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Expand the sub menu What to Hear. Expand the sub menu Digital. Expand the sub menu Theater. Expand the sub menu VIP. Expand the sub menu More Coverage. Interconnections between component building blocks are graphically established typically by use of the mouse to define sources and destinations of specified data.
An underlying configuration and runtime information framework operating above and in concert with the transport framework effectively transforms the graphical interconnections into logical or physical interconnections, which results in the contemporaneous generation of a corresponding runtime system deployment.
Once fully configured, and with any necessary customization completed, a click of a button activates the runtime deployment of the integrated information system. Visual views onto the live deployment provide consistent management and control for system integrators, business integrators, system managers, and business managers.
For purposes of illustrating various features and advantages realized when implementing a visual data integration architecture in accordance with the principles of the present invention, it is assumed in FIG. The term dissimilar data is intended to refer to data types that differ in terms of format, structure, protocol, content, and the like.
It is further assumed that each of the Applications shown in FIG. As such, each of the Applications, although representing distinctly different technologies which may be supported on distinctly different platforms, are dependent upon one another for various informational content. Those skilled in the art well appreciate the difficulties of providing a mechanism to effect the required exchange of information between dissimilar Applications while concurrently addressing a myriad of technological interdependencies.
A traditional approach to implementing a customized interface to effect the exchange of information between two disparate applications generally solves a narrowly focused communications problem, but typically results in an inflexible solution intolerant to even slight changes in terms of format, function, or operation. Such technology dependencies are well-understood as significantly limiting the ability to modify, expand, and scale an existing communications infrastructure, and significantly complicates or even precludes the integration of new information sources and technologies.
Moreover, conventional integration tools are generally incapable of integrating disparate information systems in a manner that satisfies both system and business requirements using a uniform and consistent methodology.
Such conventional integration tools generally fail to provide an interface that permits the user to efficiently develop an integrated system design, readily perceive various hardware and software components and interconnections of the design, effectively transform a graphical system representation into a live runtime deployment, and monitor the efficacy of the design during both the development phase and subsequent deployment phase.
With further reference to FIG. The term data, within the context of the environment illustrated in FIG. The informational content component represents raw information, typically business information, such as accounting information for example. The format component typically represents a technology-dependent construct that provides a means for electronically interacting with the informational content component. The format component, for example, may be defined to include data structures, protocols, scripts, control codes, and other technology-specific content.
As was previously discussed, even standards-based applications are often incapable of communicating effectively with one another without intervening logic or protocol. Each of the adapters 34 a - 34 d performs this process of reformulating a technology-specific data stream into a technology-independent generic or common data form. As is also shown in FIG. It can be seen from FIG.
Such an implementation generally eliminates or significantly minimizes the need for customized interfaces otherwise required to facilitate the transport of dissimilar types of data between dissimilar applications. To facilitate a better appreciation for the advantages offered by the data integration infrastructure implemented in accordance with the present invention, reference is made to FIGS.
Information provider 2 operates an information system within which a number of disparate applications, represented by Applications 1 B - N B , interact in a specified manner.
In addition to communicating information within each respective information systems environment, various types of information must be shared between the two information providers 1 and 2. By way of example, and assuming that information providers 1 and 2 provide telecommunications services, information provider 1 may represent a local exchange carrier while information provider 2 may represent an inter-exchange carrier. It can be appreciated that the information system architecture associated with each of the information providers 1 and 2 typically represents a complex amalgam of archaic or legacy applications in addition to state-of-the-art applications.
This hybrid environment has generally led to an increased dependency on customized data integration interfaces, such as custom gateways, needed to facilitate sharing of information between dissimilar applications within a given information provider's operating environment.
Even simple modifications to a single application typically has significant upstream and downstream ramifications which often require costly and specialized interfacing solutions. In the illustrative embodiment shown in FIG. In order to comply with federal regulations, local exchange carrier 1 must tolerate intrusion into its internal information systems by inter-exchange carrier 2. It can be appreciated that the conventional approach of constructing customized electronic bonding gateways to facilitate communications between two or more dissimilar information provider environments would result in a costly and generally inflexible interface solution.
