he service configuration module sends a "preservice request" and the provisioning module runs the preservice network level con- figuration and responds back with the results of the operation. Next the service configuration module issues a "network provisioning request" and the provisioning module does the network level provisioning and responds to service configuration module with the results and reports collected dur- ing provisioning of network. Next the service configuration module issues a "test request" for which the network provisioning module performs the predefined tests on the network and responds to the service configuration module with the results of the test showing the available capacity of the net- work to handle the service. Network planning and development: Provisioning plays a key role in net- work planning and development. During provisioning, key information is obtained on the functions that fail often and the elements that cannot handle a specific capacity. This capacity related information is used for net- work planning and developing existing configuration of the network. Based on precalculated results of a previous provisioning operation, the network planning and development module supplies the configuration requirements to the provisioning module. The provisioning module applies the supplied configuration. Network maintenance and restoration: The maintenance activity on a net- work might involve reconfiguring the network to fix errors or to restore the configuration of specific resources to a predefined value (like a fallback opera- tion to previous configuration). Reconfiguration requests are issued to the provisioning module when multiple network element configurations need to be altered. Based on the configuration request from the maintenance- restoration module or the network monitoring module, the provisioning module executes the changes on the network resources and responds with a configuration complete message. Network data management: There are two representations of network data. 