Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/085—Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history
  • H04L41/0859—Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions
  • H04L41/0863—Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions by rolling back to previous configuration versions
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/0803—Configuration setting
  • H04L41/0806—Configuration setting for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/08—Configuration management of networks or network elements
  • H04L41/085—Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history
  • H04L41/0859—Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a provisioning method and system, more specifically, to a solution for resuming a failed Customer Service Order for provisioning one or more Network Elements.
• Provisioning is an important aspect in getting the network ready to serve the end users. It normally involves provisioning of multiple parameters, multiple nodes and the provisioning system needs to keep the data consistent.
• a typical provisioning system works like the following.
• a CSO Customer Service Order
• a CSO normally contains a bunch of parameters that can get one or more NEs (Network Elements) ready to support a certain service and enable the subscriber to use said service.
• NEs Network Elements
• Such a CSO would need to be provisioned into the network, where it might end up with provisioning of multiple NEs (Network Elements), with multiple request/response communications towards each of them.
• a CSO might end up with multiple commands towards one or more NEs.
• the generation of the commands might be dependent on the status of NE itself. For example you need to do a "Read” command to read the status of the NE from the NE before you know how to generate and execute the next "Modify” command. This means that the generation very often needs to be done by some logic/code dynamically not static.
• Rollback tries to solve the inconsistency immediately, compared with retry approach by trying to fix it later, by undoing what has been successfully done and reverting to the previous state.
• the problems with this one is the rollback scenarios might be many, especially for a complex logic, and rollback can fail too probably where the CSO has just failed, then you will get stuck. For example, if a "create subscriber" command fails and the subsequent rollback also fails in the middle, then you can't move forward by either trying to create again (because part of it already exists and creating a new one with the existing part remaining will result in inconsistence) or delete (because part of it has not been created yet, the delete won't succeed).
• a method of provisioning one or more Network Elements comprise steps of receiving a Customer Service Order CSO from a Business Support System and calling respective provisioning logic for performing said Customer Service Order.
• the method further comprises the step of detecting if the received Customer Service Order is a Customer
• the provisioning method further comprises steps of: directing the successful part of the Customer Service Order to a fake environment which is based on historical processing data stored for the Customer Service Order, and directing the uncompleted part of the Customer Service Order to actual
• the historical processing data is stored as log data.
• said provisioning method further comprising the step of generating at least one provisioning command from the received CSO and executing said at least one provisioning command.
• the successful part of the CSO comprises the successfully executed provisioning commands.
• the historical processing data comprises the successfully executed provisioning commands and corresponding responses.
• the step of directing the successful part of the CSO to the fake environment comprising the steps of retrieving the stored response corresponding with the command that was previously successfully executed and forwarding the retrieved response to the provisioning logic.
• the provisioning method further comprises the step of storing the Customer Service Order.
• the provisioning method further comprises: if the Customer Service Order is performed successfully, marking the Customer Service Order as completed, otherwise, marking the Customer Service Order as failed.
• the provisioning method further comprises the step of automatically resuming/retrying the CSO marked as failed.
• a method of resuming a failed Customer Service Order CSO for provisioning one or more Network Elements comprises steps of calling a provisioning logic for performing said
• an apparatus for resuming a failed Customer Service Order CSO for provisioning one or more Network Elements comprises means for calling a provisioning logic for performing said Customer Service Order, means for directing the successful part of the Customer Service Order to a fake environment which is based on historical processing data of said Customer Service Order and means for directing the uncompleted part of the Customer Service Order to actual Network elements.
• a provisioning system there is provided a provisioning system.
• the provisioning system comprises a provisioning logic framework adapted to host at least one provisioning logic, the provisioning logic framework is operable to receive Customer Service Order CSO from a Business Support System, communicate with one or more Network Elements NEs and detect whether the received CSO is a CSO to be resumed; and a memory for storing the historical processing data regarding said Customer Service Order.
• the provisioning system further comprises the resuming apparatus as defined above for resuming a Customer Service Order detected to be resumed.
• the computer program product comprises program instructions, when loaded by a computer machine, operable to cause the computer machine to perform the provisioning or resuming method as described above.
