Abstract: When implementing services compiled of service independent building blocks (SIB) in an intelligent network, the SIB parameters to be relayed in computer instructions are replaced with a global data structure, whereby no parameters at all are transferred in the instruction call. Having no parameters means that each SIB receives the parameters it needs from one global variable. The global variable is visible to all SIBs, whereby each individual SIB fetches the parameters it requires from it. As regards some SIBs it is rather certain that they will remain unchanged and thus really service independent, but for some there is no such certainty, and for this reason the SIBs may be divided logically into two groups: assisting and performing SIBs respectively. Parameters of the performing SIBs are not relayed in the sub-programme call, but in one or several global data structure variables.

Abstract: A user interface for a telecommunication exchange in which the user gives control commands via the interface from an external terminal to the telecommunication exchange of which commands at least some are associated with parameters. The user interface includes control software which forwards the control command supplied by the user to the exchange for execution and gives the user instructions relating to the commands. In order that the user interface could more easily be transferred in a changed environment, the data on the types and the allowed value ranges of the parameters of the commands used in the user interface and the alphanumerical data relating to the instructions given to the user are separated from a program code of the control software into a separate database.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of providing a subscriber-specific service by an intelligent network. In the method, a service logic program is stored in a database (BD1, DB2) of the intelligent network and a subscriber-specific service is provided by starting said service logic program in response to a predefined trigger condition. In order that subscriber-specific services could be implemented economically on a really large scale, (a) the service logic program is implemented as a service logic program (400) common to a plurality of subscribers, (b) subscriber-specific information relating to the service is stored, for each subscriber, separately from said service logic program, and (c) in the service logic program there are defined points from which the program reads, during the execution, subscriber-specific information on an individual subscriber, whereby the execution of the common service logic program with the read subscriber-specific information provides said subscriber-specific service.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for warming up a spare process in parallel with an active process in a replicated real-time switching system, in particular in a telephone exchange. The switching system comprises an active control unit (WP) having, permanently or when necessary, a replicating hot-standby spare unit (SP) connected to a common internal message bus, so that the spare unit performs the same processes as the active control unit in parallel. In accordance with the invention, the operation of the active process (.sigma..sup.WO) to be replicated is temporarily frozen in the active control unit (WP) when the process has no tasks to be performed, the other processes of the active control unit simultaneously being kept in operation. After this a spare process (.sigma..sup.SP) is created to the spare unit (SP), and the state data (.sigma..sup.WO) of the active process is loaded into the spare process. Provided that no new tasks have come in during this time to the active process (.sigma..sup.