Database management and recovery in a network-based filtering and aggregating platform

• US 20020013842A1
• Filed: 08/21/2001
• Published: 01/31/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/1997
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amdocs Development Limited (Amdocs Ltd.), Amdocs Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Amdocs Ltd.
• Inventors: Schweitzer, Limor, Wagner, Eran
• Granted Patent: US 6,985,941 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1428 Invoice generation, e.g. customization, lay-out, database processing, algorithms for calculating the bill or formatting invoices as WWW pages invoicing in general G06Q30/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/022 by sampling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/026 using flow identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/31 Distributed metering or calculation of charges
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/41 Billing record details, i.e. parameters, identifiers, structure of call data record [CDR]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/43 Billing software details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/44 Augmented, consolidated or itemized billing statement or bill presentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/53 using mediation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/55 for hybrid networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/56 for VoIP communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/80 Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8214 : Data or packet based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0104 : Augmented, consolidated or itemised billing statement, e.g. additional billing information, bill presentation, layout, format, e-mail, fax, printout, itemised bill per service or per account, cumulative billing, consolidated billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0152 : General billing plans, rate plans, e.g. charge rates, numbering plans, rate centers, customer accounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0164 : Billing record, e.g. Call Data Record [CDR], Toll Ticket[TT], Automatic Message Accounting [AMA], Call Line Identifier [CLI], details, i.e. parameters, identifiers, structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0172 : Mediation, i.e. device or program to reformat CDRS from one or more switches in order to adapt to one or more billing programs formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/2013 : Fixed data network, e.g. PDN, ATM, B-ISDN
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/202 : VoIP; Packet switched telephony
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/22 : Bandwidth or usage-sensitve billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/44 : Charging/billing arrangements for connection made over different networks, e.g. wireless and PSTN, ISDN, etc.
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/782 : Data or packet based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/96 : Distributed calculation of charges, e.g. in different nodes like for mobiles between HLR and VLR, or between the terminal and the billing function
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

In some embodiments, network traffic information is captured at network information sources. These sources provide detailed information about the network communications transactions at a network device. Importantly, different types of sources can provide different types of information. Gatherer devices gather the detailed information from the various information source devices and convert the information into standardized information. The gatherer devices can correlate the gathered information with account information for network transaction accounting. Manager devices manage the gatherer devices and store the gathered standardized information. The manager devices eliminate duplicate network information that may exist in the standardized information. The manager devices also consolidate the information. Importantly, the information stored by the manager devices represents the consolidated, account correlated, network transaction information that can be used for billing or network accounting. The system thereby provides a distributed network accounting and billing system.

Claims

1. A system for tracking network session information, the system comprising:

an information source module having a source information input and a standardized information output, a source information corresponds to network usage information, a standardized information corresponds to the network usage information transformed into a standard format;

a first program having at least a first standardized information input and an enhanced data output, a first standardized information input corresponding to the standardized information, an enhanced data corresponding to the standardized data after at least a partial transformation, the at least partial transformation being defined according to a data record format;

a second program having at least a first enhanced data input and a data record output, the first enhanced data corresponding to the enhanced data, a data record corresponding to the first enhanced data, the data record being formatted according to the data record format;

a database storing the data record; and

wherein the second program merges duplicate data records that represent the same network usage information.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least partial transformation is defined from a data enhancement procedure, and wherein the data record format includes a plurality of fields and wherein the data enhancement procedure defines how the standardized information is to be transformed into the plurality of fields of the data record format.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the data enhancement procedure includes at least a field enhancement wherein the field enhancement defines a source for a predetermined field in the plurality of fields.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the data enhancement procedure includes at least a field enhancement wherein the field enhancement defines a function to be applied to at least a portion of the standardized data.

5. The system of claim 2 wherein the data enhancement procedure defines a plurality of field enhancements, wherein each field enhancement defines network usage information to be stored in the plurality of fields.