• the present invention overcomes the problems in the prior art resuming solution.
• the traditional approaches of handling the consistencies need to make the provisioning logic aware of all scenarios that could cause consistencies. This might grow quite complicated for solutions with complex subscriber data relations.
• the solution is specific for each NE provisioning solution built (e.g. IMS, core network, messaging).
• the present invention provides the possibility of configuring different provisioning logics in one provisioning logic framework or platform as desired.
• the present invention can add/remove freely a provisioning logic into/from the provisioning system and hence decreases the total deploying cost of the provisioning system.
• the present invention brings decreased development cost significantly for each specific provisioning solution.
• the invention is more robust against the failure of the CSO, hence the subscriber data in the operator's network is kept more consistent, getting rid of a lot of troubles for the operator brought by data inconsistencies.
• FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a block diagram of the provisioning system according to one embodiment of the present invention
• Fig. 2 schematically illustrates a flow diagram of the provisioning method according to one embodiment of the present invention
• Fig. 3 shows the illustration of provisioning one Network Element with several commands according to one embodiment of the invention
• Fig. 4 shows the illustration of provisioning across multiple Network Elements according to one embodiment of the invention
• Fig. 5 shows the sequence diagram of the normal provisioning method, in which there is failure occurring and the CSO is performed unsuccessfully;
• Fig. 6 shows the sequence diagram of the method of retrying the failed CSO of Fig. 5 and resuming the provisioning according to one embodiment of the invention.
• the provisioning logic framework hosts the provisioning logic and provides a common environment or platform for provisioning logic execution.
• the inventor also recognizes that various tasks the provisioning system takes on can be divided and be partaken of by the provisioning logic framework and the provisioning logic, respectively.
• the provisioning logic framework can take on the general transactions common to various provisioning logics so that the provisioning logics need not consider the general transactions which will complicate the design and can be dedicated to the specific provisioning tasks.
• the inventor's idea with the solution for the completeness/consistency problem is to build up a "fake" environment for the provisioning logic, by using the historical processing data, for example processing log which has been stored for the previous failed CSO.
• transactions for resuming from the failure are processed by the provisioning logic framework and are kept transparent to the provisioning logic.
• the provisioning logic does not need to be aware of the failure, it just does the normal provisioning flow as if no failure occurs. That is, the failure recovery mechanism may be omitted from the provisioning logic.
• the provisioning of that CSO can be resumed by the provisioning logic framework using the aforementioned fake environment.
• Fig. 1 schematically illustrates a block diagram of the provisioning system 200 according to * one embodiment of the present invention.
• the provisioning system 200 is coupled to a Business support system 300 and one or more Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 101-1On.
• Said Business support system 300 is a dedicated system for managing and configuring the services supported in the network and said Network Elements NEl-NEn refer to all devices or system in the network that are needed for providing a certain service to the end users. That is, said Network Elements NEl-NEn represent all necessary units for supporting the service.
• said coupling can be wired or wireless.
• Said coupling can also be direct coupling or indirect coupling in which there is at least one intermediate node.
• the provisioning system 200 comprises a provisioning logic framework 400 adapted for hosting various provisioning logics 700, a log database 500 for storing historical processing data regarding the CSO execution and a CSO database 600 for storing the received CSO.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 hosts the provisioning logic 700 and can create a "fake" environment for the provisioning logic 700 in order to resume previously failed provisioning
• the provisioning system 200 receives Customer Service Order CSO from the Business support system 300 and provisions said one or more Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 101-1On with the received CSO. Therefore, the provisioning system 200 (or the provisioning logic framework 400) comprises communicating means (not shown) for communicating with the Business support system 300 and one or more Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 101-1On on behalf of provisioning logic 700. Then the provisioning logic framework 400 calls hosted corresponding provisioning logic for performing said received CSO and detects whether the received CSO is a CSO to be resumed. The called provisioning logic 700 generates one or more commands based on the received CSO.
