KR19990022278A - Telecommunication network - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a telecommunications network, wherein the creation of any additional service package by a service creation environment (not shown) in a telecommunications network of the type having a transport network (not shown) and an intelligent platform 2 is distributed. Information exchange between the computing environment 222 and the service creation environment, the service control environment sends data defining start-up resources and start and end times to 222, the resource function 41 in the distributed computing environment. Determines whether the resource is valid or will be available, or if not otherwise an attribute of an alternative service may be provided in another cycle, and this information indicates that the service creation environment is to be provided in the implementation of an additional service package. It is characterized in that to ensure the property of.

Description

Telecommunication network

The present invention relates to telecommunication networks and in particular such networks using distributed computers.

Modern telecommunications networks are required to provide many different services that are separated from simple telecommunication interconnects. To fully utilize the network, operators provide many services to potential customers through their network.

Services such as toll free calls, pay phone cards, premium voting, and data transfer services are often provided using dedicated computer services. Services, such as phone voting, are naturally prone to change as long as they happen for a limited period of time with a dedicated computer where the service is a waste of expensive resources. In addition, if a large number of calls occur over a short period of time to the location of dedicated service features and data, using a dedicated computer can cause network congestion. In addition, multiple service special dedicated devices may be required to protect the service. This results in data redundancy, for example potential data retention issues, shared with customers with multiple service needs.

It has been proposed to utilize network computers, each of which can be programmed to provide a number of different services. This does not eliminate the need for a dedicated computer device for any service, but it makes more efficient use of expensive computing equipment, especially when new service offerings are being tested. In addition, distributed computing facilities allow network operators to provide specific services at different points in the network, allowing for more equal traffic distribution within the network.

However, network operators need to ensure that contradictory applications do not run within the same computing resource, and that sufficient computing resources are available if multiple services are required to operate at the same time.

According to the present invention, there is provided a service generation facility and a computing platform having a plurality of programmable resources, each of which can provide one or more functions to a service package having a plurality of functions defined by the service generation facility; And control means for responding to data from a service generation facility that defines such a service package to assign a function of the package within the plurality of programmable resources and to direct calls on a telecommunications network to the service package in accordance with the assignment. If the service generation facility defines an additional service package for the future, the implementation data is data defining the functions and resources required by the additional package and the time required for such functions and resources. Transmitted by the facility to the control means, the control means being provided with a telecommunication network for comparing the functions and resources valid for a specified period with the requested functions and resources to determine whether the additional service package can be provided. .

A distributed computing environment according to the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a structural diagram of a telecommunications network using a distributed computing environment,

2 is a structural diagram showing in more detail the intelligent layer of FIG.

3 is a structural diagram showing in detail the computing environment layer of FIG.

4A and 4B illustrate data interchange occurring within the network of FIG. 1 during a particular type of service call; and

5 is a block diagram of a service generation environment as used in a telecommunications network in accordance with the present invention.

Referring first to FIG. 1, the present invention is primarily for use in a telecommunications network 1 having an intelligent area 2, a transportation area 3, and a customer area equipment area 4. This intelligent network is managed by OSS (operation support system) 5.

The transport zone 3 has one or more telecommunication networks of a kind that is exchanged or not exchanged. For the purposes of the present invention, only to mention that the type of network in the transport area 3 is not critical and can be a data or TDM / PCM voice network, a mobile network, a data network, or other managed broadband system. need.

The OSS 5 includes functionality to manage customer service and network capacity and interfaces to the intelligent area 2 to provide a high level of integrated management across the entire intelligent network 1. The customer zone equipment area 4 comprises the interface and services between the customer zone equipment and the various transport networks in the network 1.

Again, for the purposes of the present invention, the actual customer area equipment simply becomes an interface between the customer and the provided network service and is not critical to the implementation of the present invention.

Referring now to FIG. 2, the intelligent area 2 may be divided into a general application 21 and a computing environment 22 when a service control function for call service and features is created. The interconnection with the transport network 3 is shown simply for completeness.

Referring now to FIG. 3, the computing environment 2 includes an encapsulation layer 221, distributed computing 222, a supporting infrastructure (or computing platform) 223, and an internal network facility 224. May be considered.

The network facility 224 provides an interface with the data communication 31 in the computing environment 22 and the external transport network 3 (not shown in FIG. 3). This allows the computing environment to be communication technology independent from external use.

