Systems and Methods for Management of Subscriber Databases Within Mobile Communications Networks

• US 20120179652A1
• Filed: 07/18/2011
• Published: 07/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amdocs Canadian Managed Services Inc. (Amdocs Ltd.), Amdocs Development Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Bridgewater Systems Corp. (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Inventors: GLAUDE, Normand
• Granted Patent: US 8,660,991 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/626
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication

Abstract

Systems and methods system for managing data objects that support the personalization of mobile communications services are provided. The system includes one or more databases that contain subscriber data, such as, for example profile, usage or state information related to the subscriber. For one or more of the databases within the system, a database federator and a distributed object repository having multiple nodes is provided. The nodes are used to store data objects and duplicate data objects. Data objects may be distributed to the nodes based on, for example, a hashing algorithm. Additionally, a method for graceful redundancy degradation of stored duplicate objects is provided. In another embodiment, a method for time-based triggering of duplicate objects stored within separate nodes is provided.

Claims

1. A method for graceful redundancy degradation of stored duplicate objects stored within a set of nodes, wherein a replication factor determines the number of duplicates stored for each object, comprising:

establishing one or more node utilization thresholds;

determining that a node utilization threshold has been exceeded;

reducing an original replication factor based on the utilization threshold that has been exceeded; and

applying an updated replication factor to received objects.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing a received object and the duplicate objects of the received objects, wherein the number of duplicate objects stored is determined by the replication factor, wherein the received object and duplicate objects are stored on separate nodes.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising purging duplicate objects already stored, wherein a number of duplicates that are not purged for an object is based on the utilization threshold that has been exceeded.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the replication factor based on a current level of duplication.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the replication factor based on a value of an object.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the value of an object is based on one or more of a business importance of the object or whether the object can be recreated.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more utilization thresholds include a first utilization threshold and a second utilization threshold, wherein the first utilization threshold is less than the second utilization threshold, wherein when the first utilization threshold is exceeded the replication factor is reduced, wherein when the second utilization factor is exceeded selected stored objects are purged.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more utilization thresholds include a first utilization threshold, a second utilization threshold and a third utilization threshold, wherein the first utilization threshold is less than the second utilization threshold and the second utilization threshold is less than the third utilization threshold, wherein when the first utilization threshold is exceeded the replication factor is reduced to a factor greater than zero, wherein when the second utilization factor is exceeded selected stored objects are purged, and wherein when the third utilization factor is exceeded the replication factor is reduced to zero.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising purging a stored duplicate object when the number of stored duplicate objects for a particular object exceed the replication factor.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising purging a stored duplicate object when the number of stored duplicate objects for a particular object exceed the replication factor on an as needed basis.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein an object comprises a set of data.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein an object comprises a set of data that relates to the provisioning of a communications services.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein an object includes service profile data, subscriber profile data, billing data, session information or network usage data.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that an abatement threshold has been reached, wherein upon reaching an abatement threshold the replication factor is reset to the original replication factor.

15. The method of claim 14, comprising assessing overall node capacity, rate of object retrieval, and rate of object deletion to establish the abatement threshold.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein multiple replication factors exist based on the priority of received objects.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein upon a node utilization threshold being exceeded a first replication factor is applied to objects of a first priority and a second replication factor is applied to objects of a second priority, wherein the first priority is higher than the second priority and the first replication factor is greater than the second priority.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining an overall replication factor of objects stored across the nodes.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising generating an alarm when the overall replication factor drops below a threshold.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining an overall replication factor on a per priority basis of objects stored across the nodes.

21. A method for time-based triggering of duplicate objects stored within separate nodes, comprising:

storing an object and an associated time-based trigger in two or more nodes, wherein one of the two or more nodes is identified as the primary node for the object;

upon expiry of the associated time-based trigger, communicating from the primary node for the object a trigger notification to an application that the trigger has expired, wherein non-primary nodes do not communicate a trigger notification until after the expiry of at least one grace period;

upon receipt of the trigger notification, communicating from the application to the two or more nodes where the object is stored a trigger acknowledgment that the trigger has been received and applying business logic triggered by the trigger notification within the application.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the application and one or more instances of the application are stored at separate locations.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising storing with the object an approach for identifying a location of the application to be triggered.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the approach for identifying a location of the application to be triggered includes identifying a specific location of the application, determining a location of the application through a round robin analysis, or specifying that the closest available location of the application should be used.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the location of duplicate objects is known to the application.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the location of duplicate objects is calculated by the application.

27. The method of claim 21, Wherein a time-based trigger identified as secondary transmits a trigger notification upon expiry of the trigger and after expiry of the grace period when a trigger acknowledgment is not received.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein a time-based trigger identified as being of the nth level of priority transmits a trigger notification upon expiry of the trigger and after “

n−

1”

grace periods when a trigger acknowledgment is not received, where “

n”

is an integer.

29. The method of claim 21, wherein an object comprises a set of data.

30. The method of claim 21, wherein an object comprises a set of data that relates to the provisioning of a communications services.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein an object includes service profile data, subscriber profile data, billing data, session information or network usage data.

32. A system for managing data objects that support the personalization of mobile communications services, comprising:

a state database configured to contain data objects having state information that identifies and defines network sessions that are associated with subscribers;

a profile database configured to contain data objects that includes one or more of subscriber information, policy data, or network topology data; and

a usage database configured to contain data objects having billing and usage information,

wherein one or more of the state database, the profile database or usage database is configured with a database architecture having;

a distributed object repository configured to store data objects in memory in a distributed and redundant manner across a cluster of nodes; and

a database federator coupled between one of the profile database, usage database or state database and the distributed object repository for one of the profile database, usage database or state database that synchronizes data objects within a database and the distributed object repository for that database.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein an administrative domain for managing data objects and a network domain for supporting wireless communications applications is decoupled, wherein applications do not interact directly with one or more of the profile database, state database or usage database.

34. The system of claim 32, wherein a replication factor determines the number of duplicates stored for each object.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein stored duplicate data objects are gracefully degraded wherein the database federator is configured to:

establish one or more node utilization thresholds;

determine that a node utilization threshold has been exceeded;

reduce an original replication factor based on the utilization threshold that has been exceeded; and

apply an updated replication factor to received objects.

36. The system of claim 32, wherein the database federator is configured to provide time-based triggering of duplicate objects stored within separate notes of the distributed object repository and is configured to:

store an object and an associated time-based trigger in two or more nodes, wherein one of the two or more nodes is identified as the primary node for the object;

upon expiry of the associated time-based trigger, communicate from the primary node for the object a trigger notification to an application that the trigger has expired, wherein non-primary nodes do not communicate a trigger notification until after the expiry of at least one grace period;

upon receipt of the trigger notification, communicate from the application to the two or more nodes where the object is stored a trigger acknowledgment that the trigger has been received and applying business logic triggered by the trigger notification within the application.