1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for verifying Managed Object (MO) status before updating a managed network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Management systems are well known in the art. They are used for monitoring and managing the quality of communications over various networks, such as for example Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), Public Local Mobile Networks (PLMNs), and Public Switching Telephone Networks (PSTNs), hereinafter designated as the managed or monitored networks. Exemplary functions of a typical management system comprise, but are not limited to, providing configuration and status information about Network Elements (NEs) or NEs' components, collecting alarm/event notifications, correlating the alarm/event notifications with each other, diagnosing and repairing errors and malfunctions. In such systems, pieces of information called events (or event notifications or alarms) are issued by the NEs of the managed network and acquired by the management system, which is responsible of their treatment. The information issued by the processing of the alarm/event notifications may be monitored, either automatically or by system administrators, with the general purpose of maintaining or increasing the quality of the communications of the managed network. On the other side, another function of the management system comprises updating configuration attributes related to the managed network's elements using a user interface, and deploying the updates toward the managed network's elements.
Reference is now made to
In a typical management system, the management information stored in the Manager 160 comprises virtual entities known as Managed Objects (MOs), which are virtual representations of the managed network's Network Elements (NEs), or NEs' components. For example, the NE BSC 1120 is represented in the Manager 160 as an MO. Furthermore, the NE BSC 1120 may comprise a plurality of NE components, such as for example radio controllers 170-179, which are also represented in the Manager 160 as a corresponding plurality of MOs 170′-179′, that depend upon the high level MO corresponding to BSC 1120.
Such a virtual representation of each NE and NE component of the managed network 102 allows system administrators of terminals 162-168 to be able to view and edit the related attributes of each MO, which updates are then deployed as configuration attributes to corresponding NEs in the managed network 102. In this manner, system administrators are able to monitor and improve the quality of the communications of the managed network 102.
Reference is now made to
While the NEs of the managed network 102, such as the BSC 1120 (shown in
Reference is now made to
However, it has been noticed that in various instances it is not sufficient to have a perfect synchronization between the management information relative to a given MO of the Manager and its corresponding NE of the managed network. For example, updates of an MO's attributes performed in the Manager's MIB may not only need to be propagated to the corresponding NE, but also to other NEs of the managed network. An instance wherein this situation occurs is, for example, when a system administrator updates a radio channel attribute relative to a component (e.g. a radio cell) of the MO 302 that represents the NE BSC 1120 of the managed network. Since a radio channel attribute has been changed, such change not only affects the corresponding NE BSC 1120 but also its neighbour BSC that controls the cells that are adjacent to the radio cell which radio channel attribute has been changed. In the present exemplary scenario, it is assumed that the NE BSC 2126 is the BSC that controls a neighbouring radio cell of the given cell, and therefore, the update of the radio channel attribute needs also to be propagated to the NE BSC 2126 (better shown in
Another problem arises when a system administrator desires to update an attribute of a certain MO of the management system, and when such MO, or a related NE to which that update also needs to be propagated is not perfectly synchronised with the management system. Current management systems fail to take into consideration the status of related NEs (or MOs) in propagating a new update. This may generate even further inconsistencies between the management information stored in the management system and the one deployed in the managed network.
Although there is no prior art solution as the one proposed hereinafter for solving the above-mentioned deficiencies, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,342 issued to Yamaguchi on Mar. 21, 2000 (hereinafter called Yamaguchi) bears some relation with the field of the present invention. Yamaguchi teaches a synchronization process between a management station and an agent station, wherein responsive to an execution request message sent from the management station to the agent station, the latter estimates the time required for execution of a synchronization and informs the management station. At the expiration of the time period, the management station inquires about the status of the synchronization, and receives another time estimate from the agent station. If the time estimate is zero, the management station concludes that the synchronization process is completed. Otherwise, the management station waits for the length of the second time estimate, and concludes the synchronization process at its expiration.
Yamaguchi only deals with a process for limiting the time required for a synchronization of a management station with an agent station. Therefore, Yamaguchi fails to teach or suggest a method and system for synchronization status information of a manager's MO based on synchronization between the manager and multiple agents.
The US Patent Application U.S. 2002/0120733 published in the name of Kring on Aug. 29, 2002 (hereinafter called Kring) also bears some relation with the field of the present invention. Kring teaches a method, program, and system for synchronizing a network manager with an agent, wherein the agent stores three different values. The first value is unique, the second value indicates the number of changes performed to the associated data unit, while the third value indicates the identity of the initiator of the last change to the data unit. A copy of the three values is also stored in the manager and is compared with the agent's three values. When the agent and manager's values do not match, the three values of the manager are synchronized with the three values of the agent.
