1. A method for exposing capabilities of an underlying network, said method comprising: establishing one or more connections via an access tier to a set of resources in a telecommunications network, wherein the set of resources are accessible by a native protocol to perform a set of functions in said telecommunications network; exposing a plurality of service facades of said set of functions to one or more client applications residing externally with respect to said telecommunications network, wherein each of the service facades is associated with an instance in the access tier and provides a different interface to the client applications for translating invocations via a different protocol to access said set of functions, and wherein each of the service facades performs translation of requests received from the client applications at its interface, for use with said native protocol; receiving a request from the one or more client applications invoking a particular service facade of said plurality of service facades; and translating the request into said native protocol and routing the request to at least one of the set of resources in the telecommunications network, including invoking, in the access tier, the instance associated with the particular service facade, and performing, by the instance, functions at the network tier, to translate the request.