A data integration infrastructure implemented in accordance with the principles of the present invention greatly simplifies the task of interfacing numerous disparate applications to facilitate reliable communication of information between two information provider environments such as those depicted in FIG.
As is shown in FIG. This illustrative solution offers a number of advantages heretofore not attainable using conventional interfacing approaches. In particular, expandability, flexibility, and scalability is introduced into the information system environment of the local exchange carrier 1 which was not previously realizable using the original architecture shown in FIG.
Moreover, none of the applications or data supported or produced by the applications i. Also, the visual interface 61 may be employed to visually develop an integrated runtime system solution, such as that shown in FIG. In this illustrative example, each adapter A-N is associated with a corresponding data stream D 1 -D N. Data stream D 1 , for example, may represent EDI data generated by Application 1 running on a back-end proprietary system. It is understood in the telecommunications industry that EDI represents a generally accepted standard for passing electronic messages between telecommunications service providers.
However, it is also understood in the industry that various EDI dialects exist which necessitates some form of data transformation to occur in order to facilitate effective communication between back-end systems. Adapter A is configured to disassociate the informational content transported within the EDI data stream D 1 from its associated EDI format and dialect. The EDI informational content extracted by adapter A is reformatted to a common representation and then transported through the data exchange infrastructure 62 to a destination application within the inter-exchange carrier 2 environment.
The adapter , in this embodiment, is configured to translate the EDI information content having a common format to an EDI format and dialect required by the destination application. Adapter also converts source EDI information transmitted from inter-exchange carrier 2 into the common or generic form. The data integration infrastructure depicted in FIG.
In addition, deploying the data exchange architecture shown in FIG. For example, an adapter, such as adapter W, may be deployed to facilitate communication and data exchange via the Internet.
By way of further example, a Web browser interface may be developed to convert a single-user interface of a proprietary back-end system to a multi-user, Web browser interface without the need to modify the back-end system or applications running thereon.
The data exchange infrastructure may be implemented to enhance workflow or process management systems which interact with any number of legacy or proprietary applications, remote data stores, or various user and application work queues.
In this embodiment, the data exchange infrastructure provides for reliable application integration, data movement, and remote work queues. In this configuration, unreliable system implementations, such as screen scraping applications or networks with poor line condition, may be transformed into reliable implementations through use of the data exchange infrastructure. In particular, this unreliable to reliable conversion is achieved, for example, through the use of persistent queues, rollback processing upon transaction failures, which provides for transactional integrity, and transaction retry processing as necessary.
In this illustrative example, a data exchange infrastructure is implemented to provide reliable interfaces between legacy or proprietary applications and newer interfaces, such as Web-based interfaces. In this regard, archaic or legacy applications may be provided with state-of-the-art interfaces to facilitate substantially enhanced user interaction.
In this example, an EDI data stream is processed through the data exchange infrastructure as a received transaction initiated by a legacy or proprietary application. In response to a user inquiry, for example, selected data generated by the legacy or proprietary application is processed through the data exchange infrastructure to provide user access through a Web-based interface.
In this illustrative example, customer phone number records are maintained using a back-end system 80 that are accessible only through use of a single-user terminal interface In accordance with a traditional approach of transferring customer phone number information from the back-end system 80 to a database system managed by another service provider, such as database 90 , selected customer phone number records are printed on paper, dispatched via facsimile or by mail, and manually re-entered into the database 90 using an attached user-interface A data integration approach consistent with the principles of the present invention wholly obviates the duplicative manual re-entering of customer phone records into database 90 , and greatly enhances the functionality of, and accessibility to, the two disparate applications 80 , An EDI adapter 94 , for example, may be connected to the screen scraper 84 to provide EDI formatted customer phone number data to another telecommunications service provider.
