System and method for testing automated provisioning and maintenance of operations support systems

• US 8,199,656 B1
• Filed: 12/11/2007
• Issued: 06/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kirtley, Rance A., Zhang, Lili
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Chi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Riyami, Abdullah
• Application Number:
  US11/954,048
• Time in Patent Office: 1,645 Days
• Field of Search: 370/252, 370/254, 370/352, 370/241, 370/395.5, 370/400, 370/401, 370/409, 370/52, 709/203, 709/220, 709/223, 709/315, 709/318, 707/103, 707/655, 707/656, 707/657, 707/658, 707/659, 707/660, 379/230, 379/220, 379/221, 379/279, 379/219
• US Class Current: 370/241
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0843 based on generic templates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/14 using software, i.e. software packages network security related monitoring H04L63/1408

Abstract

The present invention provides a complete virtual multi-vendor EMS based network that behaves identical to the network elements of the EMS clients. A virtual network simulator is built that has the ability to faithfully simulate the behavior of any vendor'"'"'s EMS to represent the data objects required by the TMF 814 specification. This allows automatic provisioning and maintenance of the Operation Support Systems to fully test new functionality against complete EMS based network without depending upon the availability of any physical equipment, thereby providing much quicker, low cost, extremely life-like testing environment.

Claims

1. In a telecommunications network, having at least one operations support system, a method for automatic provisioning and maintenance of the at least one operations support system, the method comprising:

receiving from the at least one operations support system a request related to virtual network elements of at least one Element Management System (EMS) client, the virtual network elements configured to simulate the behavior of the at least one EMS client;

creating a virtual subnetwork circuit for one or more of the virtual network elements, the virtual subnetwork circuit including a first and a second simulated EMS client, the first and second simulated EMS client each including a data set of detailed data descriptions based on the request for each of the virtual network elements using a database having information on attributes associated with the virtual network elements, and provisioning logic, wherein the virtual subnetwork circuit connects the virtual network elements between the first and second simulated EMS client;

transmitting the resulting data set to one of the at least one operations support system which submitted the request; and

transmitting an asynchronous notification of the resulting data set to all of the at least one operations support system.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

selecting at least one of the network element attributes from the database based on the request received from one of the at least one operations support system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the attributes include managed element, topological link, multilayer subnetwork, physical termination points (PTP), connection termination points (CTP), Equipment holder, equipment, routing link, subnetwork connection and combinations thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes instructions to create a connection between the EMS clients.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein upon receipt of the instructions, a connection is established between the virtual network elements of the EMS clients and a notification of the connection is sent to each of the at least one operations support system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the asynchronous notification is transmitted upon creation of the virtual network elements.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the asynchronous notification is transmitted upon deletion of the virtual network elements.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the asynchronous notification is transmitted upon change in state of the virtual network elements.