Unified Service Plan Design for Network Policy Deployment
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Solution Overview
Problem
The development and implementation of network service plans are hindered by the siloed efforts of control and accounting policy specialists, leading to slow deployment and less cohesive plan design due to divergent appliance-level destinations for policy instructions.
Innovation Solution
An integrated service design center enables centralized, unified development of access-control, service-accounting, and service-notification policies, with automated translation into provisioning instructions for various network elements and end-user devices, utilizing hierarchical organization and multi-match classification to streamline service plan development and management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If control and accounting policies are developed separately by different teams for different appliance destinations, then each team can focus on their specific expertise, but the deployment time significantly increases and policy coherence deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges separate control policy and accounting policy development teams into a unified service plan development process. The system integrates control policy instructions and accounting policy instructions into a single service plan object that can be simultaneously developed, validated, and deployed to multiple network appliances (PCRF, OCS, billing systems) through a common interface, eliminating the time loss from sequential development while maintaining specialization through role-based access controls.
Solution Approach 2:
The service plan object serves as a universal container that can be deployed to multiple different appliance types (PCRF for control, OCS for accounting, billing systems for invoicing). This multi-functional design allows a single service plan definition to simultaneously implement control policies, accounting policies, and billing rules across heterogeneous network elements, reducing deployment time while maintaining specialized functionality for each appliance type.
2Adaptability or versatility
If control and accounting policies are developed separately with divergent appliance-level destinations, then each policy can be optimized for its specific appliance, but policy design coherence deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the service plan into distinct policy components (control policy instructions, accounting policy instructions, billing rules) that can be independently optimized for specific appliance types while maintaining overall coherence. Each segment can be tailored to the capabilities and requirements of its target appliance (PCRF, OCS, billing system) while the unified service plan structure ensures they work together coherently.
Solution Approach 2:
The service plan object acts as an intermediary that coordinates between different appliance-specific policy requirements. It contains specialized instruction sets for different appliance types (control instructions for PCRF, accounting instructions for OCS) while maintaining a unified structure that ensures policy coherence across all network elements, mediating between the need for appliance-specific optimization and overall policy consistency.
3Productivity
If multiple teams develop policies for different network appliances independently, then parallel development can occur, but the number of development and implementation errors increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where service plan definitions are automatically validated against appliance-specific requirements and cross-referenced for consistency. The unified service plan structure enables automated checking of whether control policy instructions, accounting policy instructions, and billing rules are coherent and compatible, providing immediate feedback on potential errors before deployment, thus maintaining reliability while allowing parallel development.
Solution Approach 2:
By merging the validation and deployment processes for control and accounting policies into a unified service plan activation process, the system enables parallel development while maintaining reliability. The integrated service plan can be validated as a complete package and deployed atomically to multiple appliances simultaneously, reducing the chances of inconsistent implementations that would arise from separate development and deployment processes.
Data Source
AI summary
A technique involves modular storage of network service plan components and provisioning of same. A subset of the capabilities of a service design system can be granted to a sandbox system to enable customization of service plan offerings or other controls.