British Telecommunications Public Limited Company

British Telecommunications Corporation

Alexander L Healing

Michael N Turner

Hakan Duman

Robert A Ghanea-Hercock

Michal Jakob

Fabrice Saffre

Fabrice T P Saffre

Paul Fagan

A method of operating a communications network is disclosed. In order to manage a network, it is first necessary to establish the state the network is in. This is difficult in practice because the network operational data stored and transmitted in the network takes a myriad of forms owing to the variety of suppliers and types of network equipment. There is a need to distil that network operational data down to aggregate network operational data which can be taken to provide an indication of the state of the network which is of a manageable size, and to which network management apparatus can react by sending control commands to the network. The problem of generating aggregate network operational data is tackled by identifying the type of each attribute found in each network operational data item, and classifying the network operational data items in a manner which takes account of the identified types and thus provides network aggregate data which more accurately reflects the operational state of the network. This in turn leads to the network management apparatus controlling the network to operate in a more efficient manner than has hitherto been possible.

Network operation

A method of operating a communications network is disclosed. Modern communications networks produce vast amounts of network operational data which have the potential to provide a useful summary of the operational state of the network. Whilst processes such as clustering are known for arranging the vast amount of data into groups, the clusters themselves do not provide data which might be easily interpreted by network elements or administrators. Network operational data often comprises a plurality of data items, each of which gives a value for each of a set of attributes. By processing a cluster to identify attributes in the cluster whose values vary less in the cluster then they vary outside of the cluster, and then generating a cluster description which is based on a measure of the central tendency of the values of those attribute in the cluster, an easily interpretable general description of the data items in the cluster is provided. The easily interpretable general description of the cluster can then be used to relatively identify data items similar to those present in the cluster (e.g. from a larger database of data items), and elements in the network can then act autonomously on the basis of the cluster description to control the operation of the communications network.

A computer implemented method of data access to data stored in one or more data stores includes receiving a request to retrieve data from the one or more data stores; extracting characteristics of the request to classify the request according to a request classification; identifying a model for execution of one or more queries to one or more data stores; executing the one or more queries according to the model to formulate a response to the request, wherein the model for execution is identified based on a class of the request and includes an identification of one or more data stores to which the one or more queries are to be directed to formulate the response; and monitoring execution of one or more queries for a class of request and revising the model in accordance with predetermined criteria.

Multiform persistence abstraction

A method of operating a communications network is disclosed. In order to manage a network, it is first necessary to establish the state the network is in. This is difficult in practice because the network operational data stored and transmitted in the network takes a myriad of forms owing to the variety of suppliers and types of network equipment. There is a need to distil that network operational data down to aggregate network operational data which can be taken to provide an indication of the state of the network which is of a manageable size, and to which network management apparatus can react by sending control commands to the network. The problem of generating aggregate network operational data is difficult because of the heterogeneity of network operational data items. By finding attribute names in different network operational data items which match one another, and then comparing attribute values provided from those matching attribute names, a comparison of heterogeneous network operational data items is enabled. This enables the production of network aggregate data which more accurately reflects the operational state of the network. This in turn leads to the network management apparatus controlling the network to operate in a more efficient manner than has hitherto been possible.

A distributed system is described in which resource utilization decisions depend upon the categorization of resource descriptions stored in the distributed system. In the principal embodiment, the resource descriptions are web service descriptions which are augmented with tags (i.e. descriptive words or phrases) entered by users and/or by web service administrators. The system stores, for different groups of users, groups of tags popularly used by users within those groups. By monitoring tags input by a user, and proposing tags to the user from any groups which are under-represented in tags input by the user, a more balanced set of tags describing resources in the system is obtained. This leads to a more coherent and focussed set of tags in the system, which in turns results in better resource utilization decisions and hence a more efficient use of the resources of the distributed system.

Method and system for electronic resource annotation including proposing tags

A data source software component generator apparatus for generating a representation of one or more data sources for selection from a plurality of data sources to satisfy a data dependency of a software service, each data source including a definition of at least one semantic identifier corresponding to data accessible via the data source, the data sources being represented organized into clusters of multiple data sources based on a semantic association between semantic identifiers of data sources in a cluster, each cluster being represented as one or more data structures, and the data dependency being defined by a specification including one or more semantic identifiers corresponding to data required for execution of the software service, the apparatus comprising: a data source encapsulator unit adapted to encapsulate each cluster as an executable software component; a semantic identifier selection unit adapted to select, from a set of semantic identifiers for all data sources represented in a cluster of a software component, a proper subset of the set of semantic identifiers based on at least one predetermined semantic identifier selection criterion; a software component configuration unit adapted to configure a software component to advertise semantic identifiers to components external to the software component, and provide an interface accessible by components external to the software component, the software component being adapted to deliver data from data sources in the cluster of the software component via the interface, such that, in operation, the apparatus generates and configures executable software components for selection of one or more software components to provide data for the software service based on the advertised semantic identifiers so as to satisfy at least part of the data dependency of the software service.

Selection of data sources for software services

The present invention relates to distributed systems in which resource utilisation decisions depend upon the semi-automatic categorisation of resource descriptions stored in the distributed system. In the principal embodiment, the resource descriptions are web service descriptions which are augmented with tags (i.e. descriptive words or phrases) entered by users and/or by web service administrators. The initial use of automatic categorisation of these descriptions, followed by a user-driven fine-tuning of the automatically-generated categories enables the rapid creation of reliable categorisation of the resource descriptions, which in turns results in better resource utilisation decisions and hence a more efficient use of the resources of the distributed system.

Distributed system

A distributed system is described in which resource utilisation decisions depend upon the categorisation of resource descriptions stored in the distributed system. In the principal embodiment, the resource descriptions are web service descriptions which are augmented with tags (i.e. descriptive words or phrases) entered by users and/or by web service administrators. A service taxonomy is constructed on the basis of the tags, and is subsequently used in suggesting tags to the user which the user might want to ascribe to the service in question. This leads to a more coherent and focused set of tags in the system, which in turns results in better resource utilisation decisions and hence a more efficient use of the resources of the distributed system.

Electronic resource annotation

A peer-to-peer network operating in accordance with a service-oriented architecture is disclosed. The peers in the network request services from one another and each keep a record of the quality of service they receive from the other peers. The peers can operate in two modes of service provider selection. In a first mode, the selection is so as to favor service providers which have provided the peer with good service in the past. In a second mode, the selection is probabilistic and can therefore select service providers other than those that have provided good service in the past. Each device keeps track of the relative success of adopting the second mode of selection. By occasionally using the second mode of selection and adopting the second mode of selection more frequently should the relative success of adopting the second mode of selection rise, a more rapid adjustment by the network to changing network conditions is enabled. This leads to a better utilization of the resources of the computers of the network than has hitherto been achieved. The invention finds particular application in distributed applications which dynamically select a Web Service to perform a function at run-time.

Computer network

A peer-to-peer network operating in accordance with a service-oriented architecture is disclosed. The peers in the network request services from one another and each keeps a record of the quality of service they receive from the other peers. The peers share quality of service information with one another in order to take advantage of the improvement in the overall efficiency of the use of resources in the network offered by such information sharing. However, the invention provides a further improvement in that peers do not report the quality of service offered by the peers they have received the best quality of service from. This is found to increase the overall level of service still further since it prevents the peers converging on a favorite service provider and thereby overloading it. The invention finds particular application in distributed applications which dynamically select a Web Service to perform a function at run-time.

Growing community of inventors

Ipswich, United Kingdom

Alexander L Healing