Nortel Networks Corporation

Hock Gan

Ricky Kumar Kaura

Stephen Bird

Robert Edward Lucas

Alan Darbyshire

John P Shannon

Lawrence Simpson

John Paul Prokopenko

Pradip Sheth

Jane Dellipianni

Gerald Feeney

Jaswant Virdee

David E Jones

Darren Kohler

Pallab Sarkar

John Parker Shannon

Jane Dellipiani

John Paul Propopenko

A location register for a mobile communications network is coupled by an SS7 network for passing messages, has a mated location register at a different location to provide geographical redundancy, and has a status detector for detecting a status of the associated register, by sending a heartbeat message to the associated register. It deduces a fail if the message is returned by the signaling network. A cutover manager is arranged to enable a cutover on the basis of at least the detected status. By providing a more positive detection of a failure than merely passively interpreting a lack of response to the heartbeat, false triggering of cutovers owing to transient failures or temporary congestion, can be reduced. The cutover manager can verify the status by sending other messages by other routes, or using other criteria.

HLR mated-pair auto cutover

An HLR register for maintaining data relating to mobile users of a network for use by the network, the register being arranged to be coupled to a mate register at a remote location for back up of the data, the register being divided into segments and arranged to carry out a partial handover to the mate register by handing over maintenance of data of one or some of the segments to the mate register temporarily. By allowing a partial handover rather than requiring a complete handover, the handover can be simpler and quicker. This can reduce the risk of loss of data or reduce an amount of down time and consequential losses of revenue. This is particularly important for larger registers. The handover can be triggered by a fault in the segment or for the purpose of planned maintenance for example. It can be triggered manually or automatically.

Disaster recovery for very large GSM/UMTS HLR databases

Typically data migration between HLR nodes is implemented by suspending operation of the HLR function in a mobile communications network while the data is transferred. This operation inevitably results in considerable network disruption. The present invention provides a method of on-line active data migration in which a subscriber diversion is implemented before subscriber data is sequentially transferred from one HLR node to another. The diversion redirects particular subscriber transactions from the second to the first HLR nodes if the subscriber has not been migrated from the first HLR node. The method allows the transfer to be implemented while the network HLR function remains on-line.

HLR data migration

Cellular communications system with screening of unauthorized services

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Potters Bar, United Kingdom

Hock Gan