Patent ID: 8199670

Claim:
A system, comprising: a service information database defining: a plurality of service components, each service component representing functionality that can be provided by network resources in a telecommunications network; and a plurality of user services; each user service representing a service which can be provided to users of the telecommunications network and being associated in the database with one or more of the plurality of service components, the one or more associated service components specifying the service functionality of the user service; the system further comprising: an order interface adapted to receive a service order relating to a given user service; a plurality of domain managers for managing technology resources of respective network technology domains; and a provisioning component adapted to access the service information database; identify one or more service components associated with the given user service; and, for each identified service component, select an implementation technology usable for providing the service functionality represented by the service component and issue a command to the domain manager associated with the selected implementation technology to configure one or more network resources to provide the service functionality; wherein the provisioning component is adapted to select the implementation technology in dependence on priority information defined for available implementation technologies; wherein at least one of the plurality of service components is associated with a plurality of alternative implementation technologies including a first alternative implementation technology and a second alternative implementation technology, and where a higher priority is assigned to the second alternative implementation technology than the first alternative implementation technology, in order to assist in a phasing out of the first alternative implementation technology.