The proprietary database 90 may be effectively, yet securely, opened up for enhanced usage using an ODBC Open Database Connectivity adapter Information extracted from database 90 and processed by the ODBC adapter may be transmitted to a joiner module Information extracted from the customer phone record system 80 using the screen scraper 84 may also be transmitted to the joiner module A composite data stream produced by the joiner module may then be formatted by an HTML formatter which, in turn, communicates the formatted composite data stream to a CGI Common Gateway Interface adapter Selected customer phone record information may be transported between system 80 and a disparate billing application via CGI adapter 86 and screen scraper coupled to terminal interface The CGI adapter 86 provides connectivity to a Web server 88 to facilitate the exchange of data amongst the disparate applications depicted in FIG.
Referring now to FIG. In this embodiment, the visual data integration infrastructure provides for the effective and reliable transport of information among any number of disparate applications, data streams, and platforms associated with two or more information providers. Information provider 1 , for example, produces data streams of various types which, when processed by associated adapters, are received by a data exchange infrastructure 62 in a generic or common format.
Associated with each of the data streams produced by information provider 1 is control or request information which is further processed by the data exchange infrastructure The information or raw data component associated with the control or request information is buffered in a data store The data exchange infrastructure 62 cooperates with a routing logic module 66 to determine one or more destination applications within the information provider 2 systems environment that require particular data streams from information provider 1.
It is noted that the content of a particular data stream, such as data stream A 1 , may have been requested by more than one information provider 2 application. Assuming that three such applications within the information provider 2 systems environment have requested all or selected portions of the data stream A 1 content, three corresponding adapters are employed to convert the data stream A 1 content from a generic format into corresponding pre-determined formats specified for the three destination applications.
The data exchange infrastructure 62 also cooperates with a business logic module 68 to process the content of one or more data streams in a particular manner desired by a user. By way of example, an application running within the system environment operated by information provider 2 may require data that is derived through computation or manipulation from data streams B 1 and C 1 produced by corresponding applications running within the system environment operated by information provider 1.
The data exchange infrastructure 62 operates on data streams B 1 and C 1 in the manner dictated by user-specified business logic stored in the business logic module In contrast to a custom interface implemented in accordance with a prior art approach, the data exchange architecture illustrated in FIG. By way of example, if an application or format of a particular data stream requires modification, such a change may be accomplished in the data exchange architecture by simply modifying the interface logic of the implicated adapter, typically through use of the visual interface If, by way of further example, a particular data stream produced by information provider 1 is required by two, rather than one, application within the information provider 2 systems environment, a simple change to the routing logic 66 and the addition of another adapter may be effected to satisfy this additional need.
Further, if new or additional processing is required for a particular data stream in order to satisfy a new need by either a source or destination application, a simple change to the business logic 68 will satisfy this additional need. Such modifications to the routing logic, business logic, and adapter logic may be effected using the visual interface It is to be understood that the data exchange infrastructure 62 is typically, but not necessarily, implemented in a distributed manner.
In accordance with a distributed approach, various components of the routing logic module 66 and the business logic module 68 may be distributed amongst different logical or physical locations within the infrastructure 62 , such as on different workstations, for example. It is to be further understood that the data store 64 may also be implemented in a distributed manner, such that storage elements of the infrastructure 62 , such as the various defined queues for example, may be stored at different logical or physical infrastructure locations, such as at locations within different workstations.
A distributed data store 64 provides for a highly scalable data exchange infrastructure which may be readily implemented within a distributed network system architecture. In contrast to conventional interfacing schemes, a data exchange architecture implemented in accordance with the present invention is not subject to obsolescence, primarily due to its inherent ability to readily accommodate new and unforeseen applications, platform technologies, data types and formats, and logic and routing requirements.
A more detailed description of various aspects of an adapter in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. As was discussed previously, each of the data types has an associated informational content component and format component, such as informational content component I 1 and format component F 1 associated with data type D 1.
Each of the adapters , , includes an interface module , , and an object converter , , , respectively. The interface module typically includes a validation module which validates the type D 1 data received from application A 1.
The object converter converts the informational content component I 1 of the type D 1 data to a Common Object data structure, CO 1. Reference information, which may be viewed as control or identification information, associated with the Common Object or Objects is placed onto an input queue of the data exchange infrastructure Routing logic is used by the data exchange infrastructure to place the processed informational content I 1 on one or more selected output queues not shown.