• the provisioning Logic Framework 400 records all the commands and response in the log database 500 along with the relevant parameters and the execution status of each command. Note that it is also feasible to store the historical processing data in other storage media. But it is advantageous to use the log database 500 storing the logging data in the provisioning system 200 since the existing provisioning system often has such function and such implementation will bring less alternation to the existing provisioning system.
• the CSO database 600 stores the orders from Business support systems 300. This is needed if the business support systems 300 don't want to send the CSO again, then the provisioning system can retrieve it and automatically resume/retry it intermediately after the CSO fails.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 If it is detected that the received CSO is a CSO to be resumed, the provisioning logic framework 400 will build up a fake environment for executing the previously successfully executed commands of said CSO. Otherwise, no fake environment will be built up. In both case, the provisioning logic 700 executes the generated commands in the same manner and always considers the generated commands to be generated from a new CSO, without being aware of any failure. In the fake environment, the provisioning logic framework 400 retrieving historical processing data from the log database to get all information about the successful executed command, including request for execution of the command, relevant parameters, response to the command and the like.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 receives request from the the provisioning logic 700 and ignores the request, forwards the retrieved response, perhapse along with necessary parameters or status, to the the provisioning logic 700.
• the reason why the actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On can be excluded from this process is that this process has been previously executed successfully by the the actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On and need not be performed once again.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 pretends to be the actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On and interacts with the provisioning logic 700. The important point is the provisioning logic 700 is not impacted and even not aware of the resumed provisioning solution.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 comprises various modules responsible for various functions that are common to a plurality of provisioning logic and can be implemented in the provisioning logic framework 400.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 may comprise a resuming apparatus dedicated to the resuming issues.
• log database 500 and the CSO database 600 are illustrated as two separate databases, they can be comprised in one single database or distributed across a plurality of databases when needed.
• database can be implemented by all kinds of storage media which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by a computer, including, but not limited to, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology. Below, the sequence of operations and steps will be described with reference to Fig. 2-6 in detail.
• Fig. 2 schematically illustrates a flow diagram of the provisioning method according to the present invention.
• the provisioning method starts at step Sl, where a CSO is received by the provisioning system 200 from the Business support system 300, and is passed to the provisioning logic framework 400.
• the CSO is received directly by the provisioning logic framework 400 itself.
• the CSO is stored in the CSO database 600 during step Sl .
• the provisioning logic framework 400 calls corresponding provisioning logic 700 for performing said received CSO and the called provisioning logic 700 generates a few provisioning commands based on the received CSO.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 detects whether the received CSO is a CSO to be resumed. This should have been marked in the CSO.
• step S4 the provisioning logic framework 400 fetches a command from the previously generated commands. Then at step S5, the provisioning logic framework 400 directs request and relevant parameters (if any) regarding the fetched command to actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On, i.e. requesting NEl-NEn 100-1On to execute the fetched command and to return a corresponding response.
• step S6 the actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On execute the fetched command and return the corresponding response to the provisioning system 200. Then at Step S7, the request including executed command and relevant parameters are stored in the log database 500 along with the corresponding response.
• step S7 the process proceeds to step S 8, where it is determined if the CSO is completely performed. That is, it is determined whether all commands of the CSO have been executed. If the answer is "YES", it means that all commands of the CSO have been executed and the process proceeds to step S13 where the response is sent to the Business Support System 300 and the provisioning method ends. However, if it is determined, at step S8, that there are still commands remaining unexecuted, the process returns to step S4 at which a next command is fetched and the procedure proceeds in the similar way as above.
• step S9 the provisioning logic framework 400 builds up a fake environment for executing the generated commands. Then at step SlO, the provisioning logic framework 400 fetches a command from the previously generated commands. Then at step Sl 1, it is determined whether the fetched command of the resumed CSO was previously executed successfully. This can be done by checking the log database 500. If it has been executed successfully, then at step S 12, the provisioning logic framework 400 directs the request to the fake environment built up.
