CN100388681C - A way to trigger online maintenance - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a method for triggering online maintenance. The process of the method includes: the communication equipment at a certain position on the network and sequentially connected to form a front-to-back relationship, the communication equipment includes terminal equipment and network equipment, and the terminal equipment sends a maintenance request online; any level of the communication network is provided with an online maintenance module And can detect the network equipment of the maintenance request. After the maintenance request is detected online, the network equipment is triggered to perform online maintenance operations, and the communication data passing through the network equipment is recorded for analysis of the cause of the failure of the communication network. Using the method for triggering online maintenance of the present invention can send a maintenance request without interrupting the current communication, and record the communication data passing through the communication equipment for analysis of the cause of the failure of the communication network. Since the method can trigger the online maintenance operation of the entire network communication equipment, it can better provide communication service providers with fault maintenance information, bring convenience to communication service providers or equipment manufacturers to solve problems, and improve user satisfaction.

Description

A way to trigger online maintenance

technical field

The invention relates to a method for triggering communication maintenance services, in particular to a method for triggering online maintenance.

Background technique

In the process of using communication services such as telephone calls and Internet conferences (Netmeeting), users may encounter failures such as degradation of communication quality, such as: noises appear during the call process, or the voice of the call suddenly becomes weaker. Although this type of failure will not cause interruption of the communication process, it will bring discomfort to the user, and even affect the communication of the user, causing inconvenience to the user.

At present, communication service providers provide a method to deal with such failures: users can dial the maintenance number provided by the communication service provider, and describe the failure phenomenon encountered to the customer service personnel, thereby triggering the communication service provider to provide follow-up maintenance work. However, using the above method to trigger the communication service provider to perform maintenance operations has the following disadvantages:

First of all, the fault phenomenon is described after the event, and the real-time performance is poor. Customer service personnel cannot restore the communication situation when the fault occurred, so the method of using the above-mentioned dedicated line complaint is not conducive to customer service personnel or equipment manufacturers to find the problem and avoid the recurrence of the fault.

Secondly, the fault phenomenon is described verbally by the user, which more reflects the user's feelings when encountering a communication fault, and the user cannot provide objective technical information related to the fault.

Finally, the user cannot dial the maintenance number when talking online, and can only trigger the maintenance of the communication service provider after the current call process ends or temporarily suspends the current call process, that is, the user cannot trigger the maintenance operation online.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the method of triggering the communication service provider to provide the maintenance service provided by the prior art is not conducive to the effective maintenance service of the communication service provider and the improvement of user satisfaction; it is also not conducive to the user's obtaining the best maintenance service.

Contents of the invention

In view of this, the main purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for triggering online maintenance, so that users can send maintenance requests online in real time when encountering communication failures, and communication equipment can objectively record communication data for analysis of failure causes.

In order to achieve the above object, the technical solution of the present invention is specifically realized in the following way:

A method for triggering online maintenance, which is applied in a communication network. The communication equipment in a certain position on the network and connected in sequence forms a front-to-back relationship. The communication equipment includes terminal equipment and network equipment; an online maintenance module is set on the network equipment to detect A maintenance request, characterized in that the method includes the following steps:

a. The terminal device sends a maintenance request online;

b. A network device with an online maintenance module installed at any level of the communication network, after detecting the maintenance request online, triggers the network device to perform online maintenance operations, records the communication data passing through the network device, and uses it for failure analysis of the communication network .

Further, the maintenance request described in step a is sent by dialing a number and converting the dialed number into a dual-tone multi-frequency sequence;

Then the online maintenance module of the network device in step b detects the dual tone multi-frequency sequence, and triggers the network device to perform the online maintenance operation.

Further, in the step b, after the online maintenance module of the network equipment detects the DTMF sequence, it also converts the DTMF sequence into a number, and compares the number with the online maintenance number set in the network equipment After comparison, if the two numbers match, the network device is triggered to perform the online maintenance operation, otherwise the online maintenance operation is not performed.

Preferably, in the step a, the terminal device is equipped with an online maintenance module, and after online detection of the maintenance instruction issued by the button, the terminal device where it is located is triggered to perform an online maintenance operation, and the communication data passing through the terminal device is recorded for communication Analyze the causes of network failures and issue maintenance requests online.

Further, the online maintenance operation performed by the network equipment in step b further includes: when the subsequent network equipment cannot detect the online maintenance request, sending a signaling request online to the subsequent network equipment;

Then the online maintenance module of the next-level network device detects the signaling request, and executes the online maintenance operation.

Further, the communication data is an analog signal, or a relay signal, or a signaling signal.

