APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CREATING AND MANAGING PERSONALIZED SERVICES IN COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20110137877A1
• Filed: 09/09/2010
• Published: 06/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Postech Academy-Industry Foundation
• Original Assignee: Postech Academy-Industry Foundation
• Inventors: STRASSNER, John Charles, HONG, James Won Ki
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,293 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/694
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

An apparatus for creating and managing personalized services includes: a pre-processing unit for converting vendor- and device-specific sensor data into a normalized form; an analysis unit for determining a current state of entities being managed based on the normalized sensor data to thereby determine whether current services and/or resources that have been allocated to a user are being satisfied or not; and a personalization unit for examining state-related context data to determine what action to take. The personalization of the services and/or resources provided to a user or set of users is managed by context-sensitive policy rules. In addition, a set of abstractions, in the form of preferences, profiles, and subscriptions, are collectively used to determine the set of services and/or resources, as a function of context, that a user or set of users are entitled to receive.

Claims

1. An apparatus for creating and managing which personalized services in a communication system, comprising:

a pre-processing unit for converting vendor- and device-specific sensor data into a normalized form to produce normalized sensor data;

an analysis unit for determining a current state of entities being managed based on the normalized sensor data and producing state-related context data to thereby determine whether current services and/or resources that have been allocated to a user are being satisfied or not; and

a personalization unit for examining the state-related context data from the analysis unit to determine whether requirements of the user, in terms of services and resources that are required, are being met and, if they are not, what action(s) needs to be taken in order to deliver the required services and/or resources to the user.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the pre-processing unit includes:

devices for communication;

an information model for defining high-level knowledge in a technology-, vendor-, and device-neutral form;

data models for translating the high-level knowledge into a form that is specific to each of the devices;

device converters for identifying the vendor- and device-specific data and translating the vendor- and device-specific data into a normalized form to produce the normalized sensor data, i.e., platform-, technology-, and vendor-independent data; and

an object construction logic module for receiving the normalized sensor data produced by each of the device converters and combining them into a single cohesive model.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein an information or data model is used for guiding a conversion process in the pre-processing unit.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the analysis unit further includes analyzing the normalized sensor data to determine whether contractual terms of delivering the services and resources are in danger of being violated or not for a particular context.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein an analysis in the analysis unit is done using a set of policy rules that are selected according to a current context recognized or inferred by the system.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the analysis unit determines whether the current services and resources that have been allocated to the user are being satisfied or not by comparing the current state of the managed entities with their desired state.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein as a result of the comparison, if the current state of the managed entities is equal to the desired state, the analysis unit continues to monitor the normalized sensor data, and if the current state of the managed entities is not equal to the desired state, the analysis unit takes additional actions as appropriate, wherein the additional actions include defining additional data to monitor to help determine where the problem is, recommending a set of configuration changes to a human administrator, and/or executing one or more configuration changes.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the personalization unit examines the state-related context data to see whether the state-related context data indicates a change in context, and if there exists a change in context, analyzes whether existing policy rules are still relevant for a changed context.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the personalization unit, if it is determined that the existing policy rules are not relevant for the changed context anymore as a result of the analysis, selects new policy rules which are relevant for the changed context.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein if there exists no change in context, the personalization unit checks whether the requirements of the user are still satisfied.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein if the requirements of the user are still satisfied, the personalization unit continues to monitor the state-related context data.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein if the requirements of the user are not satisfied, the requirements of the user are recomputed to determine if new services and/or resources are delivered to the user for a particular context.

13. A method for creating and managing personalized services in a communication system, comprising:

performing pre-processing for converting vendor- and device-specific sensor data into a normalized form to produce normalized sensor data;

analyzing the normalized sensor data, determining a current state of entities being managed, and producing state-related context data to thereby determine whether current services and resources that have been allocated to a user are being satisfied or not; and

examining the state-related context data to determine what action to take to ensure that the context-specific services and/or resources required by the user are being supplied.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein an information model or data model is used for guiding a conversion process in said performing pre-processing step.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein in said analyzing normalized sensor data, it is also determined whether the contractual terms of delivering the services and/or resources are in danger of being violated or not for a particular context.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein whether the current services and resources that have been allocated to the user are being satisfied or not is determined by comparing the current state of the managed entities with their desired state.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein as a result of the comparison, if the current state of the managed entities is equal to the desired state, monitoring of the normalized sensor data continues, and if the current state of the managed entities is not equal to the desired state, additional actions are taken as appropriate, wherein the additional actions include defining additional data to monitor to help determine where the problem is, recommending a set of configuration changes to a human administrator, and/or executing one or more configuration changes.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein it is checked whether the state-related context data indicates a change in context, and if there exists a change in context, it is analyzed whether existing policy rules are still relevant for a changed context.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein if it is determined that the existing policy rules are not relevant for the changed context anymore as a result of the analysis, new policy rules which are relevant for the changed context are computed.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein if there exists no change in context, it is checked whether requirements of the user are still satisfied, and if so, monitoring of the state-related context data continues, or if not, reconfiguration commands are computed so as to ensure that the services and/or resources required by the user are supplied.

21. The method of claim 13, wherein the personalized services are managed in accordance with changes in context.

22. The method of claim 13, wherein a set of policy rules are selected by a current context to govern management of the services and/or resources required by the user.

23. The method of claim 13, wherein a set of profiles, preferences, and subscriptions defined in an extensible object-oriented form are used to determine the services and/or resources that are to be allocated to the user as a function of a particular context.

24. The method of claim 13, wherein the context can be represented as an object-oriented set of atomic and/or composite objects.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein each contextual element can be assigned its own relevance, enabling different combinations of services and resources to be assigned to the user as the context changes.

26. The method of claim 13, wherein federations of services and/or resources can be assigned to the user as a function of a particular context.

27. The method of claim 13, wherein each of the services and/or resources that are to be provided to the user is assigned to a particular administrative domain, and each administrative domain is governed according to a set of policy rules as determined by a particular context.

28. The method of claim 14, wherein the information model is used as both an analysis and runtime template.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the information model describes how to use management and operational data to design and manage the system.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein for runtime management, the information model is instantiated into a set of data models whose objects, attributes, and relationships are then “

filled in”

with measured data.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein a matching of analysis to runtime data enables the runtime data to be validated by measuring its conformance to the information model.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein a matching of analysis to runtime data enables the information model to be validated by measuring how accurately the information model represents characteristics and behavior of an entity being modeled.