• the provisioning logic framework 400 receives the request from the provisioning logic 700 being executed and retrieve the corresponding response from the log database 500, perhaps along with relevant parameters or status information required by the provisioning logic 700. Then the response is forwarded to the provisioning logic 700. That is, the provisioning logic framework 400 or the fake environment built up thereby pretends to be the actual Network Element and return the response required by the provisioning logic 700. In this way, execution of said command is completed as usual in the view of the provisioning logic 700. Then the process returns to step SlO to fetch and execute the next command of the resumed CSO as above.
• step SI l If, at step SI l, it is determined that the command has previously failed, then the process proceeds to step S5, where the provisioning logic framework 400 directs the fetched command to actual Network Elements, NEl-NEn, 100-1On. Then the process continues as described above until all commands of the resumed CSO are executed successfully. If all commands of the resumed CSO have been executed, the process proceeds to step S 13, where a response is sent to the Business Support System 300 and the resumed provisioning method ends.
• provisioning method might fail due to any kind of failure. If the provisioning method fails at any one of steps Sl -S 13, the method ends at once and report errors to the provisioning system. Then in order to resume the provisioning, one need only restart the above provisioning method according to the present invention.
• the order of method steps is not necessarily as above. Those skilled in the art appreciate that the above order can be changed as desired, unless otherwise specifically indicated.
• the detection step may be performed before the step of calling provisioning logic.
• the operation of generating provisioning commands sometimes will be performed in step S4 since the generation of certain commands relies on the result of the previous commands.
• the operation of provisioning logic 700 can be distributed differently from the above since the present invention does not really care what is implemented inside provisioning logic and the above flow diagram is illustrated and described in the perspective of the provisioning logic framework 400.
• Fig. 3 shows a typical application scenario of the invention, in which one NE is provisioned with several commands.
• the provisioning logic 700 generates a few provisioning commands to one Network Element 100.
• There can be inconsistency for the Network Element 100 if one or several commands executed successfully but the left ones are not executed due to failure.
• the provisioning system receives one Create
• the CSO may have been stored in the provisioning system 200, i.e. in the
• At least one command need to be generated from the CSO.
• two commands are generated, i.e. one command 1 for creating a Subscriber Service Profile for the User and another for creating the Subscriber which will refer to the service profile. If the first command succeeds but the second one fails, data inconsistency will exist in the Network Element 100 as the Subscriber Service Profile is created for the subscriber not existed in the system.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 will retry the Create User CSO, automatically (requiring that the failed CSO is stored in the provisioning system 200 along with corresponding historical processing data) or after receiving again the CSO and detecting that it is to be resumed, the provisioning logic runs as normal without knowing that it has been run for the same CSO as before.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects that this command 1 ' belongs to a "resumed" CSO, and will check the log database 500 to see if the command has already been successfully executed.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 will get the response in the historical processing data from the log database 500 and forward it to the provisioning logic 700.
• the provisioning logic 700 gets the response and continues processing without knowing the Create Subscriber Service Profile command is not really executed at all.
• the second command Create Subscriber 2' is generated, the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 again detects that this command 2' belongs to a "resumed CSO" and checks the log database 500 to see if the command has already been successfully executed. This time the command 2' was failed, so the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 will direct it to the NE.
• the Create Subscriber command 2' will be executed in the Network Element 100 and the Subscriber will be created. This time, the Subscriber is created successfully in the Network Element 100 and hence the user is successfully created with the created Subscriber referring to the created Subscriber Service Profile. That is, the CSO is performed completely and the provisioning method is resumed successfully.
• the above CSO is just an example for purpose of illustration. Other kinds of CSOs are also possible.
• the number of commands generated from the CSO is not limited to two, it may be one, three, four, five or more. The present invention can be applied regardless of the number.
• Fig. 4 shows another typical application scenario of the invention, in which the present invention provisions across multiple Network Elements. This is the most typical use of the resumed provisioning solution according to the present invention.
• Business support system 300 sends a Create User CSO to Provisioning System 200.
• three Network Elements, NE1-NE3, 100-103 will be involved in three steps:
• Step 1 Create the User as a Subscriber in NEl 100
• Step 2 Activate the presence service for User in NE2 102
• Step 3 Add the telephone public Id of the User into NE3 103 in order to make the user to be accessed via telephone
• Provisioning Logic Framework 400 in the same way as above.
