Patent ID: 8135808

Claim:
An automated provisioning system for provisioning a service or device in a communications network, the automated provisioning system comprising: a control processor comprising a hardware processor; a data store holding information on a plurality of operations that are available for a user; a listener adapted to receive a request from the user; and a driver adapted to control operation of at least one of a service and a device, the driver supporting a describe-all operation enumerating each of a plurality of operations implemented by the driver and further supporting a describe operation enumerating which of the plurality of operations are available for the user, and the driver co-operating with the control processor; wherein the control processor is adapted to mediate between the driver and the data store; wherein in response to a request to provision an available operation being received, the control processor mediates between the data store and the driver to determine what information is required to provision the at least one of the service and the device and to permit the driver to provision the at least one of the service and the device, and upon determining that a value for the requested available operation is reserved, the control processor instructs the driver to lock the reserved value prior to provisioning; wherein the control processor determines that the value for the requested available operation is reserved based on at least one attribute returned from a query being marked as reserved and indicating that the driver needs to lock the value for exclusive use prior to provisioning the requested available operation; wherein the control processor is operable such that the at least one attribute returned from the query is decorated with extra information specifying a group and a numerical order, and a presentation layer displays the at least one attribute together in a logical manner with appropriate ordering.