Preferably, the method further includes: setting up a fault record server on the communication network for storing the communication data recorded by the communication device.

Preferably, the failure record server locates the cause of the failure of the communication network according to the communication data recorded by all communication devices on the communication network.

It can be seen from the above technical solution that the method for triggering online maintenance of the present invention allows the user to send a maintenance request without interrupting the current communication process, and the communication device equipped with an online maintenance module on the communication network detects the maintenance request and executes the online maintenance Operation, real-time recording of the current communication data passing through the communication equipment. According to the different terminal equipment used by the user, the maintenance request sent by the user through the terminal equipment has the following two situations:

(1) The maintenance request sent by the user through the terminal device is a DTMF sequence. In this case, other network devices equipped with the online maintenance module except the control device can detect the DTMF sequence, and thus be triggered to perform the online maintenance operation. For the control device, the method of the present invention sets the network device at the previous stage of the control device to send a signaling request online to the control device at the next stage after detecting the DTMF sequence. The control device equipped with the online maintenance module detects the signaling request and is triggered to perform online maintenance operations. Therefore, the present invention provides a method for triggering the entire network communication equipment to perform online maintenance operations when the maintenance request sent by the terminal device is a DTMF sequence. .

(2) The user issues a maintenance command by pressing a button, and the terminal device equipped with the online maintenance module detects the maintenance command, executes the online maintenance operation, and sends a signaling request to the next-level communication device. Since the maintenance instruction sent by the user can be detected except for the terminal equipment, other communication equipment cannot be detected, so the method of the present invention sets all communication equipment to detect the maintenance request of the previous communication equipment after the system planning. Send a maintenance request to the next-level communication equipment, thereby triggering the entire network communication equipment to perform online maintenance operations step by step.

Further, a fault record server is set up on the communication network, and the communication device can send the recorded communication data to the fault record server for storage. This method of unified management of communication data is helpful for communication service providers or equipment manufacturers to locate user faults, find out the cause of the fault, and bring great convenience to the final troubleshooting.

In a word, adopting the method of the present invention can better trigger the maintenance of the communication service provider, improve user satisfaction, and bring convenience for the communication service provider or equipment manufacturer to solve problems.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the communication network connection schematic diagram of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a user triggering an online maintenance operation in the first embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The core idea of the present invention is: on the network, the communication devices that are in a certain position and connected in sequence form a front-to-back relationship. The communication devices include terminal devices and network devices, and the terminal devices send maintenance requests online; any level of the communication network is provided with online maintenance The module can also detect the network device of the maintenance request. After the maintenance request is detected online, the network device where it is located is triggered to perform online maintenance operations, and the communication data passing through the network device where it is located is recorded for analysis of the cause of the failure of the communication network.

In order to make the object, technical solution and advantages of the present invention clearer, the present invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples.

There are various network connection modes in practical applications. The network connection adopted in the first and second embodiments of the present invention is shown in FIG. Network 102, soft switch equipment 103 provides the routing and connection control of the voice service for the A-side user, after the trunk media gateway (TMG) 104 receives the IP packet sent by the IP bearer network 102, it restores the IP packet to a trunk signal for transmission to the switch 105, and finally the switch 105 sends the analog line signal to the terminal device B to realize the communication service from terminal A to terminal B.

It can be seen from the network connection in Fig. 1 that each communication device is in a certain position in the network connection and connected sequentially, and all communication devices form a front-rear relationship in connection. For example: the IAD is the next-level communication device of the terminal device A, and the IAD is the previous-level communication device of the softswitch device 103 . Another example: for the TMG, the terminal equipment A, the IAD and the softswitch equipment 103 are all front-stage communication equipment of the TMG.

The terminal device used by the user in the first embodiment of the present invention is an ordinary phone, and the terminal device used by the user in the second embodiment is an Ethernet phone (Ephone). Since the terminal devices used by the users in the two embodiments are different, the online maintenance process of the communication device triggered by the user is slightly different. In the following description, for the sake of convenience, communication equipment is divided into two categories: terminal equipment and network equipment. The terminal equipment refers to the communication equipment directly used by the user, and A and B in FIG. 1 are terminal equipment. Other communication devices except terminal devices are called network devices, so the network devices in Figure 1 include: IAD, softswitch, TMG and switch.

The network connection adopted in the first embodiment is shown in FIG. 1 . In this embodiment, the terminal devices A and B used by the user are ordinary phones, and the process for the user to trigger the online maintenance operation of the entire network communication device online is as follows:

Step 201: The user sends a maintenance request by dialing a number without interrupting the current call.