In addition, the network control function 33 and the operational support system 32 for the computing environment 22 are provided by the network layer 224.

The computing platform 223 has a number of general purpose computers 34 (only one of which is shown), each of which has an associated operating system 35. It should be noted that the computing platform may be physically widely distributed, requiring no computers 34 to be co-located.

This distributed computing facility provides functionality to support real time applications and related management as required by the application layer 21. As can be appreciated, not all computers 34 are of the same type. Processing power, memory availability, and connected peripheral equipment will vary from device to device, especially if a service requires specialized hardware. The encapsulation layer 221 maintains a record of valid resources in the distributed computer system. Such resources may include, for example, specialized transport and voice peripherals such that the encapsulation layer has an appropriate API (application programming interface). The encapsulation layer 221 includes an OSS server 36 provided to manage the resources through respective APIs.

Referring now to the distributed computing environment layer 222, several functions are provided to the transportation network (3 in FIG. 2) to link the application required at runtime. The customer does not need to know where the particular application exists. Thus, via the intelligent network, the distributed computing environment 22 includes a uniform service application that may be in a single computer 34 or may be in a number of different physical locations. Some service applications can be replicated through the system.

Location function 40 provides location transparency to map addressable resources, services, and logical names of functions to physical locations, and provides the required services to customers. Built-in within location function 40 (for access from a service creation environment) to match a service type that registers (or cancels) a query or service offering for a specific peripheral to register (or cancel) a service offering. to be. For example, if a peripheral device is required to provide voice announcements for a telephone voting service and is required to collect and store multi-frequency tone responses, the location function associated with the resource function (if any) It will identify which physical location can satisfy the service. If more than one location is capable of providing the service, the resource control function 41 considers factors such as load balancing and security to determine which service to choose.

Upon selecting a logical service in response to a service creation request and resource control 41 decision, the location function 40 uses the directory to map the logical service to its physical address.

Policy service 42 and security service 43 functions control access to application and computer resources. The policy service 42 will include a user special policy regarding special failures. Thus, while other OSS (such as network congestion) occur while the OSS (5 in FIG. 1) indicates what is happening in the situation of device failure, link failure, or processing failure, the distributed computer environment 22 May query the policy service 42.

If a component of the system does not meet the needs, a service may be taken, such as the system may reallocate computational resources 223 or remedy the protection of network access restricted calls to the previously allocated resources. An attribute QoS may be included in the policy service function 42.

Resource service 41 provides management of the platform resources 223 in an efficient and accurate manner. Functions included in the resource service 41 include monitor, mobility, control, configuration, priority and load balancing.

We will now consider each of these functions in turn regarding their special behavior.

The monitor function provides a behavior check of the distributed computer environment 22. Included within the monitor function is the ability to filter the collected information about loading or failures and to determine when critical situations occur. The monitor function may consult the policy service 42 and take appropriate action. For example, if a function with a particular name fails to meet its QoS request, the monitor function will check the associated policy statement from the policy server 42. If this specifies that the service should be moved to another area, the monitor function queries factory service 44 to start another case of the requested service.

The move function is responsible for moving the application to another location. This service may be on another device or may be another case of the same processing on the same device in the computing platform 223.

The control function coordinates the start and stop of the provided service. This is provided to start and stop new services in such a way that no calls are lost.

The configuration function maintains a configuration map of the current topology of the computing platform 22 with respect to the device, the currently active component, communication link, data storage, and the like.

The priority function schedules applications according to priorities assigned to specific services. The function does not determine the priority of the application but provides a priority mechanism that allows changes in the application priority.

The load balancing function maps a service request to the case of a particular service depending on the loading of that service currently required. In particular, when the trade function (mentioned above) responds to a service creation function for a particular service type, the load balancing function determines the most appropriate service to be used when one or more instances of that service meet the request.

The factory service 44 responds to the service creation environment and resource function 41 to set up or cancel an example of a particular service application. For example, if the resource control service 41 determines that another example of a particular service is required in the computing platform 223 to encounter an increase in the demand level for that service, it is suitable for the factory service. Within 34) to start the appropriate processing. Similarly, if there is no longer a need for a particular service or if the management system determines that a particular process is deadlocked or no longer functional, the factory service is responsible for stopping certain instances of the service from operation.

