Mci Communications Corporation

Mci, Inc.

Universal Conversion Technologies

William D Croslin

Mark W Sees

Steve Sellers

G L Commerford

Steven M Sellers

Craig Hayes

Bruce Stewart

Lawrence Commerford

Robert Laird

Perry Voyles

Balancing logic is automatically generated from conversion logic in a data conversion system. The balancing logic balances source data from a source system with the corresponding converted data in a target system. The balancing logic determines whether the conversion was properly performed so as to balance the two varieties of data. The balancing logic is automatically generated by a computer system or other electronic device in response to examining conversion logic that is encoded in a script or other representation.

Automatic generation of balancing logic for data conversion

A centralized restoration system and a distributed restoration system for restoring a network are integrated. Trunks within the network that have failed are first processed by the distributed restoration system to attempt restoration of the failed trunks. Trunks that cannot be restored by the distributed restoration system and trunks that are designated for restoration by the centralized restoration system are then restored by the centralized restoration system. The centralized restoration system and distributed restoration system communicate to keep each other aware of their respective actions. Mechanisms are utilized to prevent conflict between the two types of restoration systems. The integration of the two types of restoration systems causes high-priority trunks to be quickly restored by the distributed restoration system and lower-priority trunks to be restored by the centralized restoration system to balance the workload of restoration.

Integration of a centralized network restoration system with a distributed network restoration system

A method and system for excluding restoral routes from use in bypassing a failed component. Prior to failure of a segment, the restoration system identifies each path in the communications network. A path is a unique sequence of installations that a segment traverses. The restoration system then creates a mapping of the ports of the restoration nodes to the paths of the segments connected to each port. The restoration system then identifies for each path the set of paths that are interdependent. A pair of paths are interdependent when both paths traverse a common pair of installations. Following failure of a segment, the restoration system uses the port on which the failure was detected and uses the mapping to identify the path of the segment that failed. The restoration system then excludes each restoral route that includes a segment that has a path that is interdependent with the identified path.

Centralized method and system for excluding components from a restoral route in a communications network

A centralized restoration system utilizes preferred routing tables to identify an optimal restoral path for restoring a network from a failure. The preferred routing tables are constructed prior to the failure of the network. This pre-construction of the preferred routing tables prior to network failure substantially diminishes the computational and temporal requirements needed to restore the network at the time of failure. The centralized restoration system is able to account for changes in network topology and configuration. The centralized restoration system builds the optimal restoral path on a link by link basis and examines the availability of links prior to adding the link to the optimal restoral path. Unavailable links are not added to the restoral path.

Centralized restoration of a network using preferred routing tables to dynamically build an available preferred restoral route

A restoral route generation process combines elements of a pre-plan methodology with a dynamic route generation methodology. The resulting hybrid approach quickly produces a restoral route in real time that has a minimal associated cost. The hybrid approach pre-generates sub-routes that are combined to produce a restoral route. The combining of the sub-routes takes place dynamically in response to a network failure. The hybrid approach may interactively operate to generate restoral routes for each trunk in the network that is affected by an outage.

Dynamic route generation for real-time network restoration using pre-plan route generation methodology

A system and method is disclosed for dynamically restoring communications within a network following an outage comprising a database containing the configuration of switching elements within the network and a plurality of instructions resident on a memory device for operating a control computer, wherein the plurality of instructions includes a code segment for receiving network parameters following the outage, a code segment for selecting restoration switching elements from the database based upon the network parameters, a code segment for generating connect and disconnect commands for the restoration switching elements, and a code segment for sending the connect and disconnect commands to the restoration switching elements, thereby restoring communications within the network.

System and method for dynamically generating restoration routes within a

A method and apparatus analyzes network topology data of a telecommunications network. Each physically diverse path in the network is assigned a unique path identifier. Trunks along each path, and ports at nodes through which the trunks are routed, are assigned the corresponding path identifier. If a trunk fails, the ports facing the point of failure issue alarms that include the corresponding path identifier for the trunk. A computer or other system compares the path identifiers of the alarming trunks with the path identifiers of restoral routes, such as other trunks extending between end nodes at opposite ends of the failure. Only those trunks having path identifiers differing from the path identifier of the alarming trunk are selected as possible restoral routes for the failure.

Method and apparatus for identifying restoral routes in a network

A method and system for augmenting a communications network with spare components to efficiently re-route network traffic following a failure of one or more network components. The provisioning system of the present invention identifies components that are not configured into the communications network, but that could be configured into the communications network. The provisioning system identifies restoral routes to bypass a failed network component assuming that each of the identified components were configured into the network. The restoral routes are identified based on cost assigned to the identified components and the component currently configured into the network. The provisioning system then selects those identified components that are frequently used in the restoral routes to be configured into the communications network.

