the data manager supporting the application module is requested to search the data managers at the data storage locations for the required data and to identify the data manager in which the required data is stored the required data is retrieved from the identified data manager and written from the identified data manager to the application module for use during continued execution of the application software application_number US 59067996 A description the telecommunications network of fig1 as described above comprises a number of different exchanges which can be viewed as nodes in the heterogeneous network each one being part of a different service network the software structure of the applications executed on the hardware of each spc exchange would be for example a unique combination of individual application modules 34 am 34 for performing certain tasks or providing special functionality in the common network architecture the am is used to distribute the logic thus when a particular task needs to be accomplished or a special functionality is required the appropriate am is addressed and executed referring to fig2 a schematic illustration of another smaller heterogeneous telecommunications network 200 is shown the network 200 comprises three different types of exchanges exchanges a b and c 201 202 which can be for example an isdn exchange a pstn exchange and a mtx exchange respectively similar to the exchanges in the service networks in fig1 e g the isdn 118 the.