CN109874118B

CN109874118B - Online charging system testing method and virtual network element

Info

Publication number: CN109874118B
Application number: CN201711261952.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘磊
Original assignee: China Mobile Communications Group Co Ltd; China Mobile Group Henan Co Ltd
Current assignee: China Mobile Communications Group Co Ltd; China Mobile Group Henan Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-12-04
Filing date: 2017-12-04
Publication date: 2020-08-18
Anticipated expiration: 2037-12-04
Also published as: CN109874118A

Abstract

The invention provides a method for testing an online charging system, which comprises the following steps: acquiring a service use scene, service data and an interactive protocol corresponding to an online charging system interface based on a service interface and the online charging system interface set by a user; constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data; based on an interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library, coding the service message into a protocol message stream, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond; and after receiving the response message of the online charging system, decoding the response message based on an interaction protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library, and sending a decoding result to a user. The virtual network element provided by the invention can directly construct various service use scenes without knowing protocol content and message format information.

Description

Online charging system testing method and virtual network element

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method for testing an online charging system and a virtual network element.

Background

With the development of operation, the use demand of the customers on mobile services is increased sharply, operators also push out new services to attract new customers and improve the capability of a support system to reserve old customers, so that the BOSS charging system is promoted to evolve from an offline charging mode to an online charging mode.

At present, two modes are generally adopted for an online acceptance check means of an online charging system, one mode is a most basic service use scene based on joint debugging test with an actual network element, and the joint debugging mode needs to be supported by the actual network element and needs personnel of a network element manufacturer to participate; and the other method is to simulate the request of the network element by constructing a service use request message by using a tool and drive part of the function test case to execute.

However, the method for performing joint debugging test based on actual network elements needs actual network element support, so that the joint debugging period is long, the testable case is limited, the daily online acceptance of the online charging system cannot be well met, the operation and maintenance of the online charging system and the online frequency of update iteration of the system are severely restricted, the tool is used for simulating the network element by constructing the service use request message, and the message structure is oriented, the message format is a binary DCC message flow format, the message format is predefined, and the maintenance and modification all need corresponding expert operation. Therefore, the simulated service scene is limited and difficult to operate in the actual use process.

In summary, in order to better satisfy the requirements of function testing and online check and acceptance in practical production applications, an online charging system testing method and a virtual network element are needed to satisfy the requirements of daily function testing, online check and large data volume batch reconciliation of an online charging system.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention provides a method for testing an online charging system, which overcomes or at least partially solves the above problems, comprising:

step S1, acquiring service usage scene, service data and interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface based on the service interface and online charging system interface set by the user;

step S2, constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data;

step S3, based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, encoding the service message into a protocol message stream, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond;

step S4, after receiving the response message of the online charging system, decoding the response message based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, and sending the decoding result to the user.

Wherein the method further comprises:

and simultaneously sending the service use log of the online charging system and the protocol message stream to the online charging system so as to allow the online charging system to check account in batches.

Before step S2, the method further includes:

decomposing the structure of any service message into a basic structure and a component set;

and constructing a component set library based on all service use scenes.

Wherein, step S2 includes:

selecting a component set corresponding to the service use scene from the component set library based on the service use scene;

and constructing a service message based on the basic structure, the component set corresponding to the service use scene and the service data.

Wherein, constructing a service packet based on the infrastructure, the component set corresponding to the service usage scenario, and the service data includes:

and based on an interactive protocol corresponding to an interface of the online charging system, packaging the data structure of the service data into an internal data structure of the online charging system corresponding to the interactive protocol.

Wherein, step S3 includes:

based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface, calling the DCC protocol corresponding to the interactive protocol in a preset DCC protocol library, and encoding the service message into a protocol message stream, wherein the protocol message stream is a binary data stream;

and sending the protocol message stream to a corresponding online charging system for response of the online charging system.

Wherein the method further comprises:

acquiring service supplementary data based on an extended parameter interface set by a user;

and updating the service message based on the service supplementary data.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a virtual network element, comprising:

the system comprises an acquisition module, a service processing module and a service processing module, wherein the acquisition module is used for acquiring a service use scene, service data and an interactive protocol corresponding to an online charging system interface based on a service interface and the online charging system interface set by a user;

the construction module is used for constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data;

the coding sending module is used for coding the service message into a protocol message stream based on an interaction protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond;

and the receiving and decoding module is used for decoding the response message based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library after receiving the response message of the online charging system, and sending the decoding result to the user.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program product comprising program code for executing a method for testing an online charging system as described above.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing the computer program as described above.