Method and system for augmenting communications network with spare

A system for establishing a restoral route to bypass a failed component in a communications network. The network has components that include nodes and links. Each link connected to a node is either an input or an output link for that node. When a component failure is detected on a output link of a node, the system selects a source node and a target node for the restoral route and sends messages through output links of the source node to establish a restoral route to the target node. When a message to establish a restoral route to the target node is received at a node, the node forwards the message through its output links. When a message that a restoral route has been established to the target node is received through an output link of a node, the node connects the input link through which the message to establish a restoral route was received to the output link, and forwards the message that a restoral route has been established through the input link. When a message that a restoral route has not been established to the target node is received through each output link of a node, the node forwards the message that a restoral route has not been established through the input link. Thus, the nodes of the network send messages to one another to effect the establishing of a restoral route in a distributed and dynamic manner.

Method and system of distributed network restoration using preferred

An automated and distributed method and apparatus for normalizing a network after restoration begins with end nodes of the restoral route detecting a clearing of alarms after a failure is repaired. After a specified time period is passed, the end nodes perform a sequence of tasks to execute a modified form of a patch-and-roll normalization. Each end node transmits traffic over both the restoral route and the original traffic route that has been fixed. Each end node confirms receipt of signals over the fixed traffic route. Thereafter, each end node switches to receiving live traffic from the restoral route to the fixed traffic route and stops transmitting over the restoral route. Finally, the end nodes instruct the other nodes along the restoral route to disconnect the restoral route.

Method and apparatus for automated node-based normalization after

A restoration system for restoring a communications network following a failure of one or more communications network components. The restoration system identifies spare segments and spans of spare segments in the original network configuration, as well as interconnected sub-spans of the identified spans of spare segments. The restoration system assigns a cost to the identified spare spans and spare segments. The costs are based on the cost of connecting a spare span or a segment as part of a restoral route and the cost of fragmenting a spare span. The restoration system uses these assigned costs to select a low cost combination of spare segments and spare spans to use as the restoral route.

Method and system for assigning spare transmission links to restoral

A method and apparatus for analyzing a telecommunications network and isolating failures within the network first analyzes the network to identify all non-terminating paths between two digital cross-connect (DXC) nodes and terminating paths that extend from one DXC node but terminate before reaching another DXC node. All non-terminating paths are assigned 'failure spans' or maximum spans that can be restored with a single restoration route. All terminating paths that correspond to end nodes of the non-terminating path are selected, where each terminating path has a path identifier preferably indicating the inter-node connections of the path. The path identifier is compared to each failure span to create a table of correlations. A similar process is performed for all terminating paths that do not correspond to non-terminating paths in the network. When a failure occurs, all paths are identified for each corresponding alarm and compared to the previously constructed table. A failure span is identified as including a failure if one or more paths are on the failure span and are in alarm, and all paths which are off the failure span are not in alarm. Furthermore, the ports on each path in alarm can be collected to determine whether the network suffers from a full or a partial outage.

Method and apparatus for isolating network failures by correlating paths

A method and apparatus for analyzing a telecommunications network and isolating failures within the network first receives alarms from various nodes in the network as a result of a failure. The method selects one alarm and then retrieves topology data associated with a trunk that caused the selected alarm to be generated. The method collects all alarms from the nodes traversed by the selected trunk and applies the collected alarms to the retrieved topology. The method identifies or retrieves information corresponding to maximum failure spans that can be restored with a single restoration route (failure spans) for the selected trunk. Thereafter, the method applies the selected alarms to the corresponding failure spans to identify the single failure span containing the failure to thereby isolate the failure. By isolating a failure to within a failure span, the present invention locates a failure with precision sufficient for determining an optimal restoral route, but minimized within a sufficient range of spans in the network so that processing time for isolating the failure is minimized. As a result, the identified failure span represents the isolation of the failure, and is the most granular isolation of a failure useful for restoring traffic impacted by the failure.

Method and apparatus for isolating network failures by applying alarms

A method and system for pre-patching spare capacity into a communications network. The pre-patching system analyzes an original network configuration along with restoration plans that define restoral routes to bypass a network failure. The pre-patching system identifies existing spare connections in the original network configuration that can advantageously be destroyed from the original configuration so that their destroying can be avoided when implementing the restoration plans. The pre-patching system also identifies connections that do not exist in the original configuration and that can advantageously be created in the original network configuration to avoid the overhead of their creation when implementing the restoration plans.

Method and system for pre-patching a communications network

A method and system for initiating distributed restoration of a communications network following the failure of one or more network components. Restoration is conducted in a distributed fashion by all the restoration nodes of the network. When a restoration node detects failure of a segment connected to it, the restoration node monitors its segments for a period of time and then sends a failure message to other restoration nodes of the network indicating the number of segments connected to it that have failed. When restoration nodes receive failure messages, they compare the count of failed segments contained in the messages to a range of counts of failures for the detecting node that are locally stored on each restoration node. By this comparison, the restoration nodes can determine whether the network has quiesced to a relatively stable state following a network outage. Once the network has reached a stable state, all the restoration nodes simultaneously initiate a local restoration process.

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Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

William D Croslin