CN1122230C - Distributed service network - Google Patents

Abstract

A distributed service network provides telecommnunications and other services to users via components and services at interconnected network regions. Each region maintains a record of the services and components available in the region and utilization of these services and/or components is obtained by reference to the record. New services and components can be added to the region by updating the record, and services and components can be removed from the region, for preventative maintenance, etc., by appropriately udpdating the record. Entries in the record can be ordered to determine the order in which like components and/or services are utilized and this order can be set according to the degree of utilization of region servers on which said services and/or components are installed. It is also possible to include services and/or components at other regions, which are accessible via a communications backbone, in the record of services and components in a region.

Description

Distributed service network and method for processing data access request

field of invention

The invention relates to a distributed service network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a network that provides communication and other services to fixed, mobile and nomadic users in a manner that is transparent to external service providers and users. The present invention also relates to a reconfigurable distributed service network, which provides communication components and user services for fixed users, mobile users and nomadic users in a manner transparent to external service providers and users. , services and/or components can be added or removed as needed. The invention also relates to a data stream conversion system and method for converting a data stream from a first format to a desired format. The invention also relates to a method for servicing data access requests from users connected to a distributed service network, wherein the servicing of data access requests is independent of the actual connection point and communication client used .

Background of the invention

Recent developments in telecommunications have led to the emergence of networks that provide various services. From traditional voice or data networks to wireless packet and enhanced paging networks, the communication options available to individuals and businesses are changing with each passing day. The variety of communication methods has led to a revolution in the way people live and work, making mobile and/or nomadic workers increasingly common.

Although the existing communication services have been applied to varying degrees, to a large extent, these services and the networks supporting these services are still in a fragmented situation, making it difficult to fully develop their overall potential. For example, it is impossible to send e-mail from a PC client in an office to a salesman's paging-receiving client, even though they are both connected to the corresponding telecommunications network.

The lack of integration and/or communication between networks and clients has long been recognized, leading to the emergence of various "middleware" products for transferring data between one network/system and another. For example, Chapter 5 of the Yankee Group's 1997 publication "Understanding the Next Phase of Mobile Communications," entitled "Evolving Middleware Solutions for Wireless Remote Access," discusses getting in touch with mobile users via wireless communications middleware solution.

Although middleware can be used to provide the required connectivity in many special cases, there is as yet no general solution for interconnecting various telecommunication networks. There is not even a scheme for providing a distributed network to provide various desired services at multiple locations in a manner that is transparent and convenient to users and service providers. Furthermore, there is no provision at all for a distributed network that allows new services and/or components to be added to or withdrawn from during operation. Therefore, there is still a long way to go to realize communication between any two locations from any client or service to any other client.

Summary of the invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel network, network administration apparatus and method for providing telecommunication services which obviates or mitigates at least one disadvantage of the prior art.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a reconfigurable network, network administration apparatus and method for providing telecommunication services which obviates or mitigates at least one disadvantage of the prior art.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel data stream conversion system and method which obviates or mitigates at least one disadvantage of the prior art.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new method for servicing data access requests from users connected to a network with multiple access points, which avoids or mitigates at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art seriousness.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a network management device is provided for a distributed telecommunication network, the network management device includes:

at least one network management device server, including at least one converter, which can convert the input data stream of the first format to the output data stream of the second format, and a communication host, which can communicate with the distribution network through the communication trunk Other network jurisdiction equipment server communication in the telecommunication network;

At least one bridge, connected to the at least one network management device server, can establish a connection with the communication client;

At least one adapter connected to the at least one network management device server, the adapter can be connected to an external service, and allows the external service to communicate with the at least one network management device server; and

A network governing device manager, connected to each of said at least one network governing device server, can determine the type of communication client connected to said network governing device, and select a network governing device server and The bridge thereby maintains a connection with the communication client, wherein said converter converts a first data format received from said external service or said communication client that is incompatible with another external service and communication client The data is converted into a second data format suitable for the second external service and communication client.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a distributed service network is provided, which includes at least two network management devices connected by a communication trunk, and each network management device includes:

at least one network management device server, including at least one converter, which can transform the input data stream of the first format into the output data stream of the second format, and a communication host, which can communicate with the distribution network through the communication trunk Other network jurisdiction equipment server communication in the telecommunication network;

At least one bridge, connected to the at least one network management device server, can establish a connection with the communication client;

At least one adapter connected to the at least one network management device server, the adapter can be connected to an external service, and allows the external service to communicate with the at least one network management device server; and

A network governing device manager, connected to each of said at least one network governing device server, can determine the type of communication client connected to said network governing device, and select a network governing device server and The bridge thereby maintains a connection with the communication client, wherein said converter converts data received from said external service or communication client in a first data format that is incompatible with another external service and communication client , converted into a second data format suitable for the second external service and communication client.