According to the online charging system testing method and the virtual network element, a user can directly construct various service use scenes without knowing protocol content and message format information, and the requirements of daily function testing, online acceptance and large data volume batch reconciliation of an online charging system are met.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a testing method for an online charging system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a diagram of a virtual network element structure according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a logical architecture of a virtual network element according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The following detailed description of embodiments of the present invention is provided in connection with the accompanying drawings and examples. The following examples are intended to illustrate the invention but are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a testing method for an online charging system according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 1, the method includes:

At present, a network element adopted for testing an online charging system is an actual network element, the actual network element needs personnel of a network element manufacturer to participate, the joint debugging period is long, and the executable case is limited.

The actual network element joint debugging is that manufacturer network element maintainers open test users on network elements and then use terminals for service use. The network element can initiate a message request to the online charging system, and the online charging system processes the service after receiving the request, calculates the service usage and feeds back the service usage to the network element through a message response. And the network element performs service control processing according to the response content. And the user performs service use until the service use is finished, so that the acceptance of one service scene is completed.

It can be understood that, in practice, the joint debugging period is long due to the adoption of the personnel maintenance mode, and the network element manufacturer personnel is required to be able to perform the acceptance joint debugging preparation on the network element equipment, so that the executable cases are limited.

Meanwhile, the existing testing tool has poor expandability and difficult operation, and when a service scene is changed or newly added, the existing testing tool must rely on corresponding experts to operate, so that the existing testing tool cannot meet the requirement of on-line acceptance testing results.

Specifically, the format of the interactive message between the network element and the online charging system is a binary DCC message stream format, the existing tool is a message-oriented structure, the message format is predefined, most of the content of the service scene is also solidified in the message, and only a few core fields can be modified. This constrains the scope of the business scenario: firstly, the message format is restricted, and a service scene, such as a multi-RG use scene of a data service, cannot be conveniently constructed; secondly, the content of service scenes is restricted, such as GGSN switching, network switching and the like, and the service use scenes are common use scenes in daily production and cannot be covered during online acceptance, so that great production customer complaints risk is caused.

In view of the problems in the prior art, embodiments of the present invention provide an online charging system testing method and a virtual network element, so that a user can set service data and construct a service usage scenario according to the understanding of the user on the service without knowing a protocol and message format information.

And the case is executed quickly, the operation is convenient and easy to use, and various service use scenes can be constructed conveniently. In the case execution process, the sent request, the received response data and the detailed message flow information can be clearly mastered, the case execution condition can be preliminarily or deeply analyzed for the user, the control on the test result is improved, and possible errors can be timely positioned.

It can be understood that an execution subject of the service processing method of the online charging system provided by the embodiment of the present invention is substantially a virtual network element provided by the embodiment of the present invention, where the virtual network element can provide a UI interface input by a user, and the user can input information and service content that the user wants to set through the UI interface, for example, in step S1, the user inputs a service interface field through the UI interface, where the service interface field includes: and setting service scene content, service items required to be used by the user and basic information of the user, such as a mobile phone number of the user and the like according to the case. Meanwhile, the user also needs to set an interface of the online charging system as in step S3, and the virtual network element can determine the type and the interaction protocol of the online charging system in which the interaction occurs by setting the interface of the online charging system by the user, so as to complete encoding and decoding of the protocol message required by the network element through the preset DCC protocol library.

The scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention separates the service use from the message structure, and abstracts the user interface from the service use scene. After the message structure is separated, the user does not need to know and care about the message structure and the protocol, so that the requirement on the protocol professional knowledge of the user is reduced; the service use scene is abstracted according to the form understood by the user, the knowledge of the user on the service use scene is reduced, and the user can realize the service use only by knowing the change of the interface field. Therefore, an easy-to-operate interface can be provided, the user can conveniently set interface fields and clear interaction sequence, and the user can drive complex service to use.

Specifically, in S1, it can be understood that different services may have different service scene contents, and different message formats are required to be sent according to different service scene contents, and the specific sent contents are summarized as the service data.

