Patent ID: 7194727

Claim:
A network resource modeling method comprising: modeling a plurality of network resources in a network management system, said network resources comprising network resource instances and network resource types such that each network resource type is a generalization of one or more network resource instances; forming a software object model, the model comprising object instances and object classes, wherein each object class comprises fragments of data and/or program code and is a generalization of one or more object instances, each instance inheriting the capabilities of the corresponding class; modeling each network resource type by a software object class, and assigning to said object class a class version identifier which directly or indirectly indicates: (a) at least some capabilities of the network resource; and (b) a collection of the fragments included in the object class of the version in question; and modeling each network resource instance by an object instance of the corresponding class, and assigning to said object instance an object instance identifier and an instance version identifier which directly or indirectly indicate the version of the class which is used for modeling the network resource type in question.