The present invention provides a novel distributed service network which allows users to access telecommunication services and other external services from any access point of the network. These services provided are transparent to users and service providers. The network can be set according to the respective types of clients using known client parameters, and can also be set according to each user's preference. Communication within the network is independent of the transport protocol used, since all protocols, data, APIs, etc., are automatically formatted by a data conversion system and/or adapter in the network. Furthermore, this network and its services are transparent to the location to which the user is connected.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a network management device is provided for a reconfigurable distributed telecommunication network, which includes:

at least one network management device server, including at least one converter, which can transform the input data stream of the first format into the output data stream of the second format, and a communication host, which can communicate with the distribution network through the communication trunk Other network jurisdiction equipment server communication in the telecommunication network;

at least one bridge or other components, connected to the at least one network management device server, can establish a connection with the communication client;

At least one adapter connected to the at least one network management device server, the adapter can be connected to a service and allow the service to communicate with the at least one network management device server; and

A network governing device manager, connected to each of the at least one network governing device server, and keeping a record indicating the services and components provided by each network governing device server, the network governing device manager can determine The type of communication client connected to the network management device, and select a network management device server and bridge or other components connected to it from the record to maintain the connection with the communication client.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a reconfigurable distributed service network is provided, which includes at least two network management devices connected by communication trunk lines, each network management device includes:

at least one network management device server, including at least one converter, which can transform the input data stream of the first format into the output data stream of the second format, and a communication host, which can communicate with the distribution network through the communication trunk Other network jurisdiction equipment server communication in the telecommunication network;

At least one bridge, connected to the at least one network management device server, can establish a connection with the communication client;

At least one adapter connected to the at least one network management device server, the adapter can be connected to an external service, and allows the external service to communicate with the at least one network management device server; and

A network governing device manager, connected to each of the at least one network governing device server, and keeping a record indicating the services and components provided by each network governing device server, the network governing device manager can determine The type of communication client connected to the network management device, and select a network management device server and bridge or other components connected to it from the record to maintain the connection with the communication client.

The present invention provides a novel reconfigurable distributed network and method of operating such a network that allows components and services to be added or removed on the fly. Additionally, the present invention provides a novel reconfigurable distributed network and method of operating such a network that balances component and/or licensed capacity both within a network governing device and between network governing devices (licensed capabilities) usage level. Components and services can be added as new components and services, and/or withdrawn from the network for preventive maintenance, reconfiguration, etc., without requiring the network or network governing equipment to stop functioning.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for processing data access requests of users connected to a reconfigurable distributed service network, the service network comprising a plurality of interconnected network management devices, each network management The device has at least one network governing the device server, and these users use at least one of various communication clients, and the network is connected with various services, including the following steps:

(i) maintain a record for each network governing device in the network, indicating which components are available in the network governing device;

(ii) determining the type of communication client used by the user and connecting the communication client to available components selected from said record and suitable for said client;

(iii) receiving a data access request from the user for one of the multiple services; and

(iv) connecting said communication client to a component selected from said record, thereby connecting the communication client to the selected service.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a data stream conversion system is provided, which includes:

at least two transformers, each capable of receiving an input data stream in a first format and producing an output data stream in a format different from the first format; and

A converter matrix switch capable of selecting at least one converter and providing a first input data stream from which an output data stream is received, the selection being based on an input signal to said converter matrix switch, the signal indicating The first format and a different data format are required.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication client connected to a user of a distributed service network and a service connected to the network, a method for converting a data flow transmitted, which includes the following steps:

(i) determining the type of communication client and the data characteristics required by the client;

(ii) determine the data characteristics required by the business;

(iii) selecting at least one conversion device capable of converting data streams between client-desired data characteristics and business-required data characteristics;

(iv) applying at least one conversion means as described above to data streams transported within said network.