During the call between the user at end A and the user at end B, if a user at one end finds that the communication quality has deteriorated, he can key in the online maintenance number provided by the communication service provider on the dial pad of the telephone he is using. At this time, the user cannot dial the online maintenance number It will lead to the interruption of the call between the A and B end users. The ordinary telephone used by the user converts the dialed number into a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) sequence and sends it out.

The above-mentioned process of sending a maintenance request through online dialing can be initiated by any of the users at the A and B terminals. In the description of this embodiment, it is assumed that the user at the A terminal sends out the maintenance request through online dialing.

Since the user is using an ordinary phone in this embodiment, phone A itself cannot be triggered to perform online maintenance operations, and can only send DTMF sequences to subsequent communication devices.

Step 202: The network device including the online maintenance module detects the maintenance request sent by the front-level communication device, and executes the online maintenance operation.

Network devices are classified according to their working mechanisms: control devices and non-control devices. The control device is responsible for the command control of the communication network, and this type of device cannot detect the DTMF sequence, while the non-control device can detect the DTMF sequence. In the network connection in Figure 1, except the softswitch 103 is the control device, the IAD, TMG and switch are all non-control devices, so the IAD, TMG and switch can all detect the DTMF sequence sent by phone A, then this type of device is triggered The procedure for performing an online maintenance operation is as follows:

An online maintenance module is set on the non-controlling device, and the online maintenance module detects the DTMF sequence sent by phone A, restores the DTMF sequence to a number, and then compares it with the online maintenance number set by the non-controlling device itself. If the two numbers are the same, the DTMF sequence sent by phone A triggers the non-controlling equipment to perform online maintenance operations, and records the communication data passing through this type of equipment for analysis of the cause of the failure of the communication network. In this embodiment, the non-control devices include: IAD, TMG and switch. Among them, after the IAD is triggered to perform the online maintenance operation, it records the analog line signal, coded voice message and signaling message through the IAD; after the TMG is triggered to perform the online maintenance operation, it records the trunk line signal through the TMG , encoded and decoded voice messages and signaling messages; after the switch is triggered to perform online maintenance operations, it records the analog line signals, trunk line signals and signaling messages passing through the switch.

For the IAD, since the next-level communication device is a softswitch device, it is necessary to set the IAD to send signaling to the softswitch device online after detecting the DTMF sequence during system planning, in addition to recording the communication data passing through the IAD. Request to trigger the softswitch device to perform online maintenance operations. The specific operation process is as follows:

An online maintenance module is set on the softswitch device, and the online maintenance module detects the signaling request sent by the IAD, triggers the softswitch device to perform online maintenance operations, and records the signaling messages passing through the device.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that in Figure 1, the network equipment that has an online maintenance module and detects a maintenance request is triggered to perform an online maintenance operation, and records its own communication data. Online maintenance operations.

Step 203: A fault record server is set up on the communication network, and the network device stores the recorded communication data in the fault record server for analyzing the cause of the fault in the communication network.

It can be seen from step 202 that the communication data recorded by the network device may be an analog signal, or a relay signal, or a signaling signal. Since the working mechanisms of network devices are different, the communication data recorded by them are also different. Network devices can store recorded communication data locally. However, since the communication service adopts an end-to-end transmission mode, the communication data recorded by a single network device can only determine or eliminate the fault of the device itself, and cannot locate the communication fault of the network as a whole, so this embodiment adopts a preferred Communication data storage method, that is: a fault record server is set up on the communication network, and all network devices send the communication data recorded by themselves to the fault record server for storage. This storage method has the following advantages:

On the one hand, this storage method avoids the manual collection of communication data of all network devices; on the other hand, since the recorded communication data is generally large, storing the communication data locally will increase the burden on the network devices and cause the network devices to malfunction. Work, and the storage method of sending the communication data to the fault record server solves this problem very well.

After the fault record server uniformly stores the communication data, the following methods are used to realize fault location:

First, the fault record server analyzes the communication data reported by each communication device. Assuming that the fault record server analyzes that the quality of the communication data recorded by the TMG and the switch is good, but the communication data of the IAD becomes poor, then the fault record server locates that the problem lies in the IP bearer network.

Subsequently, the fault record server finds the cause of the fault according to the location result. Since the problem was located in the IP bearer network, the fault record server analyzed the communication data reported by the IAD, and finally found that the communication quality deteriorated due to packet loss on the IP network, thereby analyzing the cause of the communication network failure.

The second embodiment also employs the network connection shown in FIG. 1 . In the second embodiment, the terminal devices A and B used by the user are Ephones with an online maintenance module, and the user triggers the entire network communication device online to perform the online maintenance operation as follows:

Step 301: the user sends a maintenance request through the Ephone without interrupting the current call.

