Method and apparatus for dynamic provisioning over a world wide web

Abstract

The present invention provides a network and network elements therein that facilitate automatic, fast and efficient provisioning of network resources to activate a requested service. Accordingly, the advantages of the present inventive network and the solutions to the aforementioned problems are one and the same: a consumer may purchase a network service and, as a result of the automatic provisioning processes described herein, may realize the activation of the purchased network service in a very short period of time. To accomplish these advantageous features, a central integration server communicates with a consumer user terminal, with a billing system and with a provisioning server that makes provisioning decisions. Among other factors, the provisioning server evaluates what provisioning agents (servers that are to provide the requested service) have the capability to provide the requested service(s).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.