Also, the present invention provides a method for a user to provide services for a user's data access request for accessing a network through a communication client connected to any one of two or more network management devices, which includes the following steps:

(i) determining the type of communication client within said network governing device and passing said connection to a bridge appropriate for that client type within said network governing device;

(ii) verify the user's identity;

(iii) determine all of the user's pre-defined preferences and services available to the user by accessing a user profile stored by the network for the user; and

(iv) Allowing the user to access any defined service, said network administration equipment converting data streams for the client between a format appropriate to the type of client and the format used by the accessed service.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of processing data access requests from users connected to a distributed service network, the users employing at least one of a plurality of communication client types, and the network is connected to a plurality of service connected, the method includes the following steps:

(i) determine the type of the communication client that the user adopts, and take out the characteristic parameters required by the communication client from the storage place in the network;

(ii) Receive the user's data access request for a service selected by him from various services;

(iii) determine the required input and output data characteristics of the selected service; and

(iv) automatically converting data transmitted between the service and the communication client according to the characteristics required by the communication client and the characteristics of the service selected by the user. The present invention provides a data flow conversion system and method, which enable a communication client to connect to a network and access any service therein, so that the data flow from the service to the communication client is converted into a format required by the client, and No special input device is required from the client user. The data conversion system and method receives information about the type of communication client, any user-defined preferences for data streams delivered to him, and information about services accessed through the network. The data transformation system and method then employs one or more transformers to transform the data stream accordingly. The data conversion system and method also employs one or more converters to convert the data stream received from the communication client from the received format to the format required by the business.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of processing data access requests from users connected to a distributed service network having multiple connection points, the method comprising the steps of:

(i) establishing a connection with a user at a connection point of said network;

(ii) determining the location of user information, which information is stored at a predetermined location on said network;

(iii) transmitting a copy of at least a portion of said information from a determined location to said connection point via said network;

(iv) process the user's data access request on the basis of a copy of the information and transmit a copy of the additional information required to fulfill the request from the identified location to the connection point;

(v) On the network between the determined location and said connection point, update information representing changes in the user's stored information and the information copy is communicated to the information copy and the user's stored information to maintain consistency between them.

The present invention provides a novel method of servicing data access requests from users to a network having multiple connection points in a manner similar to that used by actual access points and/or users connected to the network The communication client is irrelevant. This method is transparent to the user and the provider of the service being accessed. It can also be set for each client type using known client parameters, and it can also be configured for each client. set per user preference. User information is replicated to the connection point and maintained there to reduce latency and reduce bandwidth requirements on the network.

Brief description of the drawings

Preferred embodiments of the invention will be described by way of example with reference to the following drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a sketch of distributed service network among the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a simplified diagram of a network jurisdiction device in the distributed service network in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a simplified diagram of a personal agent that is copied from a home network governing device of a distributed service network to a cache (persistent cache) of a remote network governing device in the network.

Detailed description of the invention

A distributed service network in a preferred embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in block 14 of FIG. 1 . The types of data supported by network 14 are not particularly limited and may include analog and/or digital voice, computer network communications, electronic mail, paging system messages, and the like. As will be apparent from the discussion below, the network 14 can simultaneously support multiple types of data when desired.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 , the network 14 includes one or more network management devices 18 each including a network management device manager 22 and one or more network management device servers 24 . Each network management device manager 22 is all connected with all network management device servers 24 of this network management device 18, and each network management device server 24 is all connected with this network management device 18 and other network management devices 18 through the communication trunk line 28. The network management device server 24 is connected, and the communication trunk line 28 can be any suitable communication link, such as a T3 (communication line with a transmission rate up to 44.736Mb/s) line, a broadband optical fiber link, a satellite link, etc., or a suitable Any combination of links.

As shown in FIG. 2, each network management device server 24 includes a suitable communication host 32 and a plurality of bridges 36 used as a communication backbone 28, through dedicated telecommunication lines, dial-up access, wireless services, Internet-like Clients 40 of network 14 may be connected to these bridges 36 via a public packet network or any other suitable means. For clarity, three network management device servers 24 are shown in each network management device 18 in FIG. Every business is different. It is conceivable that there should be at least one network administration device 18 in each geographic area where there is a need to provide a local "site point" to which clients 40 can connect to the network 14. However, the network 14 is very flexible, and it is contemplated that two or more network administration devices 18 could be placed in a single geographic area with relatively large numbers of clients 40, etc., if desired. In such a case, the network management devices 18 and their network management device servers 24 may be interconnected by a trunk line 28 or any other suitable means, and the network management device manager 22 may implement load and communication between the network management devices 18. / or business balance.

