AUTOMATED PROVISIONING SYSTEM

• US 20090172134A1
• Filed: 06/02/2006
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amdocs Development Limited (Amdocs Ltd.), Jacobs Rimell Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Jacobs Rimell Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Inventors: Pond, Mark, Jacobs, David, Sterling, Keith
• Granted Patent: US 8,135,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/10 Services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers

Abstract

An automated provisioning system for provisioning a service or device in a communications network, which system comprises a listener (2) adapted to receive a request from a user and a driver adapted to control operation of the service or device. The driver supports a describe operation, which enumerates which operations are available for the user and co-operates with a control processor (22), which mediates between the driver and a data store holding information on which operations are available for the user. When a request to provision an available operation is received, the control processor (22) mediates between the data store and driver to determine what information is required to provision the service or device and to permit the driver to provision the service or device. The system dispenses with the table driven approach of known systems.

Claims

1. An automated provisioning system for provisioning a service or device in a communications network, the system comprising a listener adapted to receive a request from a user and a driver adapted to control operation of the service or device, wherein the driver supports a describe operation, which describe operation enumerates which operations are available for the user and the driver co-operates with a control processor, which control processor is adapted to mediate between the driver and a data store, which data store holds information on which operations are available for the user, wherein in the event of a request to provision an available operation being received, the control processor mediates between the data store and driver to determine what information is required to provision the service or device and to permit the driver to provision the service or device.

2. The automated provisioning system according to claim 1, wherein the control processor determines that the requested operation requires validation, then a server side validation of the request is made prior to actual provisioning.

3. The automated provisioning system according to claim 1, wherein the control processor determines if any values for the requested operation are reserved and instructs the driver to lock any reserved value or values prior to provisioning.

4. The automated provisioning system according to claim 1, wherein the status of the operation is returned by the driver to the control processor.

5. The automated provisioning system according to claim 1, wherein the request to the driver contains a specific meta-object defining the request, which meta-object is specific to the driver.

6. The automated provisioning system according to claim 5, wherein the information in the data store is modelled, which model comprises product objects and service objects and a configuration object linking the product and service objects, wherein the control processor uses the metal-object to locate the driver by means of an attribute of the configuration object.