Patent ID: 7587483

Claim:
A system for managing a complex, the system comprising: a reference model store subsystem providing a reference model describing the complex, the complex comprising a collection of physical components under common administration in a network wherein the reference model store subsystem includes a representation of interconnections between the physical components and end devices within the network; wherein the reference model store subsystem further comprises a representation of the physical components comprising a set of attributes that describe the identity, nature, and operational state of the physical components which it describes; a reference model generation subsystem wherein the reference model generation subsystem modifies the reference model to generate a proposed reference model; and a change procedure generator subsystem coupled to the reference model store subsystem, wherein the change procedure generator subsystem provides a procedure comprising the steps of: comparing the reference model to the proposed reference model to discern the differences between them; and determining an ordered list of one or more changes between said reference model and said proposed reference model required to transform a complex as represented by a reference model into a complex as represented by the proposed reference model, wherein said one or more changes are characterized by a type of change to be made and a status of the change to be made.