As shown in Figure 2 again, the network management device server 24 includes a data stream conversion system, which includes a converter 46 group 44 and a converter matrix switch 48, so as to convert data in various formats, various protocols and various standards as required. Convert data streams between. The network management device server 24 also includes a set of adapters 52 and service agents that can communicate with other external services and/or networks 56, such as the Internet, to communicate with servers running Post Office Protocol version 3, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, etc. Communications for e-mail tasks, faxing, web browsing, and more. As used herein, the term "format" or "data format" includes all representations of data. For example, digital voice may include data in a format, a color image in Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), a black and white image in black and white GIF file format, Type 4 facsimile, a Hypertext Markup Language file, and so on. Furthermore, as used herein, the term "data stream" includes any collection, logical arrangement or grouping of data, including one or more data files, data packets, data streams such as digital voice, multimedia or interactive processes, and the like.

Each adapter in adapter set 52 provides a transparent layer between protocols and/or application programming interfaces used by external services or services connected thereto. Specifically, this adapter converts data between a service-specific protocol or API and a generic protocol of the network governing device server 24 . For example, network administration device server 24 communicates electronically with adapter 52 using a common "fetch" and "store" protocol, where adapter 52 can communicate between this common protocol and an Internet message access protocol version 4 electronic mail protocol. Convert data between. Therefore, the network governing device server 24 and the server's local traffic need only use simple "fetch" and "store" protocols, rather than the complicated version 4 Internet message access protocol. It is also possible to add new services and/or improve services in the network management device server 24 as required by only adding an additional protocol conversion adapter.

Client machines 40 may include various telecommunications and/or computing devices, including personal computers, cellular or personal communication system handsets, paging receivers, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and any other device requiring voice or data communication services or system.

The network administration device manager 22 includes a database engine 38 that maintains various information about users of the network 14, and it also maintains registration information for client machines 40 that can connect to the network 14. This client registration information includes information on how to establish and maintain a connection to each client 40, as well as information about each client 40's capabilities and limitations. The network administration device manager 22 monitors each network administration device server 24 to achieve load balancing among the network administration device servers 24 and manage the establishment of connections, which will be described in detail below.

When a client 40 wishes to establish a connection to the network 14 via a dial-up line, wireless connection, or other data connection, a connection is established between the client and a bridge 36, referred to herein as a provisioning connection. The network management device server 24 connected to the bridge 36 that has established the preliminary connection notifies the network management device manager 22, and the network management device manager determines the type of the client 40. In some cases, if the preliminary connection is established with the GSM (Global Digital System for Mobile Phone) cellular phone using the SMS (Short Message Service) protocol, the bridge 36 that has established the preliminary connection indicates to the network management device manager 22 Type of client machine 40 . In other cases, such as a dial-up line situation, the network management device manager 22 and the bridge 36 that has established a preliminary connection must determine the type of client 40 that is establishing the connection, such as a digital voice phone, an analog voice phone, a web browser, etc. . Determination of the type may be accomplished by analyzing the initialization process, querying the client 40, or in any other suitable manner, as would be done by one skilled in the art.

Once the type of client 40 is determined, the network administration device manager 22 looks up the characteristics of the client 40 in the client registry in the database engine 38 and ensures that the preparatory connection is forwarded to an appropriate bridge 36, which is appropriate The bridge 36 is either the one in the network management device server 24 that initially establishes the preliminary connection, or the one in the other network management device server 24. There are a number of criteria for selecting which network administration device server 24 to handle the connection, including the current workload of each network administration device server 24, the type of client 40, and the like. For example, one or more network administration device servers may be configured with dedicated hardware or optimized to handle voicemail connections to HTTP browser clients 40 and other clients.

If the user changes the type of the client computer 40 during the connection process with the network management device server 24, such as changing from the third version of the Post Office Protocol electronic letter client program to the World Wide Web browser client program, or the client server 24 is overloaded, then if If appropriate, the network management device manager 22 can transfer connection control to another network management device server 24 within the network management device 18 which is transparent to the user.

The next step is to verify the identity of the user of the client machine 40 . This verification process may include: an explicit step, such as the user entering a user ID and password; or an implicit step, such as if the connection is to a known address, such as an Internet Protocol address or DN (telephone number); etc. This verification process can be accomplished by either the network governing device manager 22 or one or more network governing device servers within the network governing device 18 that have the capability to perform this task. The former option is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, where the verification information is compared with information in the database engine 38 to verify the identity of the user. Once the user's identity is verified, the preliminary connection becomes a full connection and the user's data access request is serviced.

In one embodiment of the present invention, once the user's identity is verified and a complete connection is established, a personal agent of the user on the server 24 is accessed from the database engine 38 . This personal agent keeps a record of the services used by the user, referred to herein as the user profile, and the user's preferences for using various possible client devices and any other preferences of the user, as well as the user's billing information. In addition to user profiles and preferences, the personal agent provides access to all relevant business data for user data access requests, including user e-mail services, passwords, and user identification for other services, among others.

