CAPACITY MANAGEMENT FOR DATA NETWORKS

• US 20100235357A1
• Filed: 05/26/2010
• Published: 09/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amdocs Development Limited (Amdocs Ltd.), Amdocs Systems Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Amdocs Systems Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Inventors: Tector, Elizabeth Graves, Briscoe, Peter John
• Granted Patent: US 8,208,490 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/737
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5022 by giving priorities, e.g. assigning classes of service

Abstract

A method of processing capacity information is disclosed. The capacity information relates to data capacity in a data network in which a consumer circuit is carried on, and consumes bandwidth made available by, a bearer circuit. The method comprises storing, in a network information database, an entity representing the bearer circuit, and associating capacity information with the bearer circuit entity specifying a first bandwidth quantity defining a quantity of bandwidth made available by the bearer circuit. Also stored is an entity representing the consumer circuit, and capacity information is associated with the consumer circuit entity specifying a second bandwidth quantity defining a quantity of bandwidth allocated to the consumer circuit. The consumer capacity information is then associated with the bearer capacity information in the database to indicate that the second bandwidth quantity allocated to the consumer circuit is to be consumed from the first bandwidth quantity made available by the bearer circuit. The resulting capacity model can be used to support service provisioning, service assurance and SLA management, network engineering and network planning processes.

Claims

1. A method of processing capacity information relating to data capacity in a network, comprising storing in a capacity information database information defining network circuits and bandwidth partitions representing bandwidth allocations associated with network circuits;

storing a bandwidth partition template; and

creating a bandwidth partition entity in the database in accordance with the stored partition template.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein creating a partition entity comprises copying attribute values and/or partition hierarchy from the partition template.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the partition entity once created is independent of the partition template.

4. A method according to claim 1, comprising associating the created partition entity with the partition template, and updating the partition entity in response to changes to the partition template occurring after creation of the partition entity from the partition template.