A distributed communications switching system and its associated telecommunications network infrastructure (10) includes a plurality of interconnected switching systems (12 1 ,12 2 and 12 3 ), some of which may be controlled by another switching system and its associated telecommunications network infrastructure. The switching systems are controlled via at least one switch processing platform (16) that generates generic commands for receipt by the switching systems in response to signaling messages received by the SPP. A fabric application interface (19) couples the switching systems to the switch processing platform for distributing generic commands to and from the appropriate switching system and for translating the generic commands into native commands (or vice versa) for execution by the switching system. The fabric application interface also translates signals received at the switching system into generic commands for receipt by the switch processing platform.