dynamic catalog management architecture that integrates product definitions with the order capture and workflow processes responsible for service delivery.

A full catalog management solution works with published capabilities to minimize service provisioning errors. This means that service offerings are designed and delivery tasks are created for service fulfillment activities. Business rules can also be designed to automatically amend these service offerings based on customer capabilities and desires. However, to create IMS-like opportunities for service providers and end-users alike, there is still a critical component that is missing – the network catalog.

A systems integrator that specializes in network catalogs needs to be part of the solution implementation. They understand what the network is comprised of, what resources are available, the topology and the notion of policy at the enterprise level. Policy is required to support the service level agreements for various services. This is important when the consumer wants to access programming in HD, potentially streaming it in real-time, or downloading within an hour or within six hours. Policy dictates how the download will occur in terms of use-of-network resources. Policy may also dictate restrictions or capabilities based on a specific consumer's authorization details. Taking all of these factors into account, the network catalog will set-up and tear-down the capacity allocation and delivery mechanisms to enable the download.

and to implement end user demand. Begin by identifying what needs to be available in the service provider environment so that the mechanisms will populate these catalogs, then allow catalogs to be utilized and provide the required information, such as how to retrieve content and set up the bandwidth requirement to download it in the specified timeframe.

Trusted and knowledgeable solution providers combine their capabilities in product, service, and network catalogs in order to build an integrated system incrementally without disturbing the network.

There is no need to wait for IMS as the components required for IMS-like behavior already exist and are in place. The system will behave in the context of IMS not only from the value it obtains from the network, but also for the consumer of content and services.