Finally, in the distributed computing environment 222, the data distribution function 45 manages distributed databases to present a single logical view of all data distributed and replicated across multiple databases in the computing platform or computing environment 22. Provide the functionality of the system. The data movement function in the data distribution service function ensures that the data is in the closest location that needs it. Any data distribution fragmentation or replication in the distributed computing environment 22 is controlled by this function. This data distribution function ensures that there is transparency of the location of the data required by the application executing within the computing platform 223.

Within the distributed computing environment 222, there is also an event notification service that responds to such an event to notify any resource previously registered as requesting a notification for the occurrence of the scheduled event. For example, if a particular service engine has cached data about a particular customer, any update of data held by the data service notifies the service engine of the update.

To help understand the operation of the system of FIG. 3, consider a service such as a proprietors 800 or a free telephone service.

4A and 4B, each potential interaction is numbered in turn and the following actions can occur:

51

The transport server ends the call requiring the free phone number translation. Although the shipping server knows that this call must be directed to a service engine capable of handling the call, it does not know the physical address of such a service engine. The implementation can of course take a fast way and cache such information. The location service is asked for the physical address of the service engine. The trading function is generated to return a logical service engine capable of supporting the required free telephone number translation. This logical name is translated into a physical address by the directory service. Again, the implementation may store a physical address in the trader that does not require the use of a directory service (in this case). However, if more than one suitable service exists, only one should be selected. The trader does not have any decision making capability and the load balancing function in the resource control service should be used. This in turn must use the policy function in the policy service.

52

The load balancing function receives a list of service engines from a trader and decides which one to use. However, it should refer to the policy function in the policy service above.

53

The policy function is required to provide a policy that is related to the specific performance condition that the load balancing function meets.

54

The policy is returned.

55

Given that a logical service engine has been identified, its physical address is required. The directory function in the location service is used.

55A

If at step 51 only a single logical service engine is identified to provide the service for which the trade function is required, then steps 52 to 55 are unnecessary.

56

The physical address of the service engine is returned to the shipping server.

57

The service engine is generated. Although this has the ability to process the service logic of the service provider, it does not have the service logic for that particular toll-free phone call. For example, if 0800 645743 is dialed, the service engine needs a profile for service provider 645743 that will include routing instructions and associated numbers. For example, time of day routing, day of week routing, week of year, automatic call distribution, and call interruption, each of which contains the appropriate called number and command.

58

The service engine requires a profile of a service provider. It is necessary to ask the profile to know the address of the data distribution service. The implementation can, of course, maintain the interface with components at well-known addresses and need not be accompanied by the trader. This may prove acceptable in some cases where the limitations of this approach are known and speculated.

59

As in 52 above, even at this time, the load balancing function expects a data distribution service.

60

As in 53 above, even at this time, the policy function expects a data distribution service.

61

The policy for the data distribution service is returned.

62

As in 55, even at this time, the physical address of the data distribution service is expected.

62A

Again, if the trading function only identifies a suitable single data distribution service, then steps 59 to 62 are unnecessary and the trader interacts directly with the directory function.

63

The directory function returns the physical address of the data distribution service to the service engine.

64

The service engine requires a data distribution function for the profile of the requested service provider.

65

The data distribution service refers to the data service for the profile (again the trader can be generated but of course the data distribution service in the implementation can include the address of the data service and can take other fast ways).

66

The requested data is returned to the data distribution service.

67

The requested data is returned and processed by the service engine to produce a routing command (including the called number).

68

The appropriate routing command (including the called number) is returned to the shipping server.

69

The call is routed to the designated destination.

The above mentioned 0800 or toll free service is just one type of service provided. Other services using the intelligent network 1 will include applications such as telephone voting, telemetry, information services, residential control, online invitations, and the like.

Thus, it is only necessary to provide appropriate peripherals and software anywhere in the intelligent layer 2 of FIG. 1 when each new type of service is identified.

To help understand the present invention, it is necessary to understand how the service generation environment currently operates. The service creation environment is the point at which customer needs, such as those specified by each customer, are translated into network operational needs and software facilities.

The service creation environment is shown schematically in FIG. 5, now referred to, and has four levels. The physical network platform and peripherals are provided at the network level (hardware capacity) 104. The second level 103 provides software to the network platform to provide features. The third level 102 establishes the service from the features while the fourth level 101 uses the service package to provide the service in response to customer requirements.

