SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING DATA RECORDS IN A MEDIATION SYSTEM

• US 20090030943A1
• Filed: 06/02/2006
• Published: 01/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Comptel Corporation (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Comptel Corporation (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Kall, Johan
• Granted Patent: US 8,996,541 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0226 Mapping or translating multiple network management protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5029 Service quality level-based billing, e.g. dependent on measured service level customer is charged more or less
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications

Abstract

A mediation method and system utilizes a subsystem (300) for processing event records that at least potentially have a mutual relation. The subsystem comprises an in-memory database (410) capable of storing data, database interface layer (310) providing an interface to the database, a basic functionality layer (320) comprising at least one module capable of performing basic functions, and a mediation functionality layer (330, 340) comprising at least two modules each capable of performing at least one mediation function on the data in the in-memory database via the modules at the database interface layer and/or basic functionality layer.

Claims

1. A subsystem (300) in a mediation system for processing event records, wherein the subsystem is capable of processing event records that are capable of having a mutual relation, the subsystem comprising:

an in-memory database (410) capable of storing data on the event records and capable of having said relation,

database interface layer (310) comprising a module providing an interface to the in-memory database,

a basic functionality layer (320) comprising at least one module (321, 322) capable of performing basic functions on the data in the in-memory database via the module at the database interface layer,

a mediation functionality layer (330, 340) comprising at least two modules (331-335, 341-346) each capable of performing at least one mediation function on the data in the in-memory database via the modules at the database interface layer and/or basic functionality layer.

2. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein the data stored on an event record that is in the in-memory database comprises at least one of:

identification of the event record, the whole event record, a part of the event record, data extracted from the event record and modified data from the event record.

3. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein said mediation functionality layer itself comprises at least two layers (330, 340).

4. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein said system is adapted for processing event records as a stream.

5. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein each module at the basic functionality layer (320) comprises a first interface (412) for interfacing with the module at the database interface layer and at least one second interface (413, 417) for interfacing with the modules at the mediation functionality layer.

6. A subsystem according to claim 5, wherein the mediation functionality layer (330, 340) comprises at least two modules comprising first interfaces (413, 417) for interfacing with a module at the basic functionality layer and second interfaces (414, 423, 424) for interfacing with another modules at the mediation functionality layer and/or with the mediation system elements outside the subsystem (141).

7. A subsystem according to claim 5, wherein the mediation functionality layer comprises at least one module capable of communicating directly with the module at the database interface layer.

8. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein at least two layers selected from the group of the database interface layer, basic functionality layer and mediation functionality layer are capable of communicating directly with a mediation system element outside the subsystem (141).

9. A subsystem according to claim 1, wherein the mediation functions include at least one of:

aggregation, correlation, duplicate checking, sequence checking and lookup.

10. A mediation system comprising a subsystem (300) according to claim 1 and further comprising processing logic (141) adapted to operate the subsystem for the processing of event records.

11. A mediation system according to claim 10, wherein the system is adapted to handle event records in a communications network between a generation layer of events and an operation system layer of events and wherein the mediation system comprises:

at least two independent node components (210, 220, 230, 240, 250) for processing event records, each of the independent node components having its own settings according to which the node operates independently of other components of the system, at least two of the independent node components being configured to handle event records in series such that the first independent node component outputs into a buffer and the second independent node component reads its input from the buffer,

at least one node manager component for configuring the node components, starting up the node components, monitoring the functioning of the node components and stopping the node components, when required, and

a system database for managing all configuration information of each component and for storing information on handled events.

12. A mediation system according to claim 11, wherein each of the node components comprise a node base (130) providing basic functionality of the node component and an application (140) containing processing rules, according to which the node component processes the event records input to the node component.

13. A mediation system according to claim 12, wherein at least one of the node components (230) comprises the subsystem (300) according to any of claims 1 to 9 in the application (140).

14. A mediation system according to claim 13, wherein the processing logic (141) adapted to operate the subsystem is in the application (140) comprising the subsystem.

15. A method for processing event records capable of being related, in a communications network by means of a mediation system according to the system of claim 10.

16. A method according to claim 15, further comprising processing event records as a stream.

17. A method according to claim 15, comprising performing mediation functions on the event records, wherein the mediation functions comprise at least one of:

aggregation, correlation, duplicate checking, sequence checking and lookup.