On the Ephone, a maintenance request key is set for the user. During the call between the user at the A end and the user at the B end, if a user at one end finds that the communication quality has declined, he can issue a maintenance command by pressing the button. At this time, the user's button behavior will not cause A , The communication between the B-end users is interrupted. The Ephone equipped with the online maintenance module detects the maintenance instruction issued by the user key, is triggered to execute the online maintenance operation, and records the communication data passing through it.

The above-mentioned process of users pressing keys to issue maintenance commands can be initiated by any of the users at terminals A and B. In the description of this embodiment, it is assumed that the user at terminal A issues maintenance commands by pressing keys.

Since the maintenance instructions issued by the user keys can only be detected by the Ephone equipped with the online maintenance module, the network equipment will not be able to perform online maintenance operations because the maintenance instructions cannot be detected. In order to realize the online maintenance operation of the whole network, during the system planning, set the Ephone to send a signaling request to the next-level network device IAD after detecting the maintenance command issued by the user button, and trigger the online maintenance operation of the IAD.

Step 302: The network device including the online maintenance module detects the maintenance request sent by the previous communication device, and executes the online maintenance operation.

In this embodiment, after the network equipment with an online maintenance module at any level detects the maintenance request sent by the communication equipment at the previous level, it performs an online maintenance operation, records the communication data passing through it, and at the same time sends a signaling to the communication equipment at the next level Request to trigger the online maintenance operation of the next-level communication equipment.

After the above-mentioned step-by-step triggering process, the network connection shown in FIG. 1 finally realizes the online maintenance of communication devices in the whole network.

Step 303: A fault record server is set up on the communication network, and the communication device stores the recorded communication data in the fault record server for analyzing the cause of the fault in the communication network. This step is similar to step 203 and will not be repeated here.

The terminal device Ephone used in the second embodiment can also be replaced by a computer soft terminal used in communication occasions such as Netmeeting. At this time, the user sends a maintenance instruction by clicking a menu. If an online maintenance module is installed on the soft terminal, it can detect the maintenance instructions issued by the user, record the communication data passing through the soft terminal, and use it to analyze the cause of the failure of the communication network. At the same time, the soft terminal sends a signaling request to the next-level network equipment, Trigger the online maintenance operation of the next-level network equipment.

It can be seen from the above embodiments that the method for triggering online maintenance of the present invention can send a maintenance request without interrupting the current communication, record the communication data passing through the communication equipment, and use it for failure analysis of the communication network. Since the method can trigger the online maintenance operation of the entire network communication equipment, it can better provide communication service providers with fault maintenance information, bring convenience to communication service providers or equipment manufacturers to solve problems, and improve user satisfaction.

Claims (8)

1. A method for triggering online maintenance, which is applied in a communication network. The communication equipment in a certain position on the network and connected in sequence forms a front-to-back relationship. The communication equipment includes terminal equipment and network equipment; an online maintenance module is set on the network equipment , detecting a maintenance request, characterized in that the method includes the following steps: a. The terminal device sends a maintenance request online; b. A network device with an online maintenance module installed at any level of the communication network, after detecting the maintenance request online, triggers the network device to perform online maintenance operations, records the communication data passing through the network device, and uses it for failure analysis of the communication network . 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the maintenance request described in the step a is dialed by a number, and the dialed number is converted into a DTMF sequence and sent; Then the online maintenance module of the network device in step b detects the dual tone multi-frequency sequence, and triggers the network device to perform the online maintenance operation. 3. method according to claim 2, it is characterized in that, in described step b, after the online maintenance module of network equipment detects this DTMF sequence, also also DTMF sequence is converted into number, and The number is compared with the online maintenance number set in the network device, and if the two numbers match, the network device is triggered to perform the online maintenance operation, otherwise the online maintenance operation is not performed. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein in said step a, the terminal device is provided with an online maintenance module, and after online detection of a maintenance command issued by a button, the terminal device where it is located is triggered to perform an online maintenance operation, and records Through the communication data of the terminal equipment, it is used to analyze the cause of the failure of the communication network and send a maintenance request online. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the online maintenance operation performed by the network device in step b further comprises: when the subsequent level of network equipment cannot detect the online maintenance request , sending a signaling request online to the next-level network device; Then the online maintenance module of the next-level network device detects the signaling request, and executes the online maintenance operation. 6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the communication data is an analog signal, or a relay signal, or a signaling signal. 7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the method further comprises: setting up a fault record server on the communication network for storing the communication data recorded by the communication device. 8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the fault record server locates the fault cause of the communication network according to the communication data recorded by all communication devices on the communication network.

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