AUTOMATED MESSAGE HANDLING SYSTEM AND PROCESS

• US 20080189376A1
• Filed: 02/04/2008
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Business Network Services, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: RAFFAELE, Herbert T., BICE, Richard S., BRUSSEAU, Jon P., LACOURSE, Richard L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,364,800 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and process for resolving messages from application components to back-end systems. The system comprises a standardized message definition which uses a tagged field format through which application components communicate to a message handler. The message handler applies rules that define actions to be taken and recipients of information based on the contents of the message. The rules may be pre-defined by a customer associated with an application component generating a message, based on common rules applied to components generally, or based upon service rules associated with the service provider, such as level of service subscriptions or other characteristics, or based on a combination of any or all of the above bases. By utilizing published message formats, the present invention provides a platform independent framework for exposing application hosting back-end systems to customer applications.

Claims

1-33. -33. (canceled)

34. A computing device-implemented method comprising:

receiving a message that includes message header information, the message header information identifying a plurality of fields that is included in a body of the received message;

accessing field definitions for the identified plurality of fields;

identifying rules applicable to the field definitions; and

applying the identified rules to contents of the plurality of fields in the body of the received message to cause an action to be performed.

35. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where at least one rule of the identified rules includes information identifying a party, and

where the action includes:

generating a notification, and

transmitting the notification to the party.

36. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where the received message is associated with a schema that identifies the message as directed to one of performance monitoring, asset management, case management, billing, or operations policy, the schema providing the field definitions for the plurality of fields in the body of the received message.

37. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where the received message is in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

38. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where the received message relates to a fault, and

where the action includes:

initiating corrective actions corresponding to the fault.

39. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where the action includes:

accessing a contacts list tool to identify a party to which to direct a notification,

generating the notification, and

sending the notification to the identified party.

40. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where at least one rule of the identified rules includes information identifying a title of a party to which a first message is to be transmitted, and

where the action includes:

accessing a contacts list tool to identify contact information for an individual associated with the title,

generating the first message, and

transmitting the first message to the individual using the identified contact information.

41. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where at least one rule of the identified rules is based on externally derived information.

42. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where at least one rule of the identified rules is based on information requested from an external source, and

where the action includes:

requesting the information from the external source.

43. The computing device-implemented method of claim 34, where the action includes:

generating at least one command to a component to initiate one or more actions, and

sending the at least one command to the component, the at least one command causing the component to initiate the one or more actions.

44. A system comprising:

a computing device-implemented message handler to;

receive a message that includes message header information, the message header information identifying a field that is included in a body of the received message,

retrieve a field definition for the identified field,

identify at least one rule applicable to the retrieved field definition, and

cause an action to be performed by the computing device-implemented message handler by applying the identified at least one rule to a content of the identified field.

45. The system of claim 44, where the at least one rule includes information identifying a party, and

where, when causing the action to be performed, the computing device-implemented message handler:

generates a notification, and

transmits the notification to the party.

46. The system of claim 44, where the received message is associated with a schema that identifies the message as directed to one of performance monitoring, asset management, case management, billing, or operations policy, the schema providing the field definition for the field.

47. The system of claim 44, where the received message is in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

48. The system of claim 44, where the received message relates to a fault, and

where, when causing the action to be performed, the computing device-implemented message handler:

initiates corrective actions corresponding to the fault.

49. The system of claim 44, where, when causing the action to be performed, the computing device-implemented message handler:

accesses a contacts list tool to identify a party to which to direct a notification,

generates the notification, and

sends the notification to the identified party.

50. The system of claim 44, where at least one rule of the identified rules is based on information requested from an external source, and

where, when causing the action to be performed, the computing device-implemented message handler:

requests the information from the external source.

51. The computing device-implemented method of claim 44, where, when causing the action to be performed, the computing device-implemented message handler:

generates at least one command to a component to initiate one or more actions, and

sends the at least one command to the component, the at least one command causing the component to initiate the one or more actions.

52. A computing device-implemented method comprising:

receiving a message that includes a plurality of fields;

obtaining field definitions for the plurality of fields from a schema with which the received message is associated;

identifying rules applicable to the field definitions; and

causing at least one action to be performed by applying the identified rules to contents of the plurality of fields.

53. The computing device-implemented method of claim 52 where the identified rules include rules created by a customer.