18. A method according to claim 15, wherein the event records comprise a first partial record and a last partial record and optionally at least one intermediate partial record, and the method comprises the steps of:

receiving and reading an event record (501),

performing a check whether the read event record is a partial record (502), and

continuing the method according to the result of the performed check.

19. A method according to claim 18, wherein, in case the performed check indicates that the record is not a partial record, the step of continuing the method comprises the steps of:

constructing an output record (508), and

sending the output record to further processing (509).

20. A method according to claim 18, wherein in case the performed check indicates that the record is a partial record, the step of continuing the method comprises the steps of:

performing a check whether another partial record having a relation to the read partial record has already been received (503), and

if such another partial record has not been received, adding the read partial record to a database (410),

if such another partial record has already been received, checking could the related partial records be combined (504).

21. A method according to claim 20, wherein in case the related partial records could be combined, the method comprises combining the partial records (505) and returning to the step of checking could the related partial records be combined (504).

22. A method according to claim 20, wherein in case the related partial records cannot be combined, the method comprises:

checking (506) whether the combined record is complete i.e. that each of the first partial record, last partial record and any intermediate partial record has been received and combined, and

if the combined record is not complete, adding the read partial record to the database (410),

if the combined record is complete, constructing an output record (508) and sending the output record to further processing (509).

23. A method according to claim 15, wherein the event records comprise a first record and a last record that are capable of having at least one intermediate record, and the method comprises the steps of:

receiving the first record at the processing logic,

selecting a process for processing the first record and the last record,

according to the selected process;

extracting information from the first record,

selecting a module at the database interface layer, basic functionality layer or mediation functionality layer, and

sending the extracted information to the module for performing a function and for storing into the in-memory database,

receiving the last record at the processing logic, and according to the selected process;

extracting information from the last record,

selecting the module at the database interface layer, basic functionality layer or mediation functionality layer, and

performing a function, wherein the function comprises;

retrieving from the in-memory database information relating to the first and any intermediate records, and

creating a new record based on the function and the retrieved and extracted information, and

returning the new record to the processing logic.

24. A method according to claim 23, further including the step of processing an intermediate record, the method of processing an intermediate record comprising the steps of:

receiving the intermediate record at the processing logic, and according to the selected process;

extracting information from the intermediate record,

selecting the module at the database interface layer, basic functionality layer or mediation functionality layer, and

sending the extracted information to the module for performing a function, wherein the function comprises;

retrieving from the in-memory database information relating to the first record,

creating a new record based on the function and the retrieved and extracted information, and

storing the information of the new record into the in-memory database to take place of the information of the first record.

25. A method according to claim 23, further including the step of processing an intermediate record, the method of processing an intermediate record comprising the steps of:

receiving the intermediate record at the processing logic, and according to the selected process;

extracting information from the intermediate record,

selecting the module at the database interface layer, basic functionality layer or mediation functionality layer, and

sending the extracted information to the module for performing a function, wherein the function comprises;

retrieving from the in-memory database information relating to the first record and any earlier intermediate record,

checking whether there are consecutive records in the group of the first and intermediate records,

in case of consecutive records, combining the information from the consecutive records, and storing the combined information into the in-memory database to take place of the information from the consecutive records, and

maintaining the information of the non-consecutive records in the in-memory database.

26. A method according to claim 23, further including the step of processing an intermediate record, the method of processing an intermediate record comprising the steps of:

receiving the intermediate record at the processing logic, and according to the selected process;

extracting information from the intermediate record,

selecting the module at the database interface layer, basic functionality layer or mediation functionality layer, and

sending the extracted information to the module for performing a function, wherein the function comprises;

storing information about the intermediate record into the in-memory database.

27. A method according to claim 15, wherein the information extracted from the event record comprises at least one of:

identification of the event record, the whole event record, a part of the event record and a value of a data field in the event record.

28. A method according to claim 15, wherein a module at the mediation functionality layer sends information on the event records selectively to a module at the basic functionality layer or to a module at the database interface layer.

29. A method according to claim 15, wherein the processing logic selects first a first process and a first module for processing the received event record and then at least one second process and module for processing the same received event record.

30. A computer program product having a media with a plurality of instructions for configuring a computer system to form a mediation system according to claim 10.

31. A computer program product having a media with a plurality of instructions according to claim 30, further comprising a plurality of instructions for configuring a computer system to perform a method according to claim 15.