In S2, the service message is constructed as a message reconfiguration function provided by the virtual network element itself according to the embodiment of the present invention, and the message structure and the service scene content can be separated by reconfiguring the message, and then the service using scenes can be covered by combining the two dynamic assembly technologies. In the using process, the user can correctly initiate various service scenes only by concerning the service use. Only when a new service protocol is added or a network element is specially changed, an expert is needed to perform maintenance and modification.

In S3, the preset DCC protocol library is a set of a plurality of DCC protocols provided in the embodiment of the present invention, and the corresponding DCC protocol is selected from the DCC protocol library to encode the message by determining the interaction protocol of the online charging system.

In S4, it can be understood that, corresponding to the encoding process that the virtual network element sends to the online charging system, after the virtual network element receives the response message sent by the online charging system, the virtual network element also needs to select a corresponding protocol in the DCC protocol library to decode the response message, and feed back the decoding result to the user. It should be noted that, during the decoding and encoding processes, the data generated by the interactive process is processed and stored in real time. When all the request and response interactive data of the session are stored, the session data can not be cleared until the session is normally ended or abnormally overtime is ended.

On the basis of the above embodiment, the method further includes:

It should be noted that, when the online charging system performs integral cutting-off online, the online check and acceptance means is batch reconciliation of large data volume. The embodiment of the invention reproduces the service use log of the past production online charging system into a message request by a technical means and initiates request interaction. The virtual network element reproduces the service use message request and initiates interaction through processing such as service use log analysis, message reconstruction, session control and the like, thereby realizing batch reconciliation.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, the service usage log of the online charging system, that is, the history data of the online charging system, is edited again according to the format of the message request, so that the service usage log is converted into the message request.

And simultaneously sending the message request and the protocol message stream generated in the test process to an online charging system, and finishing the batch reconciliation process by comparing the service data content difference between the two groups of data.

On the basis of the above embodiment, the method before step S2 further includes:

and constructing a component set library based on all service use scenes.

It should be noted that, in order to implement the service usage scenario coverage as large as possible, in the embodiment of the present invention, a message body component is defined according to a DCC message structure, and a basic message structure is constructed by combining definitions of various network elements on a service. When a user initiates a service scene, the content of the service scene is analyzed to obtain the components required by the message, and the components are dynamically assembled into a specifically required message structure.

On the basis of the above embodiment, step S2 includes:

Specifically, according to the obtained service usage scenario, in the embodiment of the present invention, a component set suitable for the service usage scenario is selected from a pre-established component set library, a plurality of component sets and a base structure are dynamically spliced, and a service packet structure used in the service usage scenario is constructed, so that service data is loaded and transmitted.

On the basis of the foregoing embodiment, the constructing a service packet based on the infrastructure, the component set corresponding to the service usage scenario, and the service data includes:

It can be understood that the user sets the service interface field only through the UI interface, but the data structure of the collected service data is not the data structure that can be identified by the online charging system, so the embodiment of the present invention arranges the service data, thereby arranging the service data into the data structure inside the online charging system.

The embodiment of the invention only collects the service use scene data, does not consider the specific service and the network element requirement, and only arranges the collected service data into the data structure in the system.

The embodiment of the invention sets a user parameter data structure for storing service information, wherein the service information is the service data in the embodiment of the invention, and the data structure is designed as follows:

