t cases at a service provider space an automatic provisioning agent does the provisioning based on parameters specified in a predefined configu- ration file usually written in XML. The NMS functions that are part of network provisioning category are: Allocate and install: The network elements that are allocated to satisfy a service by the inventory management system are discovered by the NMS and the required software installation is performed. The way installation is usually automated is to connect to a server that has the required software packages and initiate a command that will install the necessary packages on the target network element with or without a download of the packages to the target NE. Configure and activate: Once installation of packages are complete, the net- work element will be ready for configuring. When the modules in the installed NMS Functions software are activated, they need to run using a set of predefined parameters to satisfy the service specifications. These parameters are read from configu- ration files. The process of setting these parameters before, during, and after activation is known as configuring the network elements. When the configu- ration involved at the preactivation stage is complete, the software modules can be started or activated. Test: A necessary function of provisioning is running some tests to ensure that the network and its elements are ready to offer a specific service. For example, if the element being provisioned is a call agent that provides call processing capability, then the test would involve running some test scripts that simulate an actual call and verifying the call records generated against an expected record set created for the simulated call. A test case can even be a simple check to ensure that no errors were generated during a software instal- lation or verifying if the modules are running with the parameters specified as part of configuration. Track and manage: The network provisioning operations needs to be tracked and managed. Tracking involve