REAL TIME RULES ENGINE FOR POLICIES ORCHESTRATION IN A MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

• US 20140095690A1
• Filed: 09/28/2012
• Published: 04/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Saker, Daniel, Modi, Shishir, Ivinjack, T. J.
• Application Number:
  US13/630,405
• Publication Number:
  US 20140095690A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1407 Policy-and-charging control [PCC] architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1033 Signalling gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures

Abstract

A method is provided for creating a configurable workflow in a mobile telecommunications network ecosystem including a plurality of diverse ecosystem components (400). The method includes: establishing a pipeline (200) that defines the workflow through which a user'"'"'s data session is processed; and defining a set of workers (202) within the pipeline (200) that sequentially interact in real time with the ecosystem components (400).

Claims

1. A method for creating a configurable workflow in a mobile telecommunications network ecosystem including a plurality of diverse ecosystem components, the method comprising:

establishing a pipeline that defines the workflow through which a user'"'"'s data session is processed; and

defining a set of workers within the pipeline that sequentially interact in real time with the ecosystem components.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each worker in the set of workers interacts with one ecosystem component.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the pipeline is established within a rules engine which is used to configure the pipeline.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the workers are further configurable by the rules engine.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein each worker can have a set of multiple inputs, a set of multiple conditions and a set of multiple outputs based on the inputs and evaluation of conditions by the rules engine.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the rules engine is incorporate in an online charging system.

7. The method of claim 1, said method further comprising:

establishing a plurality of pipelines; and

selecting one of the plurality of pipelines to define the workflow through which a user'"'"'s data session is processed.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the output of a preceding worker affects a behavior of a subsequent worker in the same pipeline.

9. An apparatus that executes the method of claim 1.

10. A non-transitory machine-readable medium including a computer program which when executed performs the method of claim 1.

11. A rules engine for creating a configurable workflow in a mobile telecommunications network ecosystem including a plurality of diverse ecosystem components, the rules engine comprising:

a pipeline defined therein that defines the workflow through which a user'"'"'s data session is processed; and

a set of workers defined within the pipeline that sequentially interact in real time with the ecosystem components.

12. The rules engine of claim 11, wherein each worker in the set of workers interacts with one ecosystem component.

13. The rules engine of claim 11, wherein the pipeline is configurable by the rules engine.

14. The rules engine of claim 13, wherein the workers are further configurable by the rules engine.

15. The rules engine of claim 14, wherein each worker can have a set of multiple inputs, a set of multiple conditions and a set of multiple outputs based on the inputs and evaluation of conditions by the rules engine.

16. The rules engine of claim 13, wherein the rules engine is incorporate in an online charging system.

17. The rules engine of claim 11, said rules engine further comprising:

a plurality of pipelines defined therein; and

wherein the rules engine is configured to select one of the plurality of pipelines to define the workflow through which a user'"'"'s data session is processed.

18. The rules engine of claim 17, wherein the output of a preceding worker affects a behavior of a subsequent worker in the same pipeline.