ORGANIZING AND COMBINING A HIERARCHY OF CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS TO PRODUCE AN ENTITY PROFILE FOR AN ENTITY ASSOCIATED WITH A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

摘要

A method of and system for organizing a hierarchy of sets of one or more parameters, for example, configuration parameters, maintaining the plurality of parameter sets, and combining two or more of the plurality of parameter sets to produce a single set of configuration parameters (i.e., an entity profile) for an entity, where such entity may be associated with a communications network. The generated entity profile may be used to configure a device, for example, a network device, associated with the entity. Provided is a digital information product, comprising a computer-readable medium; and first signals tangibly-embodied on the computer-readable medium. The signals define, for an entity associated with a communications network and that belongs to one or more entity groups of a hierarchy of entity groups, a plurality of sets of configuration parameters for configuring a network device of the communications network. Each set corresponds to either the entity or one of the entity groups and, for each set, for one or more configuration parameters, the set defines a value for the configuration parameter. Further provided are a method of and system for assigning values to one or more configuration parameters of a first entity associated with a communications network. The entity is a member of a hierarchy of entity groups, and the communications network comprises a computer-readable medium. A plurality of sets of configuration parameters for configuring a network device of the communications network are retrieved from the computer-readable medium, where each set corresponds to either the entity or one of the entity groups. For each set, for one or more configuration parameters, the set defines a value for the configuration parameter. The plurality of sets of configuration parameters are combined to produce an entity profile for the first entity, where the entity profile comprises one or more configuration parameters and comprises, for each parameter, a corresponding value assigned from one of the plurality of sets of configuration parameters.