Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-16
2001-09-11
Hunter, Daniel (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S449000, C455S550100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289215
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention lies in the telecommunications field. More specifically, the invention pertains to a method of operating a telecommunication network, in which call-processing equipment is controlled by a switching processor at a network node of a telecommunication network. The switching processor stores, besides the operating system, typically several hundred application programs for processing application objects. The application objects have object data which are prescribed according to association with a particular object class. The switching processor is maintained from a control computer, using maintenance messages. The maintenance messages contain filter conditions for selecting particular application objects.
If the call-processing equipment is an exchange, then there is, among other things, an application program for administration of the subscribers connected to the exchange. The data for these subscribers are stored in subscriber objects. If the exchange is put into operation or if subscriber data is later changed in the exchange, then this is expediently done from a central control computer. Powerful methods for maintaining the telecommunication network are produced if so-called open systems are used, whose programming entails the observance of standards applicable on a worldwide basis. By way of example, standards of the ISO (International Standardization Organization) and of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) with its body ITU-T relate to the design of such open systems. On the basis of these standards, a separate telecommunications management network will be used to maintain the switching processor. The interfaces between the control computer and the switching processor are standardized in protocols.
From the control computer, the application objects are regarded as models for particular devices and resources, e.g. for hard disks, processors, transmission lines or subscriber connections. In the exchange, the application programs need to ensure that the object data for the application objects also corresponds to the actual operating states of the devices and resources.
Maintenance messages are explained in the standard X.710 (1991) “Data Communication Networks: Open Systems Interconnection (OSI); Management—Common Management Information Service Definition for CCITT Applications”. Thus, for example, there are CREATE and GET maintenance messages for creating and getting the data for an application object. According to section 6.4 of standard X.710, the application objects have a tree structure which defines the relationship between the various application objects. An application object can be selected directly without a filter condition by stipulating the object class and by stipulating an identification for the application object. On the basis of section 6.5 of standard X.710, however, indirect selection is also used, in which case levels are first defined in the tree structure, whose application objects are used for a filter operation which is to be carried out on that basis. The way to process the maintenance messages simply and as quickly as possible in the switching processor is not disclosed in standard X.710.
The document A SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE SUPPORTING CMIP MANAGEMENT INFORMATION BASES OF ATM SWITCHES, GLOBECOM 1995. IEEE GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE; SINGAPORE; Nov. 14-16, 1995, Vol. 3, Nov. 14, 1995 (1995-11-14), pages 1862-66, XP000633611 INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONIC ENGINEERS by Dan Tian discloses a software architecture which has a joint management and information protocol for a management information base of network switching elements having asynchronous transfer mode. An administration manager transmits an activity instruction to an administration agent for the network switching element. The administration agent transmits the results of the activity carried out and/or event reports to the administration manager.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to provide a method of operating a telecommunications network which overcomes the above-noted deficiencies and disadvantages of the prior art devices and methods of this kind, and which is a simple method for operating a telecommunications network, in which the application objects are selected using maintenance messages having filter conditions.
With the above and other objects in view there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method of operating a telecommunications network, which comprises the following method steps:
providing a switching processor with an operating system and a plurality of application programs for processing application objects containing object data prescribed according to association with an object class;
controlling call-processing equipment with the switching processor at a network node of a telecommunications network;
maintaining the switching processor from at least one control computer, using at least one maintenance message;
forming the maintenance message with a filter condition for selecting particular application objects;
upon execution of an interface program used for a plurality of application programs, utilizing the filter condition to select at least one object class and at least one application program processing the application objects for the object class; and
when the selected application program is executed, selecting and processing the application objects.
In the method according to the invention, in addition to the method steps mentioned in the introduction, when an interface program used for a plurality of application programs is executed, the filter condition is used to select at least one object class in a preselection process. This object class is then used to select the application program which processes the application objects in the selected object class. The selection of the object class is thus an intermediate step to determine the application program or programs to be selected. The intermediate step is carried out indirectly when the filter condition is used to select an application program directly.
Thus, in the method according to the invention, the filter condition is used during the actual preselection process, which selects an object class and an associated application program. The application program subsequently likewise uses the filter condition in a final selection process to select the application objects which satisfy the filter condition. An instruction stipulated in the maintenance message is then executed only for the application objects selected in the final selection process. The effect achieved by the preselection process in the interface program is that only a few application programs, or even only one application program, need be executed for the final selection process. With the preselection process, numerous application programs, and hence also the application objects processed by them, are already excluded from the search. The method according to the invention thus prevents unnecessary search procedures.
The use of one interface program used for a plurality of application programs means that the program part need be programmed only once for the preselection process. This also simplifies later changes. The preselection process also has the effect that the interface program does not need to inform all application programs about the maintenance message received. In the preselection process, the amount of possible application objects is estimated high, i.e. the modified filter condition used in the preselection process detects at least the application objects and object classes which are actually possible. On the other hand, in an error-free situation, not all object classes are selected, but rather only an acceptably large amount of object classes. If all the object classes are selected in the preselection process, there is a control error on the part of the control computer. For the estimation, much less data is required than for immediate determination of the application objects concerned by the filter condition. In addition, the p
Bernhardi Karl
Schild Bernhard
Greenberg Laurence A.
Hunter Daniel
Lerner Herbert L.
Nguyen Thuan T.
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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