System and method for communications management with redundancy

• US 6,286,042 B1
• Filed: 04/03/1998
• Issued: 09/04/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Björn, Peter, Högberg, Lena, Jensen, Lars, Hasselberg, Jonas
• Primary Examiner(s): Teska, Kevin J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): THOMSON, WILLIAM D
• Application Number:
  US09/053,947
• Time in Patent Office: 1,250 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/220, 709/221, 709/226, 709/300, 709/303, 709/202, 709/203, 709/316, 707/10, 707/202, 707/103
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/042 comprising distributed management centres cooperatively managing the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13503 object-oriented systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13521 fault management
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13532 mobile networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0075 Fault management techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

Management operations can be sent from a managing system to a number of managed systems over a management interface. Redundancy is provided through replicating a management operation in a first of managed systems and sending the operation to at least one further managed system. A method of replicating management operations is also provided according to which instance operations that correspond to a management operation are established. The method further includes, for each instance operation, examining if any replication conditions are given, and if such are fulfilled, replicating the operation and invoking it in a redundant system.

Claims

1. A system comprising at least one managing system, a number of first managed systems and a number of second managed systems, each managed system comprising a number of managed objects representing resources, a management interface for providing communication between managing and managed systems via which management operations can be sent from the managing systems to the managed system(s), wherein for providing redundancy a management operation is replicated and provided to a first and to at least one second managed system and the replication is done in the first managed system, and the management operation is broken down into a number of managed object instance operations, the management operation being replicated by replication of the managed object instance operations, and wherein CMIP operations on sets of managed objects in an MIB in one network element are transformed into sets of simple CMIP operations on managed objects in another MIB in another network element while relationship consistency is preserved.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein, the management operation is processed and replicated in the first managed system and in that it is sent from a first managed system to at least one second managed system.

3. A system according to claim 2, wherein via processing in the first managed system, the management operation is broken down into the number of managed object instance operations.

4. A system according to claim 1, wherein the management operation is a single operation, addressing a single managed object instance.

5. A system according to claim 1, wherein the management operation is a scope operation addressing a number of Managed Object instances.

6. A system according to claim 5, wherein, at least one filtering condition is applied on the scope operation, the management operation thus forming a filter operation.

7. A system according to claim 5, wherein one or more replication conditions are given and in that only instance operations fulfilling the given replication condition(s) are replicated.

8. A system according to claim 7, wherein a first replication condition states that the instance operation has to be an updating operation.

9. A system according to claim 8, wherein the instance operation relates to one or more of the operations creating a managed object, deleting a managed object, setting a value in a managed object and invoking an action on a managed object instance.

10. A system according to claim 7, wherein the replication conditions only are used on the instance operations matching instances comprised within the scope of the operation.

11. A system according to claim 7, wherein that according to a further replication condition an object instance of an instance operation in a first managed system shall have an instance replica in a second managed system.

12. A system according to claim 11, wherein at least one replication container is defined by pointing out a sub-tree root in a management information tree containing the managed object instances and for instance operations towards sub-tree roots and/or all instances contained within that, a replication is carried out unless any other replication conditions are not fulfilled.

13. A system according to claim 1, wherein for replicated instance operations, a translation is done in the first or the second managed system of those parameters having different values in the first and the second managed systems respectively.

14. A system according to claim 5, wherein that the scope or filter operations are atomic synchronization operations, and an operation will only be performed if it can be successfully performed on every instance matching the scope and/or filter conditions and all their replicas.

15. A system according to claim 5, wherein the scope or filter operations are best effort synchronization operations, the operation is performed on all replicas of as many instances as possible.

16. A system according to claim 1, wherein the first and second managed systems comprise a first and second network element, and the managed objects in the first and second managed systems comprise management information bases.

17. A system according to claim 16, wherein the first and the second network elements respectively comprise a first and a second Home Location Register in a mobile communications network.

18. A data storing managed system comprising a number of managed objects representing resources or resource objects, wherein the system is managed by a managing system able to perform management operations on the managed system, and if a number of condition(s) is/are fulfilled, a management operation on one or more managed object instances is replicated in the managed system and sent to a second managed system thus providing redundancy, and the management operation is broken down into a number of managed object instance operations in the managed system and the management operation is replicated indirectly by replication of the managed object instance operations, and wherein CMIP operations on sets of managed objects in an MIB in one network element are transformed into sets of simple CMIP operations on managed objects in another MIB in another network element while relationship consistency is preserved.

19. Mobile communication system comprising a number of first Home Location Registers and a number of second Home Location Registers wherein the subscriber data is substantially the same in a first Home Location Register and a corresponding second Home Location Register and operator updates are addressed to a first Home Location Register, and the operator updates are replicated in the first Home Location Register and sent to the corresponding second Home Location Register without affecting the operator and the interface between operator and the first Home Location Register, and the operator updates are broken down into a number of instance operations, the operator updates being replicated by replication of the instance operations, and wherein CMIP operations on sets of managed objects in an MIB in one network element are transformed into sets of simple CMIP operations on managed objects in another MIB in another network element while relationship consistency is preserved.

20. Mobile communication system according to claim 19, wherein if any operator updates cannot be successfully performed both in a first and at least one redundant second Home Location Register, the up-dates are revoked in both the first and second Home Location Registers.

21. A method of providing redundancy in a system comprising at least a first and a second managed system, each of which comprises a number of managed objects, the method comprising the steps of:

when a management operation is sent to a first managed system;

establishing in the first managed system which managed object instances that are concerned,

breaking down the management operation into a number of instance operations, and

for each instance operation;

examining if any replication conditions are given, and if so, examining if the replication conditions are fulfilled,

if the replications conditions are fulfilled, sending a replicated instance operation to the at least one second managed system, and

invoking the instance operation and the replicated instance operation respectively in the first and second managed systems, wherein CMIP operations on sets of managed objects in an MIB in one network element are transformed into sets of simple CMIP operations on managed objects in another MIB in another network element while relationship consistency is preserved.

22. Method according to claim 21, it further comprising the step of:

translating the parameters of an instance operation that have different values in the first and second systems respectively.

23. Method according to claim 22, wherein the translation is done in the first managed system before sending the instance operation to the second managed systems.

24. The method according to claim 22, further comprising the steps of:

making the translation in the second managed system, and

invoking the replicated instance operation.

25. Method according to claim 21, wherein the instance operations of a management operation are replicated and invoked one by one.

26. Method according to claim 21, wherein a number of instance operations of a management operation are handled parallelly at least in part.

27. A method according to claim 21, wherein if an operation failure occurs in one of the managed systems, the operations are revoked in both the first and second managed systems.

28. A method of replicating management operations in a system comprising redundant managed systems, comprising the steps of:

establishing which instance operations correspond to a management operation,

for each instance operation, examining if any replication conditions are given, and if an instance operation fulfills the given replication conditions or if there are no conditions, replicating the instance operation,

sending the replicated instance operation to at least one of the redundant managed systems, and

invoking the instance operation and the replicated instance operation in the redundant systems, wherein CMIP operations on sets of managed objects in an MIB in one network element are transformed into sets of simple CMIP operations on managed objects in another MIB in another network element while relationship consistency is preserved.