System and method for model-based inventory management of a communications system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9558454-B2
Application number	US-201414200428-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 7, 2014
Priority date	Mar 14, 2013
Publication date	Jan 31, 2017
Grant date	Jan 31, 2017

Abstract

A method for management entity operations includes receiving a request to collect data for an entity in a communications system, collecting the data for the entity utilizing a set of protocols selected using knowledge defined by a first data model of a data model list derived from an information model of the communications system, and saving the data collected.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for management entity operations, the method comprising:
receiving, by a management entity, a request to collect data for an entity in a communications system;
collecting, by the management entity, the data for the entity utilizing a set of protocols selected using knowledge defined by a first data model of a data model list derived from a technology-neutral information model of the communications system that does not use platform-specific definitions, language-specific definitions, or protocol-specific definitions, wherein each data model in the data model list uses at least one of the platform-specific definitions, the language-specific definitions, or the protocol-specific definitions; and
saving, by the management entity, the data collected;
wherein collecting the data comprises forming a dependency list from the request to collect data, wherein forming the dependency list comprises saving references to objects in the data collected as a set of first objects, determining a first set of Abstract Data Types (ADTs) to represent a behavior of an object in the set of first objects, and storing the first set of ADTs as a set of second objects, and wherein the first set of ADTs comprises a specification of at least one of a functionality, an axiom, a pre-condition, a post-condition, or an invariant of the first set of ADTs.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises operational, administrative, management, and performance data.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising attaching an annotation to at least one of the receiving, the collecting, and the saving.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising executing a set of pre-processing algorithms selected using knowledge defined by the first data model of the data model list.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising executing a set of post-processing algorithms selected using knowledge defined by the first data model of the data model list.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein saving the data collected comprises storing the data collected in a storage type selected using knowledge defined by the first data model of the data model list.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein storing the data collected in the storage type selected using knowledge defined by the first data model comprises:
defining a set of candidate repositories as a set of tenth objects, wherein each object in the set of tenth objects is defined by a subset of a set of sixth objects; and
removing, from the set of tenth objects, a candidate repository incapable of at least one protocol of the set of protocols.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein collecting the data further comprises:
determining the first data model in the data model list in accordance with the dependency list and a subset of the information model used to represent the data collected;
determining the set of protocols from the first data model;
determining a first set of dependencies between the data collected and the set of protocols; and
collecting the data utilizing the set of protocols in accordance with the first set of dependencies, wherein the first set of dependencies constrains a protocol used to collect the data.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining the first data model in the data model list in accordance with the dependency list and the subset of the information model comprises:
mapping a first object in a set of second objects to a first concrete data structure;
storing, in a set of eighth objects, a reference to the first concrete data structure;
mapping each object in a set of third objects to a second concrete data structure;
storing the second concrete data structure in the set of eighth objects;
determining an association between objects in the set of second objects and objects in the set of third objects as a third concrete data structure;
storing the third concrete data structure in the set of eighth objects; and
using the first concrete data structure, the second concrete data structure, and the third concrete data structure to select the first data model.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising repeating, for remaining objects in the set of second objects not contained in the set of eighth objects, mapping of the remaining objects in the set of second objects and storing, in the set of eighth objects, the reference.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining the set of protocols from the first data model comprises:
defining a set of candidate protocols as a set of ninth objects, wherein the set of ninth objects is a subset of a set of sixth objects;
determining, for each object in the set of ninth objects, whether the object is capable of transmitting and receiving a subset of the set of sixth objects without adversely affecting a behavior of the set of sixth objects; and
eliminating the objects that are not capable from the set of ninth objects.

12. The method of claim 8 , further comprising retrieving the information model.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein collecting the data further comprises:
determining a set of pre-processing algorithms from the first data model in the data model list to transform the data collected into a form preferred by an application using the data collected;
determining a second set of dependencies between the data collected and the set of pre-processing algorithms; and
collecting the data utilizing the set of pre-processing algorithms in accordance with the second set of dependencies, wherein the second set of dependencies constrains pre-processing algorithms used to transform the data.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein collecting the data comprises:
determining a set of post-processing algorithms from the first data model in the data model list that is used to transform the data collected into a form preferred by an application using the collected data;
determining a third set of dependencies between the data collected and the set of post-processing algorithms; and
collecting the data utilizing the set of post-processing algorithms in accordance with the third set of dependencies, wherein the third set of dependencies constrains post-processing algorithms used to transform the data.

15. The method of claim 8 , wherein collecting the data further comprises:
determining a set of pre-storage algorithms from the first data model in the data model list to store the data collected prior to the data collected being completely processed and delivered to an application using the data collected;
determining a fourth set of dependencies between the data collected and the set of pre-storage algorithms; and
collecting the data utilizing the set of pre-storage algorithms in accordance with the fourth set of dependencies, wherein the fourth set of dependencies constrains pre-storage algorithms used to store the data.

16. The method of claim 8 , wherein collecting the data comprises:
determining a set of post-storage algorithms from the first data model in the data model list to store the data collected after the data collected has been completely processed and delivered to an application using the data collected;
determining a fifth set of dependencies between the data collected and the set of post-storage algorithms; and
collecting the data utilizing the set of post-storage algorithms in accordance with the fifth set of dependencies, wherein the fifth set of dependencies constrains the post-storage algorithms used to store the data.

17. The method of claim 8 , further comprising determining a set of repositories for storing the data collected in a

Assignees

• Futurewei Technologies Inc

Inventors

• Strassner John Charles

Classifications

• G06N99/005 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L41/085

  Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history · CPC title

• G06F8/35

  model driven · CPC title

• G06N5/02

  Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation · CPC title

• H04L41/16 Primary

  using machine learning or artificial intelligence · CPC title