One or more adapters not shown having a structure equivalent to adapter and individually configured for specified destination applications convert the informational content I 1 from the common format to a specified output format for transmission to one or more destination applications. Initially, an adapter, such as adapter , receives an externally generated message from an application, such as an Operation Support System OSS application, of a destination service provider.
The adapter receives the message generated by the OSS. The API Application Program Interface c of the adapter represents an application programmer's interface that allows Common Objects to be readily constructed, manipulated, and enqueued.
After the request has been converted into Common Object form, the adapter invokes an enqueue interface d to place the OSS message into the receive queue of the data exchange infrastructure The informational content component or raw data associated with the OSS message is transferred to the data store coupled to the data exchange infrastructure It is noted that FIG.
A processing thread received from a processing thread pool from the gateway core is implemented to dequeue any incoming requests by relative priority. The API for the custom-specific rule code is then invoked to process the incoming request in compliance with customer-specific business rules received from the rules module After the business rules have been applied, requests to one or more destination OSS applications are then routed to a corresponding send queue , , for delivery.
An adapter, such as adapter , associated with a specific destination OSS may then invoke a corresponding dequeue API associated with its corresponding send queue The API b and converter c cooperate to convert the requested information represented in Common Object form to a format and structure specified by the particular OSS. The converted data is then transmitted from the application interface d of the adapter to its corresponding OSS. The received data then undergoes a validation process If the data is considered corrupt , an error in the data packet received from the external source is verified , and, in response, is removed or deleted for purposes of further processing.
If the data from the external source is determined to be valid , a data exchange transaction is then initiated The data received from the external source is then packed into a Common Object in accordance with meta-data rules and identified using a unique name or tag.
The Common Object is then enqueued on the incoming queue of the data exchange infrastructure. The data exchange transaction is then committed. If the transaction is not successful , a rollback of the transaction is then initiated If the transaction is successful , the data packet from the external data source is then removed or deleted The above-described process is then repeated for subsequent data packets received from the external source When a data exchange transaction is initiated , a prioritization scheme is employed to dequeue the next Common Object from the incoming queue of the data exchange infrastructure.
If the custom rules are successfully applied , another data exchange transaction is initiated If the custom rules cannot be applied successfully , the data exchange infrastructure determines the default routing of the Common Object from the configuration routing table.
If the routing has not been previously defined , the Common Object is enqueued on an error queue. If routing has been previously defined , the Common Object, or a clone of the Common Object if more than one enqueue operation is applicable, is enqueued on every outgoing queue identified in the routing table. The data exchange transaction is then committed and if successful , the associated data packet is removed or deleted from the external data source. If the data exchange transaction is not successful , rollback of the transaction is initiated A subsequent data exchange transaction is then initiated.
Assuming that a data exchange transaction has been initiated , the data exchange infrastructure dequeues the next priority Common Object from a configured outgoing queue. The data associated with the Common Object in the outgoing queue is then validated and packed into a specified structure having a format and name appropriate for the outgoing or destination external data source.
If the data validation process is not successful , then the data is deemed corrupt and the Common Object is enqueued on the error queue. If the data is valid , the external data packet is transmitted to the outgoing or destination external data source. The data exchange transaction is then committed and if deemed successful , a subsequent data exchange transaction is initiated If unsuccessful, the transaction is subject to rollback by the infrastructure exchange. Referring once again to FIG.
The processing thread pool represents a pool of threads whose number is externally controlled. Its function is to provide a thread of control for the custom logic portions of the system. A processing thread may make use of additional system resources, including persistent storage , writing to and reading from the error queue , and writing to an error log Also shown in FIG. The statistics monitor module also provides historical performance information on queues and historical information on system resource usage.
The statistics monitor module provides a means for logging and tracing a given application. Logging reveals the state of the application at the time of an error, while tracing provides a description of all software events as they occur.
The tracing information may be used for tracking the application, state, and other related operations. The tracing information may be used in conjunction with the logging information to determine the cause for an error since it provides information about the sequence of events prior to an error. Having discussed hereinabove various embodiments of a data transport mechanism within the context of the present invention, a description of a visual interface implemented in accordance with the principles of the present invention will now be provided in greater detail.