The teaching of Kring is limited to synchronizing three different values between one agent and one manager. Hence, Kring also fails to teach or suggest a method and system for synchronization status information of a manager's MO based on synchronization between the manager and multiple agents.
Accordingly, it should be readily appreciated that in order to overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have a method and system for effectively allowing the synchronization of a manager's MIB based on synchronization processes with multiple agents.
In one aspect, the present invention is a A method for verifying status information of one or more Managed Objects (MOs) of a management system, the method comprising the steps of:
In another aspect, the invention is a manager of a management system comprising:
For a more detailed understanding of the invention, for further objects and advantages thereof, reference can now be made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The innovative teachings of the present invention will be described with particular reference to various exemplary embodiments. However, it should be understood that this class of embodiments provides only a few examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings of the invention. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed aspects of the present invention. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In the drawings, like or similar elements are designated with identical reference numerals throughout the several views.
The present invention provides a method and system for verifying a status of all the Managed Objects (MOs) that relate to one given MO that needs to be updated in a management system, before deploying the update toward the Network Elements (NEs) of the managed network. When a given MO's attributes are updated in a Manager of a management system, the invention allows for the status of all related MOs to be first verified, and if compatible with the update, then the change is propagated to all the concerned, or related NEs.
In order to better understand the present invention, once should first appreciate that instances occur in a management system wherein a change of a given attribute of a given MO that is performed in the Manager may not only affect the managed network's NE corresponding to the given MO, herein called the corresponding NE, but also other NE(s) of the managed network, herein called the related NE(s).
For example, reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
Some MOs of the Manager's MIB 504 may also comprise one or more components that may be representative of sub-elements comprised in their corresponding NEs of the managed network. For example, MO 506 may comprise components C1406′ and C2408′ representative of the radio cells 406 and 408 respectively that were previously discussed with reference to
With further reference being made to
Because the radio cells 408 and 410 (better shown in
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made concomitantly to
Next, in action 704, the Manager 502 obtains and verifies the status of each one of the identified MOs. Such status information that is obtained and verified in action 704 may comprise:
In action 706, the Manager 502 detects if any one of the identified related MOs has status information that is not adequate for pursuing with the update process. By this, it is understood that the Manager 502 detects if any identified MO has synchronization status information that is “OUT-OF-SYNCH”, or any couple status information that is “UNCOUPLED”, or any connected status information that is “UNCONNECTED”. If not, i.e. if all the related MOs' status information is compatible with pursuing the update process, in action 708 the update process is continued and the change performed by the system administrator is propagated to the NEs that correspond to the identified MOs. Otherwise, if in action 706 any one of the evaluated status information is not adequate for an update, such as for example if the synchronization status of MO 508 that comprises the component C3 representative of the neighbor cell 3 is “OUT-OF-SYCNH”, the Manager 502 issues a warning message for the system administrator, informing of the problematic status of the given MO 508, action 710. In action 712, the system administrator may decide to still go ahead with the propagation of the change toward the managed system (the affirmative case of action 712), in which case the update process continues, action 708. If the system administrator decides to abandon the propagation of the change toward the managed system (the negative case of action 712), then the update process is stopped, action 714.
Based upon the foregoing, it should now be apparent to those of ordinary skills in the art that the present invention provides an advantageous solution, which allows for a verification of the status information of multiple related MOs of a Manager prior to deploying an update toward NEs of the managed network. It should be realized upon reference hereto that the innovative teachings contained herein may be implemented advantageously with any applicable radio telecommunications standard for a managed network. It is believed that the operation and construction of the present invention will be apparent from the foregoing description. While the method and system shown and described have been characterized as being preferred, it will be readily apparent that various changes and modifications could be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the claims set forth hereinbelow. For example, although the exemplary scenarios illustrated herein make reference to only two MOs and NEs, it is understood that the invention can be applied to any given number of MOs and NEs of a management system and managed network. Furthermore, although the invention was described as applicable to a scenario wherein the related NEs are neighboring elements of a PLMN, it is apparent that the nature of the NE, as well as the relation/association between the NEs that need to be updated following a change in a given MO, is not limited thereto. For example, the related NEs may be Personal Computer (PCs) or servers of a Local Area Network (LAN), and their relation may be that of cooperating nodes, or a master-slave relation, or any other type of relationship wherein a change performed to attributes of one node also needs to be propagated into another node.
Although several preferred embodiments of the method and system of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.