About Role Specifications

An entity can play multiple roles simultaneously and its roles can change over time. For example, an instance of a Party specification called Organization could be both a supplier and a customer, either at the same time or at different times.

When a role specification is created you must select one or more role-enabled entity types to which the role applies. When an instance of the selected entity type is created in UIM, the role may be optionally applied to the entity. For example the role of MPLS can be applied to a Logical Device and a Pipe, indicating that they both support MPLS technology.

An entity's role might be relevant to its involvements with other entities. See "Working with Involvement Specifications" for more information about involvements.

Not all entity types can be assigned roles. In UIM, role-enabled entities have Role areas on their Summary pages.

When you create a Role specification, you can optionally select a role type.

The following are the role types:

Technology: This role defines the technology that an entity operates under or supports.
Function: This role defines the function that an entity plays.
Topology: This role defines the role the topology plays in the network topology, such as hub or spoke.
Target: This role identifies the entity as a target for activation systems. See "About Network Targets" for more information.