6. The system of claim 2 further comprising a second information source module, the second information source module having a second source information input and a second standardized information output, a second source information corresponds to a second network information, a second standardized information corresponds to the second network information transformed into a standard format, and wherein the data enhancement procedure includes a first definition of at least a first field in the plurality of fields being from the standardized information, and at least a second definition of a second field in the plurality of fields being from the second standardized information.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the second program manages the first program and the information source module.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the second program causes the data record to be stored in the database.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the information source module is configured to receive the network usage information from a predetermined network device.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least partial transformation includes policy-based data aggregation which defines how network usage data should be aggregated.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the network usage information includes IP session data.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the data format includes a plurality of fields including a source IP field, a destination IP field, a source host field, a destination host field, a service type field, a date and time field, a duration field, a total number of bytes field, and a counter field.

14. The system of claim 1 further comprising a customer care and billing system coupled to the database, the customer care and billing system for accessing the database to generate a bill from the data record.

7. The system of 6 further comprising a proxy server and a domain name system (DNS) server, and wherein the information source module receives the network usage information from the proxy server, and wherein the second information source module receives the second network information from the DNS server, and wherein the first definition defines that a source IP address supplied by the proxy server should be put into the first field, and wherein the second definition defines a URL supplied by the DNS server should be put into the second field.

15. A network usage accounting system comprising:

an information source module coupled to receive network information from a network device;

a gatherer coupled to receive the network information source module, the gatherer for performing data enhancements on the network information to create a plurality of data records;

a central database storing the plurality of data records; and

a central event manager coupled to receive the plurality of data records, the central event manager merging duplicate records in the plurality of data records, the duplicate records representing the same network usage information.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the information source module is configured to receive network information from a network device chosen from the group of network devices consisting of a proxy server, a domain name service server, a firewall, a RADIUS server, and a router.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein the gatherer performs filtering and aggregation on the network information.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein the plurality of data records have a predefined data format comprising a plurality of fields, and wherein the data enhancements includes at least a first data field enhancement to enhance the network information to fill in the first data field.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the first data field corresponds to a source IP address field and wherein the data enhancement includes extracting a source IP address value from the network information.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the first data field corresponds to a URL name field and wherein the data enhancement includes requesting a URL name from a domain name service server.

21. A method of gathering and aggregating network usage information from a set of network devices, the system using at least a first program and a second program coupled in communications, the method comprising:

accessing network communications usage information;

filtering and aggregating the network communications usage information using the first program;

completing a plurality of data records from the filtered and aggregated network communications usage information, the plurality of data records corresponding to network usage by a plurality of users;

storing the plurality of data records; and

merging duplicate records in the plurality of data records.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein completing the plurality of records includes accessing user account information.

23. The method of claim 21 wherein completing the plurality of records includes for each data record determining a corresponding source IP address, a corresponding URL, a corresponding type of service used, and a corresponding amount of time used.

24. The method of claim 21 wherein the system includes a third program coupled in communications with at least the second program and wherein completing the plurality of records includes accessing the third program to determine network account information and including the network account information in at least a first record in the plurality of records.

25. The method of claim 21 wherein merging the duplicate records includes comparing a plurality of fields in the data records to identify data records corresponding to the same network session and merging the corresponding records.

26. The method of claim 21 wherein merging the duplicate records includes automatically deleting a duplicate record.

27. The method of claim 21 further comprising using the second program to automatically update the filtering and aggregation performed by the first program.

28. A network usage tracking system comprising:

means for accessing network communications usage information;

means for filtering and aggregating the network communications usage information using the first program;

means for completing a plurality of data records from the filtered and aggregated network communications usage information, the plurality of data records corresponding to network usage by a plurality of users;

means for storing the plurality of data records; and

means for merging duplicate records in the plurality of data records.

29. The network usage tracking system of claim 29 wherein the means for completing the plurality of data records includes one or more networked computers running one or more programs.

30. The network usage tracking system of claim 29 wherein the means for storing the plurality of data records includes a relational database.

31. The network usage tracking system of claim 29 wherein the means for storing the plurality of data records includes an object database.