Patent ID: 7487236

Claim:
A system comprising: a composite communication service detector adapted to detect a plurality of communication services, supported in a communication system, for providing a composite communication service; and a composite communication service manager operatively coupled to the detector and adapted to determine for each detected communication service an associated communication service tier in a structure of the composite communication service, the composite communication service comprising a plurality of communication service tiers having an order in the structure, and to provide a representation of the composite communication service, the representation comprising an indication of each detected communication service and the tier order, wherein at least some communication services of the plurality of communication services are configured for operation with each other to provide the composite communication service by one or more service connectors, each service connector specifying a logical association between communication services, wherein the detector is further adapted to detect a service connector of the composite communication service, and wherein the representation further comprises an indication of the detected service connector, wherein the manager is further adapted to determine an extent to which an event directly affecting a portion of the composite communication service affects other portions of the composite communication service through any detected service connectors, and to include in the representation an indication of one or more of: the event, the directly affected portion of the composite communication service, and whether the event affects the other portions of the composite communication service.