The invention is based on a priority application EP 04360013.9 which is hereby incorporated by reference.
This invention relates to a method for handling a service request of a telecommunication system, in particular of a telecommunication switch, comprising an access of a file and a storage system comprising a telecommunication switch and a file server being designed to handle a service request of a telecommunication system according to said service request handling method.
During operation accesses to a telecommunication switch, for example the switch Alcatel 1000 S12 produced by the applicant, subscriber and operator related data needs to be modified. The modification of such data (service request data) is introduced by a service request of an operator or a subscriber. Another example for a service request is the reading of stored subscriber data by an operator. The modified data requires being stored (backuped) on the local disk. This implies read and/or write accesses, which are limited due to the mechanical principle of the storage device, e.g. a hard disk, of the telecommunication switch and have to be done subsequently. Therefore, the overall time for operator commands is in a high order of magnitude. With the boost in number of subscribers, e.g. 1 million subscribers in Alcatel 1000 Softswitch produced by the applicant, the number of operator interactions, meaning service requests, will also be increased and hence the number of disk accesses.
In a known telecommunication switch as Alcatel 1000 S12, a pair of Control Elements (CE) is defined with a local disk and a mass storage service, called Peripheral and Load Control Element (PLCE). The PLCE has the function to distribute and control data and program code in the system. Usually the PLCE is the only computer having a local disk in a telecommunication switch. All CE of the system are using this pair to access the only disk in the system. Despite of loading during initiation, most disk accesses are used to backup volatile data and prevent them from power down failures. For instance, operator interventions, as an example of a service request, lead to a modification of data in various CE. All modified data will then be backuped on the disk of the PLCEs. For the reason of data safety, the operator has to wait for the completion of the disk access before he can execute the next command. In case of reading accesses the data to be read has to be accessed subsequently on the disk of the telecommunication switch. This bottleneck of the file access leads to a long reaction time of the telecommunication system. A long reaction time of the system is the result of this problems. It leads to inefficient operation interfaces and hence to high operational expenses.
Therefore in known telecommunication switches the operating software (higher layer of software) tries to avoid accesses to the disk as much as possible. This results in that the number of disk accesses can only be reduced to a minimum at a high level of research and development (R&D) costs.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method for handling a service request of a telecommunication system and a storage system comprising a telecommunication switch for carrying out the method which overcome the problems associated with the related art, in particular which overcome the need of reading and writing service request data subsequently.
The object concerning a method for handling a service request of a telecommunication system, in particular of a telecommunication switch, comprising an access of a file, comprising the steps of:
The object concerning the storage system comprising a telecommunication switch and a file server, the telecommunication switch comprising
Further advantageous features of the invention are defined in the depending claims.
The inventive method for handling a service request of a telecommunication system, in particular of a telecommunication switch, comprising an access of a file, is comprising the steps of:
By the steps a) and b) of the inventive method the disk access interface of a telecommunication switch is virtualized by said file access interface (virtualized disk). The file access interface can be implemented as a software communication layer, which encapsulates the service request in a packet and transfers this data packet to the file server. The file server translates the service request into a high level file access and accesses the file where the service request data has to be stored or read. The latter in case that the service request data defines a request to read data.
The inventive method results at least in the following advantages:
Preferably, said service request data is being composed by encapsulating the data of a plurality of service requests into a data packet. Therefore, communication time can be decreased. If, for example, the service request data of the plurality of service requests belong together it can be advantageous to submit them by sending them in a data packet. Furthermore, this preferred embodiment allows to combine the advantages of the inventive method with existing software which avoids disk accesses.
Advantageously, said service request data is comprising subscriber and/or operator data of said telecommunication system, in particular of said telecommunication switch and the accessing of said file is comprising a storing of said service request data on said storage media of said file server. By applying the inventive method in this advantageous way, data safety problems of existing telecommunication switches are solved because existing standard technologies to avoid data losses of a file server can be used in connection with increased safety requests of the storage of telecommunication subscriber and/or operator data. As soon as the storage of telecommunication subscriber and/or operator data is acknowledged to the operator who has created a service request it has to be sure that no data losses can occur anymore to this data (Single-Point-of-Failure). This can be guaranteed by the file server, without the need of waiting until the service request data is written on a single disk.
