Gateway for interaction of telecommunications network resources and applications

• US 20030177281A1
• Filed: 01/31/2003
• Published: 09/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Aepona Limited (Persistent Systems Limited)
• Inventors: Dalton, Kleran, McQuillan, Liam
• Granted Patent: US 7,207,048 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/320
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0045 involving hybrid, i.e. a mixture of public and private, or multi-vendor systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0054 Service creation techniques

Abstract

A gateway (1) has a platform on which resides a CORBA bus (22) an inner layer (23) of Parlay APIs, and an outer layer (24) of network service interfaces for controlling network resources (2). The gateway (1) also comprises application interfaces (20) and Parlay APIs (21) residing on remote platforms which also host applications (10, 13, 14) wishing to access the network resources (2). The network resources (2) interface directly with the Parlay APIs (23) if they have Parlay APIs themselves, or otherwise with the interfaces (24). On the application side, the application interfaces (20) are provided as Java Beans which may be instantiated by an XML interpreter in response to high level XML commands defining application-side interfacing requirements.

Claims

1. A gateway for interaction of applications with telecommunication network resources, the gateway comprising means for interfacing with said applications and means for interfacing with said network resources, characterised in that,

the network interfacing means comprises:

an outer layer of network service interfaces comprising means for interfacing with and controlling network resources; and

an inner layer of open-standard APIs comprising means for interfacing with network resources having corresponding open-standard APIs and for interfacing with network service interfaces of the outer layer.

2. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway further comprises a middleware bus residing between said application interfacing means and said network interfacing means inner layer.

3. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway further comprises a middleware bus residing between said application interfacing means and said network interfacing means inner layer;

and wherein said middleware bus complies with the CORBA standard.

4. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway comprises a service gateway comprising inner layer open-standard services, outer layer service level programs, and means for managing interaction between the service level programs and network traffic.

5. A gateway as claimed in claim 4, wherein the service layer programs comprise means for providing call state machines for managing communication dialogue.

6. A gateway as claimed in claim 4, wherein the service layer programs comprise means for providing call state machines for managing communication dialogue;

and wherein the service gateway comprises a notification demultiplexer comprising means for dispatching network notifications to the service logic programs and to applications.

7. A gateway as claimed in claim 4, wherein the service layer programs comprise means for providing call state machines for managing communication dialogue;

and wherein the service gateway comprises a notification demultiplexer comprising means for dispatching network notifications to the service logic programs and to applications; and

wherein the outer layer comprises a network gateway comprising signalling stacks and means for performing translation between said stacks and the service logic programs of the service gateway.

8. A gateway as claimed in claim 2, wherein the inner layer comprises:

an open-standard framework interface to the middleware bus, and

an open-standard service interface to the middleware bus for interaction with applications.

9. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway comprises a framework comprising management, provisioning, subscription, and security functions to the outer layer and to the inner layer.

10. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway comprises platform resources for providing the following functions to the inner layer and to the outer layer:

a persistent data store for control and configuration tables; and

a communications function for internal communication which does not use a distributed object middleware communication mechanism; and

an event manager providing a standard interface to functions within the gateway for receiving events, for classifying received events into information, error, and critical categories, and for logging the events.

11. A gateway as claimed in claim 10, wherein said platform resources further comprises a timer function comprising means for invoking and cancelling timers for functions of the gateway.

12. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the gateway comprises:

a management entity for routing gateway management signals;

a Web server linked with the management entity and comprising means for communication with management interfaces on separate hardware platforms;

a platform manager linked with the management entity and comprising means for controlling start-up and shut-down of a primary hardware platform for the inner layer and the outer layer.

13. A gateway as claimed in claim 1, wherein the means for interfacing with the applications comprises an application-side layer of components having an application interface and logic and a network-side layer comprising open-standard APIs for communication with the open-standard APIs of the inner layer.

14. A gateway as claimed in claim 13, wherein the application-side layer and the network-side layer are present on a platform for each application and said platforms are remote from a platform of the inner layer and the outer layer.

15. A gateway as claimed in claim 13, wherein the application-side layer and the network-side layer are present on a platform for each application and said platforms are remote from a platform of the inner layer and the outer layer;

and wherein the application-side layer comprises re-usable objects and means for instantiating the objects to provide a component.

16. A gateway as claimed in claim 13, wherein the application-side layer and the network-side layer are present on a platform for each application and said platforms are remote from a platform of the inner layer and the outer layer;

and wherein the application-side layer comprises re-usable objects and means for instantiating the objects to provide a component; and

wherein said instantiation means comprises an XML interpreter comprising means for interpreting user inputs of high-level interfacing commands.

17. An application client for interfacing between an application and gateway open-standard APIs providing access to network resources, the client comprising:

a core of open-standard APIs, and

re-usable objects, and means for instantiating said objects to provide components with logic and an application interface.

18. An application client as claimed in claim 17, wherein the instantiating means comprises an XML interpreter, and a user interface for directing input of high level XML commands defining interfacing requirements.

19. An application client as claimed in claim 17, wherein the instantiating means comprises an XML interpreter, and a user interface for directing input of high level XML commands defining interfacing requirements and wherein the application client further comprises reusable utility objects, and means for instantiating said objects to provide components for logging, tracing, database access, and timer functions.