<base>

<USER_NUMBER>18808510030</USER_NUMBER>

<START_TIME></START_TIME>

<SESSION_ID></SESSION_ID>

<AUTH_APPLICATION_ID></AUTH_APPLICATION_ID>

<CHARGING_ID></CHARGING_ID>

<PDP_TYPE></PDP_TYPE>

<PDP_ADDRESS></PDP_ADDRESS>

<GGSN_ADDRESS></GGSN_ADDRESS>

<APN_NOI></APN_NOI>

<CC_SELECTION_MODE></CC_SELECTION_MODE>

<APN_NI></APN_NI>

<CHARGING_CHARACTERISTICS></CHARGING_CHARACTERISTICS>

<ORIGIN_HOST></ORIGIN_HOST>

<ORIGIN_REALM></ORIGIN_REALM>

<ORIGIN_STATE_ID></ORIGIN_STATE_ID>

<DESTINATION_HOST></DESTINATION_HOST>

<DESTINATION_REALM></DESTINATION_REALM>

<SERVICE_ID></SERVICE_ID>

<PROCESS_TYPE></PROCESS_TYPE>

<CC_REQUEST_NUMBER></CC_REQUEST_NUMBER>

<MULTIPLE_SERVICES_INDICATOR></MULTIPLE_SERVICES_INDICATOR>

<SGSN_ADDRESS></SGSN_ADDRESS>

<QOS_PROFILE></QOS_PROFILE>\

<USER_LOCATION_INFO></USER_LOCATION_INFO>

<RAT_TYPE></RAT_TYPE>

</base>

<rgs>

<SERVICE_CODE>2111000000</SERVICE_CODE>

<INPUT_OCTETS>800</INPUT_OCTETS>

<OUTPUT_OCTETS>200</OUTPUT_OCTETS>

<REPORTING_REASON></REPORTING_REASON>

</rg>

<SERVICE_CODE>2111000001</SERVICE_CODE>

</rg>

......

</rgs>

<SGSN_ADDRESS>10.10.10.1</SGSN_ADDRESS>

</trigger>

</record>。

on the basis of the above embodiment, step S3 includes:

It can be understood that, through the online charging system interface set by the user, the virtual network element provided in the embodiment of the present invention can identify the type of the online charging system to be tested and the type of the interaction protocol corresponding to the online charging system to be tested.

The virtual network element provided by the embodiment of the invention acquires the interactive protocol type by analyzing the online charging system interface, finishes the loading of the protocol, selects the corresponding service logic module, processes the service data by using the service logic module so as to obtain the internal protocol type, selects the corresponding protocol in the DCC protocol library so as to finish the abstract bidirectional mapping from the service use scene to the user interface data, and maps the service use scene to the service protocol coded data according to the user request data.

After the type of the interactive protocol is identified, a corresponding protocol library can be called to carry out message coding, the coding object is a service message, and the service message can be divided into message structure data and service message data. The data structure of the message structure data is designed as follows:

[263；enc_OctetString；SESSION_ID；；；0；0],

[264；enc_OctetString；ORIGIN_HOST；scp172；；0；0],

[296；enc_OctetString；ORIGIN_REALM；CMCC.COM；；0；0],

[278；enc_Unsigned32；ORIGIN_STATE_ID；14；；0；0],

[283；enc_OctetString；DESTINATION_REALM；CMCC.COM；；0；0],

[258；enc_Unsigned32；AUTH_APPLICATION_ID；4；；0；0],

[461；enc_OctetString；SERVICE_ID；ps@cmcc.com；；0；0],

[416；enc_Integer32；PROCESS_TYPE；1；；0；0],

[415；enc_Unsigned32；CC_REQUEST_NUMBER；0；；0；0],

[293；enc_OctetString；DESTINATION_HOST；；；0；0],

[55；enc_UTCTime_2；START_TIME；；；0；0],

[443；；##_1；；；0；0]([450；enc_Unsigned32；SUBSCRIPTION_ID_TYPE；；；0；0],

[444；enc_OctetString；SUBSCRIPTION_ID_DATA；；；0；0])

[458；；；；；0；0；]([459；enc_Unsigned32；USER_EQUIPMENT_INFO_TYPE；0；；0；0],

[460；enc_OctetString；IMEI；123456789987654321；；0；0])。

the data structure of the service message data is designed as follows:

user:13858187937；opp:13112345678；svg:12；svg2:34；msc:8613857523；##_1{(duration:123；starttime:20120531070808)(duration：456；starttime:20120631070808)}；charge:321。

and coding according to the message structure data and the service message data, wherein the generated protocol message stream is a binary data stream of a DCC protocol, so that the online charging system receives the binary data stream and acquires service information.

On the basis of the above embodiment, the method further includes:

and updating the service message based on the service supplementary data.

If the service interface set by the user and/or the online charging system interface set by the user is changed, the steps S1-S4 are repeated.

It is understood that steps S1-S4 provided in the embodiment of the present invention are a complete test interaction process provided in the embodiment of the present invention, and then when the service interface provided by the user and/or the online charging system interface is changed, a test needs to be performed again.

Meanwhile, the user can also supplement service data by changing the service interface and/or the online charging system interface, and the case execution of online acceptance check of the online charging system is driven.

