British Telecommunications Public Limited Company

Michael N Turner

Alexander L Healing

Alan D Clark

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 data switching node includes a plurality of data lines including high speed data (link) lines and low speed data (port) lines and a switch connected to the data lines. The switch is a distributed multiplexer comprising a number of switching modules connected in common to a data bus. The switching modules are arranged to communicate data with the common data bus. A control module is also connected to the bus and arranged to control the addressing of the switching modules so that data received by a switching module connected to one data line is transmitted directly via the common data bus to a switching module connected to a selected other one of the data lines in response to a control signals from the control module identifying the said switching module, the data being transmitted in association with a logical channel number associated with the switching module connected to the selected other one of the data lines. IN a method of operating a multiplexer particularly suitable for use with the data switching node a plurality of channels are received and transmitted as byte-interleaved frames. Each incoming channel is assigned a logical channel number and written to a byte or bit position of the outgoing data frame selected in accordance with the logical channel number. The outgoing frame is assembled and output substantially coincidentally with the incoming date frame.

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Ipswich, United Kingdom

Michael N Turner