Abstract: Methods and apparatus for executing a series of sequential tasks existing within a system-level domain of a customer computing system providing provisioning of meta-level domain products are disclosed. For each product or product action (202), one or more sequence of tasks (250–272) is defined. Within each sequence, one or more tasks are defined as milestones (250, 252, 254, 260, 264, 270, 272). The sequence of tasks is executed, and at each milestone task, an enquiry is made of a related meta-level domain feature to determine whether, as a precondition, it has attributes associating it with a customer, and further whether the product feature holds a locking attribute that corresponds with the milestone task. If so, the execution is continued, and the product feature is placed in a locked state such that its attributes cannot be changed until execution of the task sequence is complete.

Abstract: This invention relates to a method and system for operating a client in a client/server system. A plurality of requests for action to one or more servers in the system are made and a corresponding plurality of responses to the requests are received from the system. Data relating to the requests and responses are recorded at the client and then the client disconnected from communication with the system. One or more further requests for action are made and responses to the further requests are determined based on the recorded data.