Fig. 2 is a structure diagram of a virtual network element according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 2, a virtual network element includes: the device comprises an acquisition module 1, a construction module 2, a coding and sending module 3 and a receiving and decoding module 4, wherein:

the acquisition module 1 is used for acquiring a service use scene, service data and an interactive protocol corresponding to an online charging system interface based on a service interface and the online charging system interface set by a user;

the construction module 2 is used for constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data;

the coding sending module 3 is configured to code the service packet into a protocol message stream based on an interaction protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library, and send the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond;

and the receiving and decoding module 4 is used for decoding the response message based on the interaction protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and a preset DCC protocol library after receiving the response message of the online charging system, and sending the decoding result to the user.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a logical architecture of a virtual network element according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 3, the virtual network element according to the embodiment of the present invention is implemented by software, and does not depend on any special hardware device or specific user profile. When the user logs in the system, the user can conveniently set a service scene according to the case, initiate a request and interaction to the online charging system, acquire request-response information in real time and complete the execution of the case. The whole execution efficiency is greatly improved relative to joint debugging, and one-time service use can be completed in second-level time.

The virtual network element provided by the embodiment of the invention can simply and conveniently construct various service use scenes, drive the execution of the online acceptance cases and well meet the requirements of the online acceptance cases. The expansibility is good, and the support of a newly added protocol, the change of a network element message structure and the like can be conveniently carried out. Due to the convenient use and the efficient drive of case execution, the purposes of improving the sufficiency of online acceptance and reducing the online risk of the online charging system are achieved.

An embodiment of the present invention provides a virtual network element, including: at least one processor; and at least one memory communicatively coupled to the processor, wherein:

the memory stores program instructions executable by the processor, the processor calls the program instructions to perform the methods provided by the method embodiments, for example, including: step S1, acquiring service usage scene, service data and interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface based on the service interface and online charging system interface set by the user; step S2, constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data; step S3, based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, encoding the service message into a protocol message stream, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond; step S4, after receiving the response message of the online charging system, decoding the response message based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, and sending the decoding result to the user.

The present embodiment discloses a computer program product comprising a computer program stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the computer program comprising program instructions which, when executed by a computer, enable the computer to perform the method provided by the above-mentioned method embodiments, for example, comprising: step S1, acquiring service usage scene, service data and interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface based on the service interface and online charging system interface set by the user; step S2, constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data; step S3, based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, encoding the service message into a protocol message stream, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond; step S4, after receiving the response message of the online charging system, decoding the response message based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, and sending the decoding result to the user.

The present embodiments provide a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions that cause the computer to perform the methods provided by the above method embodiments, for example, including: step S1, acquiring service usage scene, service data and interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface based on the service interface and online charging system interface set by the user; step S2, constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data; step S3, based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, encoding the service message into a protocol message stream, and sending the protocol message stream to the online charging system for the online charging system to respond; step S4, after receiving the response message of the online charging system, decoding the response message based on the interactive protocol corresponding to the online charging system interface and the preset DCC protocol library, and sending the decoding result to the user.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that: all or part of the steps for implementing the method embodiments may be implemented by hardware related to program instructions, and the program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, and when executed, the program performs the steps including the method embodiments; and the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store program codes, such as ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks.

Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will clearly understand that each embodiment can be implemented by software plus a necessary general hardware platform, and certainly can also be implemented by hardware. With this understanding in mind, the above-described technical solutions may be embodied in the form of a software product, which can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium such as ROM/RAM, magnetic disk, optical disk, etc., and includes instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute the methods described in the embodiments or some parts of the embodiments.

Finally, the method of the present application is only a preferred embodiment and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for testing an online charging system is characterized by comprising the following steps:

step S2, decomposing the structure of any service message into a basic structure and a component set, and constructing a component set library based on all service use scenes; constructing a service message based on the service usage scenario and the service data, including: selecting a component set corresponding to the service use scene from the component set library based on the service use scene, and constructing a service message based on the infrastructure, the component set corresponding to the service use scene and the service data;

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein constructing a service packet based on the infrastructure, the component set corresponding to the service usage scenario, and the service data comprises:

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein step S3 includes:

5. The method according to any one of claims 1-4, further comprising:

and updating the service message based on the service supplementary data.

6. A virtual network element, comprising:

the construction module is used for decomposing the structure of any service message into a basic structure and a component set, and constructing a component set library based on all service use scenes; constructing a service message based on the service use scene and the service data, wherein the construction comprises the following steps: selecting a component set corresponding to the service use scene from the component set library based on the service use scene, and constructing a service message based on the infrastructure, the component set corresponding to the service use scene and the service data;

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions that cause a computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 5.