 network equipment comes equipped with auto-discovery features, such as an element's ability to announce its presence to inventory and network management systems. Auto-discovery is limited, however, because auto-discovery features are inconsistent and cannot always report the kind of The Ultimate Guide to Building and Delivering OSS/BSS detail the IIC needs. More critically, because it only looks at individual pieces of equipment, auto-discovery cannot provide a logical view of how services are configured on the network. Also, few IICs have the level of integration between their systems and networks necessary to take advantage of auto- discovery, much less create an environment that can track network status in real time. Approaching a real-time environment without integration requires disciplined processes that are unrealistic given human error and the workloads a growing IIC is likely to experience. When going through mergers and acquisitions, a company can face an exponentially more difficult job to reconcile inventory. Still, as network elements become more "intelligent" and integration becomes a greater priority for IICs, the barriers to a real-time environment will become far less severe. Inventory management, or a lack thereof, is thus a potential barrier to developing automated eBusiness for IICs. Creating exchanges for network resources and services will be nearly impossible without automated inventory management and the high level of integration necessary to support it. An IIC can't make its network resources available in real time to an online exchange without accurate inventory databases that are tightly integrated to other systems and processes, such as ordering, provisioning, and billing. Some automated tracking tools exist, such as bar code readers than can scan tags affixed to equipment. They rely on manual processes and cannot be completely effective without strong integration backing them up. 3.3 Provisioning and Activation Once an order is validated, services can be "provisioned" on the network.