Transaction process for the provisioning of rules in a rule-based network

• US 7,949,735 B2
• Filed: 07/08/2004
• Issued: 05/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Robinson, Julien, Edwiges, Maurice
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Peling A
• Assistant Examiner(s): RICHARDSON, THOMAS W
• Application Number:
  US10/885,754
• Publication Number:
  US 20050015503A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,511 Days
• Field of Search: 709/222
• US Class Current: 709/222
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• 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

Abstract

The invention proposes a transaction process for the provisioning of rules in a network which includes at least one rule server and one rule server client. The process includes a first stage of transmission from the server to the client of a request for acceptance of the provisioning of a set of rules. The process also includes a second stage of reservation by the client of the resources necessary for the reception and the putting into application of the rules if the request is accepted by the client. The process includes a third stage of response to the request, from the client to the server, and a fourth stage for provisioning the set of rules to the client if the response to the request is favorable. When the network has several clients, each of the clients responds to the request from the server, and the provisioning stage is executed only if each response is favorable.

Claims

1. A transaction process for the provisioning of rules in a network that includes a rule server and a server client, the rule server comprising at least a processor, the transaction process comprising:

(a) transmission from the server to the client of a request for acceptance of the provisioning of a set of rules, where the client is attributed to a group of clients;

(b) reservation by the client of the necessary resources for the reception and putting into application of the rules, if the request is accepted by the client;

(c) response to the request, from the client to the server; and

(d) provisioning of functional rules from the server to the client if the response in stage (c) is favorable and responses from other client in the group are favorable,

wherein prior to the provisioning, the client checks whether the provisioning process comprising executing the functional rules will be executed correctly or not in the client, and the client transmits a response indicating that the provisioning process will be executed correctly, the client reserves resources necessary for reception and execution of the rules,

wherein the favorable responses indicate that the provisioning can be implemented in a respective client and the responses are transmitted prior to the provisioning of the rules on the client by the server, and

wherein stages (a), (b) and (c) are carried out for each of the clients in the group, each responding to the request from the server during stage (c), and in which provisioning stage (d) with respect to each client is carried out only if each client response is favorable, and

wherein if the client provides the favorable response and one of other clients in the group does not provide a favorable response, the client is not provisioned, and

wherein the network further comprises a rule manager that modifies one or more rules in the set of rules if one of the clients responds unfavorably and provides the modified set of rules to the server for transmission to the client.

2. A process according to claim 1, further comprising a stage (e) for releasing the resources reserved by the clients at stage (b), if a response from at least one of the client is not favorable.

3. A process according to claim 1, which also includes a stage (c′

) for the transmission of an error message from the client to the server if the response to the request is not favorable.

4. A process according to claim 3, where the process further comprises a stage (c″

) for transmission from the server to the rule manager of a message that includes at least part of the information contained in the error message sent at stage (c′

).

5. A process according to claim 1, where the network also includes:

several network elements which are clients of the server client, and

a network element manager,

in which reservation of the resources by the client at stage (b) is effected following a preliminary stage (a′

) of communication between the server client and the network element manager.

6. A process according to claim 5, where the network element manager is an integral part of the server client, and in which the communication stage (a′

) is an operation within the server client.

7. The process according to claim 1, wherein the provisioning comprises configuring the client with the rules from the server.

8. The process according to claim 1, wherein prior to the provisioning, each of the clients in the network receives an inquiry from the server and transmit a response regarding whether the corresponding client has the necessary resources to execute the provisioning of the rules from the server.

9. The process according to claim 1, wherein:

the provisioning of the rules from the server is applied to the client and at least one additional client,

the provisioning of the rules from the server is not applied to the clients when one of the clients cannot execute the provisioning correctly.

10. The process according to claim 9, wherein:

prior to the provisioning and after the check, each of the clients transmits a response to the server indicating whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not, and

waiting by the server for the response from each of the clients and based on the responses received from all the client, the server determines whether to execute the provisioning of the rules.

11. The process according to claim 10, wherein when one of the clients transmits a response to the server indicating that provisioning process cannot be executed correctly, the server determines not to execute the provisioning of the rules on all of the clients and instructs the remaining clients to release resources reserved for the provisioning of the rules.

12. The process according to claim 10,

prior to the provisioning, each of the clients checks whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not in the respective client, and

the provisioning of the rules from the server is not applied to the clients when one of the clients cannot execute the provisioning correctly.

13. The process according to claim 1, wherein the provisioning of the rules from the server to the client is implemented only after the server receives the favorable response from the client and wherein the request for acceptance of the provisioning of the set of rules includes general characteristics of the set of rules without providing data necessary for implementing actual provisioning of the rules.

14. The process according to claim 1, wherein the necessary resources are the resources used in the provisioning of the rules from the server when the response is favorable.

15. The process according to claim 1, wherein said checking whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not comprises determining whether the client is capable of receiving and executing the rules and wherein the group of clients are each provisioned independently by same rules.

16. The process according to claim 1, wherein said checking whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not by each of the clients in the group comprises determining whether the resources are available in a local part of the network, which are managed by the server, and whether the resources are sufficient to allow reception and execution of the rules such that same rules are executed in each of the clients in the group.

17. A rule server which has resources to implement a transaction process for the provisioning of rules in a network that includes the rule server and a server client, the rule server comprising at least a processor, the transaction process comprising:

(a) transmission from the server to the client of a request for acceptance of the provisioning of a set of rules, where the client is attribute to a group of clients and the request includes general characteristics of the rules;

(b) checking by the client whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly in the client based on the general characteristics of the rules;

(c) transmitting a favorable response from the client to the server if the client determines that the provisioning process will be executed correctly in the client, and transmitting an unfavorable response if the client determines that the provisioning process will not be executed correctly in the client; and

(d) provisioning of functional roles from the server to the client if the server receives the favorable response from each client in the group,

wherein prior to the provisioning of functional rules, a resource necessary for reception and execution of the functional rules is reserved by the client if the client determines that the provisioning process comprising executing the functional rules will be executed correctly in each client of the group,

wherein the responses indicate that the provisioning can be implemented in a respective client and the responses are transmitted prior to the provisioning of the rules on the client by the server, and

wherein stages (a), (b) and (c) are carried out for each of the clients in the group, each responding to the request from the server during stage (c), and in which provisioning stage (d) with respect to each client is carried out only if each client response is favorable, and

wherein if the client provides the favorable response and one of other clients in the group does not provide a favorable response, the client is not provisioned, and

wherein the network further comprises a rule manager that modifies one or more rules in the set of rules if one of the clients responds unfavorably and provides the modified set of rules to the server for transmission to the client.

18. The rule server according to claim 17, wherein said checking whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not comprises determining whether the client is capable of receiving and executing the rules and wherein the group of clients are each provisioned independently by same rules.

19. The rule server according to claim 17, wherein said checking whether the provisioning process will be executed correctly or not by each of the clients in the group comprises determining whether the resources are available in a local part of the network, which are managed by the server, and whether the resources are sufficient to allow reception and execution of the rules such that same rules are executed in each of the clients in the group.