Patent ID: 7032021

Claim:
A method for operating a telecommunications network, the method comprising the steps of: controlling a network element at a network node of the telecommunications network via a control computer; storing at least one interface program and a plurality of application programs in the control computer in addition to an operating system; processing application objects during execution of the application programs, the application projects having, depending on their membership of a class, data with a predefined data structure and predefined methods for processing the data; setting up a link between a service computer and a control computer; maintenance being performed on the control computer via the link by at least one maintenance message; processing the maintenance messages, via the interface program, coming from the service computer, each of the maintenance messages containing a class identifier which assigns the maintenance message to a class, the class identifier specifying the class, known in the service computer, of an application object to be processed; determining an alternative identifier, when the interface program is processed with reference to the class identifier, which indicates an alternative class to which the application object to be processed belongs in the network element, the alternative identifier being incorporated into an amended maintenance message; storing at least one class known in at least one service computer for the application object as an allomorph class in the data of the application object; using the allomorph class as an auxiliary identifier when the application program is processed; and processing the amended maintenance message, wherein the application object to be processed is processed as an object of the alternative class by an application program.