• the historical processing data stored in the log database 500 is also used to give the provisioning logic 700 a fake response 1 ', 2'. This will make sure provisioning logic 700 does not need to be modified and still continue as if it is executing a new CSO rather than a resumed one.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 can handle scenarios where such a rollback procedure fails and resume the rollback procedure in a similar way as for a normal provisioning procedure. In this way, the rollback procedure can continue from wherever it fails.
• FIG. 5 and Fig. 6 illustrate the more specific sequence of a typical scenario for provisioning across multiple Network Elements. Due to the big amount of steps, it is grouped into 2 big steps. The first step describes the normal provisioning, which is illustrated in Fig. 5. The second one describes the retry CSO and resume provisioning, which is illustrated in Fig. 6. For the purpose of simplifying the illustration and explanation, there are only two Network Elements NE1-NE2 101-102 illustrated in the figures. But the present invention is not limited to it. From the teaching of the present disclosure, those skilled in the art can easily extend the two Network Elements to more Network Elements without involving any inventive efforts.
• Fig. 5 shows the sequence diagram of the normal provisioning method, in which there is failure occurring and the CSO is performed unsuccessfully. From Fig. 5, we can obviously see the timing sequence of the provisioning method.
• the provisioning method works as follows: 1. Business Support System 300 sends out a CSO for provisioning.
• Provisioning Logic Framework 400 receives the CSO and calls the corresponding provisioning logic 700.
• the provisioning logic 700 generates a command and send the command to the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 to execute on NEl 100.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects the command and determines that it is not generated from a "resumed" CSO. Alternatively, the detection may have already been done on the received CSO. 5.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 sends the command to NEl 100.
• the NEl 100 executes the command and returns a successful response to the Provisioning Logic Framework 400.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 records the command and response to log database 500 as historical processing data.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 forwards the response to the Provisioning Logic 700.
• the Provisioning Logic 700 gets successful response from NEl and continues processing to generate the second command to NE2 102.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects the command and determines that it is not generated by a "resumed” CSO.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 sends the command to NE2 102.
• the NE2 102 executes the received command. This time the NE2
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 records the command and response to log database 500 as historical processing data.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 forwards the response to the Provisioning Logic 700.
• the Provisioning Logic 700 gets the failed response from NE2 102 and aborts the processing and generates an error response.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects the error response, and stores the failed CSO into the CSO database 600. This step is needed if the Business support system 300 does not resend the CSO.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 informs the Business Support System 300 about the error.
• Fig. 6 shows the sequence diagram of the method of retrying the failed CSO of Fig. 5 and resuming the provisioning according to one embodiment of the invention.
• the resuming procedure is as follow:
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 calls again the corresponding provisioning logic 700 and re-sends the CSO to the provisioning logic 700 with the CSO marked a "resumed" flag. 3.
• the provisioning logic 700 will start normal processing without knowing that this CSO has been processed before and generate the first command to NEl 100.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects that this is a resumed CSO and checks the log database 500 to see if the command has been successfully executed or not. In this case, the answer is "yes".
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 will check the log database 500 for the previous responses from NEl 100. No command will be actually sent to NEl 100.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 forwards the response to the Provisioning Logic 700.
• the provisioning logic 700 gets the response without knowing that the response is from the log database 500 and continues the processing.
• the second command is generated to provisioning NE2 102.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects that this is a resumed CSO and checks the log database 500 to see if the command has been successfully executed or not. In this case, the answer is "no".
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 will send actually the command to NE2 102 to execute again. 10.
• the NE2 102 executes the command and returns a successful response.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 records the command and response to the log database 500 as historical processing data.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 forwards the response to the Provisioning Logic 700.
• the provisioning logic 700 gets the successful response from the NE2 102 and completes the processing for the NE2 102. 14.
• the Provisioning Logic Framework 400 detects the successful response and marks the CSO as completed in CSO database 600.

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• 2008
  • 2008-11-19 CN CN200880132075.8A patent/CN102217230B/zh active Active
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