As was previously discussed, the transport framework provides a technology-independent integration mechanism that enables reliable and scalable routing of information between dissimilar applications and technologies. The visual interface enables the rapid design, deployment, and runtime control and analysis of the business and system aspects of an integrated information system implementation.
An underlying configuration and runtime information framework cooperatively operates with the visual interface and transport framework to effectively transform graphical interconnections established between system components using the visual interface into logical or physical interconnections, which results in the contemporaneous generation of an integrated runtime system deployment.
The complexity of conventional integration approaches and the general inability to integrate available business and system integration tool sets greatly complicates the effort of providing and maintaining consistency in a integrated information system design.
For example, existing data integration tools typically focus on horizontal technical aspects of system integration.
Existing business tools typically focus on addressing horizontal business integration problems, such as meeting business needs using information derived from data maintained within the information system. As such, business and system integration efforts often progress along separate development paths in a manner dictated by distinctly different design objectives.
Vertical integration consistency, which is critical to a successful fully integrated solution, is generally impracticable if not impossible to achieve using a traditional system integration approach. The configuration and runtime information framework and transport framework of the present invention provide for consistent vertical and horizontal system and business integration. The visual interface of the present invention provides for high-level modeling of an integrated information system, where both business and technical aspects of a system design may be conjointly represented, created, and controlled.
The business extensions represent business functionality modules that may be used in the visual interface to provide specific business integration capabilities. Business extension module 1 , for example, may include a set of components that make available legacy applications through internet type technologies.
The components of business extension module 1 enable easy creation of standardized Web browser interfaces for existing applications without changing or affecting the application. Multiple user interfaces may be readily created using the components of business extension module 1. The adapters associated with the components of business extension module 1 may include the following: screen scraper adapters e. Business extension module 2 , by way of further example, may include a set of components that provide full database interface capabilities.
The adapters may provide for ITU compliance and international font support. Business extension module 4 may include a set of components that provide for the building of sophisticated network management interfaces. The components and adapters of business extension module 4 may, for example, provide TMN Telecommunications Network Management service management capabilities, such as managing service level agreements, providing interaction with service providers, and managing interactions between services.
TMN business management capabilities may be provided, such as managing agreements between operators. Other capabilities may include implementing visual alarm level setting tools and visual tuning interfaces. The components and adapters of business extension module 5 may provide for the following capabilities: conversion of single-user WINDOWS applications to multiple-user distributed applications; interfacing to WINDOWS applications via the Internet or any other protocol mechanism; and sophisticated automation of WINDOWS application interfaces, including logic controlled responses, dialog box control, heuristic adaptive agent interfacing, and ActiveX interfacing.
Verizon exceeded its year-end target of 14, new 5G Ultra Wideband cells sites, providing phone service to parts of 87 U. We are on track to deliver our 5G Ultra Wideband service using C-Band spectrum to more than million people in the first quarter of ADVA's UK 5G DU-Volution consortium has won British government funding to promote integration of new technology suppliers for open RAN solutions and develop innovation that enhances spectral efficiency and reduces power, footprint and latency in mobile networks.
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Both groups are leveraging open software and hardware, common APIs and community collaboration. The groups said their existing work as Russia's Rostelecom plans new Transit Europe — Asia backbone. Monday, December 13, Russia.
Ericsson Routes is Waze for connectivity for autonomous vehicles. Monday, December 13, Ericsson. AWS Region opens in Jakarta. Australia's NBN Co outlined the following initial three-year roadmap Towards-Zero Carbon Ambition: Reducing its annual energy use by 25GWh by December Purchasing per cent renewable electricity from December Using electric or hybrid vehicles, where suitably available, by NBN Co is committed to delivering a more energy-efficient network, with over 8. Fiber Broadband Association elects Board of Directors.
Ericsson joins Vodafone 5G Lab. Monday, December 13, Windstream Wholesale. AWS attributes outage to surge from automated scaling of internal network. Intel cites advancements in packaging, transistors, quantum physics.
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