If the accessing of the file is comprising a storing of service request data on a storage media of a first file server it is advantageous if said service request data is being duplicated by said telecommunication system, preferably said telecommunication switch and sent to a second file server and the second file server is storing said service request data on a storage media of said second file server. To store the service request data on storage media of two different file servers is the easiest and savest way to avoid data losses in case of a failure of one server or another component of the inventive telecommunication system. For redundancy reason, the service request and a corresponding file access is duplicated using a second file server. Therefore the information of the stored service request data is duplicated over two independent disks. In this way soft Redundant Array of Independent/inexpensive Disks (RAID) is implemented. In case of a failure of one of the file servers, the stored files need to be synchronized after the failed server becomes operational again. This implies inconsistencies for only a short period of time, which has to be addressed by a communication between the file servers, e.g. file access logging during the absence of one server.
Thus, it is preferred that said storing of said service request data is logged until both of said file servers have acknowledged the file access of said service requests.
The inventive storage system is comprising a telecommunication switch and at least one file server. The telecommunication switch is comprising
The file server is comprising
The inventive telecommunication switch provides the advantages of the inventive method.
Preferably, said telecommunication switch is comprising encapsulating means, being designed to compose said service request data by encapsulating the data of a plurality of service requests into a data packet. Therefore, the advantages of an encapsulation of the data of a plurality of service requests as explained above is achieved.
Preferably, the inventive storage system is comprising a second file server and said telecommunication switch is comprising duplication means, being designed to duplicate said service request data and said sending means are designed to send the duplicated service request data to said second file server. The second file server is storing the duplicated service request data a second time. Thus, in this preferred embodiment, a redundant storage of the service request data is made possible in a easy way.
Preferably, said file server and said telecommunication switch are connected by an Ethernet network and the sending means are designed to send said service request data via said Ethernet network and/or said storage media is comprising a hard disk. In known telecommunication switches the stored service request data can be accessed with 5 MB/s (megabyte per second). If an Ethernet network is used to submit the service request data from the telecommunication switch to the file server, which receives the data, the stored service request data can be accessed with 100 MB/s Ethernet. To use a hard disk for the storage of the service request data is a safe and cheap method for mass data storage.
In another embodiment of the invention, a storage system comprising a telecommunication switch and a file server, at least one of them, preferably both, comprising at least one microcomputer loaded with a computer program with software code sections by which the steps of the inventive method are carried out, is provided. To implement the inventive method as a computer program is the most appropriate way to achieve the advantages of the inventive method.
The different features of the preferred embodiments of the invention may be used in combination together with the invention as set forth in the independent claims or just each single preferred embodiment together with the invention as set forth in the independent claims.
The embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
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The inventive method for fast storing subscriber data and operator data of a telecommunication system, in particular of a telecommunication switch is comprising the steps described in the following.
First, a service request comprising subscriber and/or operator data of the telecommunication switch to be stored is generated. This results in a write file request 10 transmitted from the client 1 to the PLCE. Service request data is transmitted to a file access interface located in the PLCE, which is part of a telecommunication switch. The data of the service request is encapsulated in a packet and transmitted, i.e. sent and received, to the first file server 3, meaning a write file request 21 to the file server, comprising a data block to be written, is transmitted. The service request data is duplicated and the duplicated data is transmitted, i.e. sent and received, to the second file server 5, meaning a write file request 22 to the file server, comprising a data block to be written, is transmitted. The service request data is translated into a file access by both servers. That results in writing 41,42 a data block to the disc 4 and 6. The subscriber and/or operator data of the service request is stored at a storage media, e.g. a hard disc 4,6, of the different file servers. The writing of the service request data is acknowledged 31,32 by the file servers 3,5 to the PLCE of the telecommunication switch. Furthermore, there is an acknowledgement of the file writing from the PLCE 2 to the client 1. This is a potential scenario for a packet flow in case of a disk write access, e.g. write a 2 Kbytes block to disk. The PLCE duplicates the write access over both file servers. Each server acknowledges the write access immediately. The final disk access is executed delayed (file caching).
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Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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04360013.9 | Feb 2004 | EP | regional |