Thus at level 101 the operator of the workstation in the service creation environment accepts customer information as a service requested by the customer. Using a valid service package, the operator would like to provide a service defined by the customer, for example by modifying an existing service package such as described above for free telephone service. This procedure uses icons and allows them to be assembled on the computer screen so that the tool can assemble the appropriate software, if it is actually 105, using the factory resources 44 as previously described. Is processed by linking.

If the customer's needs cannot be met at the first level, the customer's needs are sent to the product definition team responsible for providing the new service. At product definition level 102, the combination of existing software and hardware is considered to determine whether valid service features can be combined to provide the required service package. If this is the case, a new feature specification 106 is created and deployed as a valid service package 107.

If existing service features on the network are inadequate to provide the required new service package, the request is sent to the software development team.

In the software development step 103, the software team will consider all resources available within the intelligent network (2 in FIG. 3) to determine whether the software facility of the required feature is practical. If this is the case, new software 108 is stored to provide the new features required at 109.

If the software development level cannot be used to provide the required services, it may be necessary for the network designer to add hardware capacity to the network so that new services can be provided.

While the above described technologies respond naturally, that is, while responding to customer requests at level 101, the service provider can anticipate service needs at any time and implement the steps of providing related features and network capacity.

A detailed description of the service creation process is shown in the article Service Creation (1995.4, Vol. 13, No. 2, page 80, below) of BT Technology Jounal G D Turner.

Now, such service creation in response to designated customer requests has occurred earlier in the designated platform or service engine assigned to the specific customer. No existing validity or network capacity is taken into account in terms of the amount of resources or services to be provided to the customer. This often results in a waste of resources that are idle over the installation of the network platform and hardware or for a remarkable period of time. During the creation of a service type, an operational request of the service will also occur when the network service is specified. Such requests may include attributes of priority definition data, reliability of both device and talk time applications, incompatible talk time application identities, concurrency information, deadlines, talk time applications, survival time, operational needs, and required services. (But need not be limited to it).

The priority data enables selection of talk time applications to be selected or rejected in congestion of the network, equipment failure or deadlock situations within the computing system.

Device reliability specifies the characteristics of the device in a computing platform that enables the execution of the talk time application. The data stored here includes information of processor validity, memory validity, and communication validity to a particular device.

As an alternative to the device reliability specification, generating talk time application reliability may be used. This specifies that the distributed computer environment itself manages the talk time application. In view of the capacity of the distributed computer environment 222 to reallocate resources in the event of a failure, this may be an appropriate choice.

Incompatibility will define a talk time application that should not be run simultaneously on the same device. A list of other talk time applications that should not be running at the same time may be provided. Applications included in this list may be the second alternative to the same talk time application if it is likely to result in deadlock or conflicting use of the same peripheral.

Concurrent data specifies whether multiple subprograms in the application require to be operated at the same time. For example, a talk time application may unleash threads for interacting with security or inspection services while the call is in progress. This data may specify the number of clues required to be able to manipulate it in the manner required to encounter the deadline.

The deadline defines the time period during which the talk time application must complete its execution. Talk time applications depend on the proper information being sent across the network. This information can be used, for example, within the resource function 41 of FIG.

Talk time application survival time provides the start and end dates and times for a particular application. The talk time application will be determined by a service provider that can select to provide network services on a specific time pattern based on a day, week, week or day. Knowing when a telephony application will exist allows for better utilization of all resources in the computing platform and the network.

The operation request defines the computer resources to be required by the talk time application. Thus, call processor device requests and input / output (i / o) and data server activity need to be identified. Thus, talk time applications can interact with a number of sources, including, for example, data servers, OSS servers, input / output services, and the like. The request should be defined with local data storage required by the talk time application, as well as with the power request, eg MIPs or the number of standard transactions required.

The operation request may identify data to be cached. This improves the performance of the talk time application, for example by avoiding additional applications to data distribution services.

QoS information actually defines the service desired by the customer. For example, QoS defines a limit of 500 ms to handle a call in the intelligent network 2, but if the call processing takes 600 ms sometimes the terminal customer will probably not be aware of the longer limit. Have However, it is necessary to know when a call in the network 2 missed the QoS deadline. This enables long term resource coordination to occur.

