Entity Provisioning Interface R14.5.1

This is the initial release of the Entity Provisioning interface. It is based on and extends previous work on resource provisioning.
This interface covers entity provisioning where “entity” applies to, at least, service and resource (other kinds of entities may be considered in future versions of this document).
Several basic cases are considered, i.e.:
– provisioning of one entity at a time
– applying the same provisioning directive to many entities within a single request
– applying different provisioning directives to several entities within a single request.
The general paradigm employed here is referred to as “outcome based.” This means the provisioning request states the desired end “shape” of the entity. This shaping can involve create, modify or delete.
It is recognized that some of the provisioning requests may not be fulfilled immediately and thus need to be tracked over time (along with associated information such as expected due dates). For long-lived provisioning requests, there may also be a need to suspend / resume the request, or simply abort the request if the desired change is no longer needed.