Although the use of personal proxies is currently most appropriate, the network 14 is not limited to the use of personal proxies, and user profiles and related information may be stored in the network 14 in any suitable manner, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. do the same.

If the user is connected to a network governing device 18 that is not the user's "home" network governing device 18 (ie, the network governing device 18 that typically stores the user's data), then the user's identity is verified in one of two ways. One is to query the user registration stored in the database engine 38 to determine the user's home network management device 18 . The other is to query a central user registration server (not shown), which is connected to the network 14 via a communication trunk 28, or from a connected (local) network governing device manager 22 to an adjacent network via a trunk 28. The network governing device manager 22 of the governing device 18 issues a query to determine the location of a database engine 38 with the required information, thereby verifying the user's identity. In this last kind of situation, if there is no home network management device 18 of this user in the adjacent network management device 18, so there is no necessary user information in their database engine 38, so just this inquiry request is forwarded to Another network governing device 18 until a home network governing device 18 is found. If at some point it is determined that the user is not an authorized user of network 14, then the preliminary connection between client 40 and bridge 36 is terminated. For those skilled in the art, it is obvious that there are many techniques that can be used to determine whether a certain user confirms that the query is successful or unsuccessful, and this will not be discussed in depth here.

Once the user's home network governing device 18 is determined, the user's identity is confirmed and a complete connection is established, the remote network governing device 18 can access the personal agent of the home network governing device 18 through the communication trunk 28, or the The personal agent of the home network governing device 18 is replicated to the local network governing device 18 . Whether to access the personal agent through the trunk line 28 or copy the personal agent of the remote network management device 18 depends on the pre-selected suitable quality of service (QoS) metric, and can also consider: between the remote network management device 18 and the home network management Communication latency on communication trunk 28 between devices 18, how long the user wishes to access the data of the local network governing device 18, the amount of data the user wishes to access, and other factors will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

When copying a user's personal agent from a remote network administration device 18, it is not necessary to copy the entire personal agent. It is best to copy only information that is needed right away, or that may be urgently needed, to reduce the transmission and/or storage of unnecessary information. In order to further reduce the storage of unnecessary information, a copy of the personal agent in the local network administration device 18 is stored in a cache, which will be described in detail below.

Once a full connection is established with the network administration device server 24, the user can obtain all services authorized to use in the network 14. As specified by the user's personal agent or other user profile information, what kind of service is obtained has nothing to do with the client 40 he uses to access the network, and all authorized data access requests are made by the network 14 for the client 40 supply. This client-independent approach is accomplished through client registration, converter 46 bank 44 and converter matrix switch 48 .

Specifically, as described above, the network governing device manager 22 and the bridge 36 determine the type of client 40 with which the bridge 36 communicates. This information is used to determine the client entry in the client registry, providing the characteristics of the client, including its requirements, capabilities and deficiencies, to the converter matrix switch 48, the access determined by the adapter 52 The nature of the service type is also provided to the converter matrix switch 48 . The user profile is also accessed in order to determine the user's preferences for such clients.

The transducer matrix switch 48 selects one or more transducers 46 in the transducer bank 44 as needed, configures them and/or connects them to the data format (type and/or protocol) used by the client 40 and the Convert data between data formats used by access services. If no single converter 46 in bank 44 is capable of performing the necessary conversion, then converter matrix switch 48 combines two or more converters 46, with the output of one being used as the output of the other. input to implement the necessary transformations. In one embodiment, the converter matrix switch 48 receives data input from the bridge 36 in the format used by the client 40 and from the adapter pack 52 in the data format used by the external service, and consults the matrix according to the format of the two inputs The table in the switch 48 is an ordered set, so as to find all possible conversion modes. The entry found in the table specifies the converter 46, or chain of converters 46, required to perform the desired conversion. As new converters 46 are added to the bank of converters 44, the conversion look-up table is updated accordingly.

Additionally, in some cases two or more converters 46, or chains of converters 46, may be connected together in parallel. For example, one of the adapter set 52 can be used to receive four types of facsimile messages for personal communication system telephone client 40 access. In this case, optical character recognition (OCR) can be performed with a first converter 46, converting the facsimile format to ASCII text format, and the converted text can then be checked simultaneously with a pair of converters 46, one with to identify the fax sender's name and/or phone number, and another to identify the subject from the "Subject" line. The "sender" and "subject" information is then sent to the user's PCS phone based on the PCS client's client registration information and the user's preferences for that client as recorded in the user profile.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that in order to use the transformers 46 efficiently, a multithreaded structure can be built for them. At this point, each transformer 46 can be found due to the set of clues available in the structure.