Talk time applications are not always device independent and may include a number of non-standard devices while the network 2 provides a general purpose distributed computing environment, and again referring to FIG. It should be noted that professional peripherals and devices will know where they are valid and where they are located. The data previously stored by the service creation environment for each application is used to ensure that the distributed computing environment 22 is used effectively. Thus, if a customer requests a service creation environment for providing a particular service at a particular time, the service creation environment will send information to the distributed computing environment 222. The data, including the attributes of the service and deadline data along with the application survival time, is used by the distributed computing environment to refer to the talk time application diary and the computing platform diary. The computing platform diary includes a schedule indicative of the validity of various devices within the platform in connection with the computing platform 223 and the device downtimes scheduled for upgrading and introducing services or other purposes, new devices, and the like. do. The platform diary also includes details of available power regarding device processing capabilities and which devices can be grouped to meet operational requests received from the service generation function. Comparing the talk time application diary and computing platform diaries with the information received from the service creation environment may cause the distributed computing environment 222 to accept or reject the talk time application, or alternatively an attribute of a lower grade of service. Makes it possible to provide

The talk time application diary will also be checked for incompatibility talk time applications, assuming that the application is acceptable, it will be updated to indicate a calibrated talk time application request.

When a talk time application is about to be executed, the factory function 4 in the distributed computing environment causes the application to be started in the computing platform as indicated by the resource function 41. The location of the service will be indicated so that when a call arrives from the network 3 they will be routed by the location broker to the physical address of a device capable of handling the call. If multiple computers 34 are running the same application for a particular service, the location broker will distribute the call over a designated group of devices according to a scheduling algorithm. The talk time application may be added or removed as commanded by the service creation function in the first embodiment. If a failure of one or more devices is detected, the resource function 421 will attempt to install the application on another compatible device, in accordance with the pre-downloaded priority data and QoS requirements.

As described above, while referring to the deployment of talk time applications, the programs may always be valid immediately in the environment 222, where the service generation facility maps the dialed number to another number in the network, for example. It provides data related to talk time applications by providing service data. In such cases, tagging information (ie, QOS, computer power requirements, etc.) may also be tagged with the data. Thus, the use of the talk time application diary may map the need for service data in the validity of computing platform resources.

The talk time application diary operation may use a tag indicating the number of MIPS required to execute a service up to the required number of CTU cycles if each of the multiple computers has the ability to execute an application for a particular service. This will enable the mapping of services to a real-time environment in a way that can be more effective than full device allocation within a service creation environment by allocating computer resources up to the total number of valid computer cycles in a particular device.

Claims (7)

A service generation facility and a computing platform having a plurality of programmable resources each capable of providing one or more functions to a service package having a plurality of functions defined by the service generation facility; And control means for responding to data from a service generation facility that defines such a service package to assign a function of the package within the plurality of programmable resources and to direct calls on a telecommunications network to the service package in accordance with the assignment. Equipped with When the service generating facility defines an additional service package for the future, implementation data, which is data defining the functions and resources required by the additional package and the time required for such functions and resources, is provided by the service generating facility. Transmitted to control means, wherein the control means compares the functions and resources valid for a specified period with the requested functions and resources to determine whether the additional service package can be provided. The method of claim 1, The transmitted data includes an attribute of the service data defining a maximum time period allowed for handling a call to the service package, and the control means may enable a valid function and resource to process the call within the maximum time period. Determining whether there is a telecommunications network. The method of claim 2, If the control means determines that calls cannot be handled within the maximum time period, the control means calculates a time period that must be taken to process such a call, and the data generating facility defines the time period. Telecommunications network, characterized in that returned to. The method of claim 1, If the control means determines that the package cannot meet a defined start and / or end time, the control means determines whether the requested function and resource are valid at various start and / or end times and the And transmit data defining various start and / or end times to said service generation facility. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, Data defining a resource that determines the computing platform and time at which the resource is valid is from the service generation facility by the control means to be used to determine whether any planned changes in resource availability can be provided by the additional service package. Telecommunications network, characterized in that accessible. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, The transmitted data is a service package having a higher comparison priority from a service package having a lower comparison priority if the control means becomes ineffective if one or more of the resources in the computing platform become invalid during operation. And allocate resources, thereby assigning a comparison priority of additional service packages. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, And said control means determines whether said service package can be provided from the number of computer cycles or MIPS required to implement a service package.