Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Operations research or analysis
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-24
2003-03-04
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 3623)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Operations research or analysis
C700S097000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06529877
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a system for the allocation of equipment in a complex installation such as a telephone exchange.
DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART
In a telephone exchange, physical resources have to be allocated to the provision of functionality in support of services to new customers, or new or modified services to existing customers whose requirements have changed. Such services include basic telephony, broad-band connections, for example Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) provision having a specified bandwidth, etc. In a modern installation the resource typically takes the form of a so-called “card”, for example in order to provide the necessary functionality to interface a customer's connection with a trunk carrier, including any multiplexing, analogue/digital conversion, or other functions, which may be required. The basic arrangement of a typical installation is illustrated in FIG.
4
. The equipment is arranged in a modular hierarchy, thereby allowing changes to be made readily. Each card is allocated a “slot”
30
in a “shelf”
31
which in turn is located on a “rack”
32
, for which floor space must be provided in the exchange
33
. Each level in this hierarchy can be configured to accommodate equipment at the next level. Each slot
30
has an electrical or other connection
34
to a distribution frame
35
(generally known as an OFF (optical fibre frame), or DDF (digital distribution frame) according to the nature of the signals they handle) through which connection
36
can be made to an external communications link
37
. Each element also has a connection
38
to a power supply
32
. The power equipment rack
32
is typically installed with a suite of racks, the shelves and slots being connected up to the power supply
39
as they are fitted.
Although the design philosophies of most systems are modular, not all equipment types are compatible. For example, some equipment is designed to operate with optical fibre technology, and other equipment with electrical signals (e.g. coaxial cable connections). Even within the same technology type, the cards of one manufacturer are not, in general, compatible with the shelves of another.
Records systems exist which record the location and use (e.g. wiring connections) of cards, racks, shelves and floor space and these are consulted and updated as appropriate, as equipment is installed or modified. The planning process for changes in such utilization, including data capture of the changes implemented, are essentially manual, although data storage itself may be electronic.
There are several problems with the existing systems. Firstly, there are often a number of different types of technology available to an equipment planner which are all capable of providing the required service. This can be because of historic reasons, for instance a recent change in supplier, or a deliberate policy of multiple sourcing of equipment in order to reduce vulnerability to supply problems.
In existing systems, it is necessary for the individual carrying out the planning task to select the type of equipment for which space must be found, and this in turn requires that the planner be familiar with all possible solutions to the task he has been given. However, an individual planner may not be experienced in all the possible methods of satisfying the particular requirement with which he is confronted, and may choose a non-optimal solution with which he happens to be familiar. For example, his chosen solution may require installation of new equipment, when some equipment of different design, already installed but currently spare, could have been used to achieve the same objective.
In many situations there are planning rules which have been developed in order to optimize the usage of resources. For example if cards are available providing either 2, 4 or 16 circuits, and the immediate requirement is for 6 circuits, this can be satisfied by providing one 16-circuit card, two 4-circuit cards, three 2-circuit cards, or one 2-circuit card and one 4-circuit card. In general the selection of one of these options will take into account the costs of the individual card types, the availability of individual card types, and the perceived likelihood that the spare capacity in the first two of these options could be taken up at some future date. For example, if rack space is in short supply at the location in question the first option (one 16-circuit card) may be preferred because it only requires one slot, despite the greater complexity, and therefore greater cost, of the card involved, since this will allow provision of a further ten circuits at some future date without using any further rack space.
However the application of such rules, and the use of different technology types, requires that the human planner carrying out the process be familiar with all the possible solutions, and all the planning rules relating to those solutions. In particular, because of the need to minimize the amount of stored equipment to be maintained at individual locations, and to ensure that the technical staff responsible for installation and maintenance of the equipment are familiar with the equipment in their care, the different types of technologies are very often concentrated in different geographical locations. However, this means that the planning effort must also be geographically compartmentalized to allow the planners to be familiar with the technology in use. This makes it difficult to accommodate localized variations in demand for new services.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention there is provided an apparatus for allocating equipment of a plurality of types for installation to provide service functionality of predetermined types, each equipment type being suitable for at least one of the service functionality types, and there exists at least one such service functionality for which a plurality of the equipment types are suitable. The apparatus comprises means for storing information relating to the suitability of each equipment type for providing each service functionality type; means for storing information relating to the availability of each equipment type; and means for generating, from the stored information, one or more proposals for installation of equipment to provide required service functionality according to the availability and suitability of each equipment type.
According to another aspect, there is provided a method of allocating equipment of a plurality of types for installation to provide service functionality of predetermined types, each equipment type being suitable for at least one of the service functionality types, and there existing at least one such service functionality for which a plurality of the equipment types are suitable; the method comprising the steps of:
using a suitably programmed computer to store information relating to the suitability of each equipment type for providing each type of service functionality;
using the computer to store information relating to the availability of each equipment type, and
using the computer to retrieve the stored information to generate one or more proposals for installation of equipment to provide required service functionality according to the availability and suitability of each equipment type. As the invention is capable of operating with information relating to a plurality of different technical solutions to a given problem, it is particularly suited to a generic, technology-independent, approach in which information relating to the various technical equipment types can be added or modified without changing the underlying program.
By maintaining the data according to the service functionality to be provided, rather than the equipment type itself, all technical options capable of meeting the functionality requirement can be presented to the planner. The planner can therefore be presented with technical options with which he may not be familiar, either because the equipment with which he is familiar is not available, or because in part
Milne David Don
Murphy Raymond John
British Telecommunications public limited company
Hafiz Tariq R.
Meinecke-Diaz Susanna
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
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