Abstract: The invention addresses the problem of storing and maintaining highly hierarchical information in a relational database, relational databases which are more prevalent and enjoy strong database provider support. The efficacy of the storage and the maintenance of highly hierarchical information a relational database is aided by a record key uniquely ascribed to each database record across all database record tables in the relational database. Further the record key has a format which permits the specification of a “contains” relationship between database records. Beneficial information storage and information retrieval improvements are attained by using this, and only this, record key to index all database records in all record tables in the relational database.

Abstract: A method for configuring an entity in a communications network through an operations support system interface (“OSSI”), comprising: establishing an object for the entity in the interface of a data processing system, the object having at least one attribute derived from a script template for the entity; receiving at least one parameter for the at least one attribute through the interface from an external system; populating the script template with the at least one parameter to generate a command script for performing a configuration task on the entity; sending the command script to the entity for execution; and, notifying the external system through the interface when an execution response from the entity is available and sending the execution response to the external system.

Abstract: The invention addresses the problem of storing and maintaining highly hierarchical information in a relational database, relational databases which are more prevalent and enjoy strong database provider support. The efficacy of the storage and the maintenance of highly hierarchical information a relational database is aided by a record key uniquely ascribed to each database record across all database record tables in the relational database. Further the record key has a format which permits the specification of a “contains” relationship between database records. Beneficial information storage and information retrieval improvements are attained by using this, and only this, record key to index all database records in all record tables in the relational database.