As an example of the use of the data switching system of the present invention, if a subscriber already connected to the network 14 via an analog voice telephony client 40 wishes to access electronic mail services, the switch matrix switch 48 selects and configures a touch tone response switch device 46 and a text-to-speech converter 46, and read part of the information of the electronic letter to the user. Depending on the preferences and/or settings defined by the user on the client machine 40, as stored in the user's personal agent or other user profile, electronic mail may be provided to the user in different ways. For example, the text-to-speech converter 46 may give the user a prompt informing the user of how many new e-mail messages have been received, and/or the text-to-speech converter 46 may read the messages or their subject lines to the user. The touch tone response transducer 46 allows the user to select information of interest for the transducer 46 to read, or to select information to delete, etc., by using a touch-tone telephone. A speech recognition transducer 46 may also be used instead of or in addition to the key-tone audio response transducer 46 . At this point, the user can dictate replies to e-mails and the like. Alternatively, users may have set their preferences in their personal agent or user profile so that they are only notified of the number of new e-mail messages and when they are received.

It is not difficult to see that the different preferences of the user when each service is delivered to different client machines 40 can be stated in the user's personal agent or user profile. For example, when a user uses a personal computer running an electronic mail program as the client computer 40 and is connected to the network 14 through a dial-up line, the user's electronic mail can be provided to the user in a normal way instead of using the electronic mail program. Text-to-speech converter 46 reads to the user. If the personal computer is already connected to the network 14 via a cellular modem, which has limited bandwidth and/or is expensive, then only the subject line can be delivered, except for messages marked as urgent. Those skilled in the art will be able to imagine many other possible arrangements and/or options.

As noted above, the converters 46 can be chained together via the converter matrix switch 48 to perform the required conversions, if desired. For example, if the user wishes to access a web page from an analog voice phone, then the converter matrix switch 48 can select the Hypertext Markup Language-American Standard for Information Interchange code converter to receive the hypertext link markup language information of the web page and convert it to Converted to ASCII text, and then converted to ASCII text by text-to-speech converter 46, so that users can listen to it through their telephones. Similarly, speech recognition or a touch-tone response transducer may also be employed to accept user input, such as a subsequent link to a hotspot, or other input as desired.

Groups 44 of converters 46 and converter matrix switches 48 in the network 14 provide transparent switching of traffic. It is conceivable that according to the user preference information stored in the user's personal agent, at least to a certain extent, all services should be transparent, or all services should be accessible, and such transparency does not require any service provider side. step. For example, users can specify that only a certain number of new e-mail messages be sent to their paging receivers, or download all new e-mail messages with an urgent subject line, etc., and the sender of these e-mail messages You don't need to care about these details at all.

It is contemplated that in some cases different converter groups 44 in different network manager servers 24 in the network manager 18 may have different converters 46 . For example, network administration device server 24 may have one or more text-to-speech converters 46 that require specialized hardware. At this moment, only one network management device server 24 may be equipped with such dedicated hardware in the network management device 18. When necessary, the connection to the client 40 and the text-to-speech converter 46 can be passed through the conversion in the network management device server 24. The converter matrix switch 48 is transferred to the network management device server 24 in another network management device 18 that has the necessary converter 46. Which web hosting device server 24 has the necessary converter 46 can be found by looking up a table in the web hosting device manager 22, or by other means apparent to those skilled in the art.

In addition to performing traffic-to-client translation, network 14 may also perform transport protocol translation. An adapter in the adapter group 52 can receive data using one transmission protocol, forward it to another adapter in the adapter group 52, and send it out there using another transmission protocol. For example, a first adapter in adapter team 52 may receive data using TCP/Internet Protocol, and a second adapter may send the data using Asynchronous Transfer Mode or Frame Relay Protocol. It is contemplated that adapter pack 52 may also include encryption and/or decryption engines. It is also contemplated that, in some cases, converter 46 may be used to perform protocol conversion and/or encryption and decryption as desired. It is also contemplated that the adapter pack 52 and/or the transformer pack 44 may also provide an API for a legacy records and billing subsystem to facilitate record keeping by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telephone companies, cellular phone companies, etc. .

As mentioned above, each user preferably has a personal agent to perform several tasks. For example, the personal agent may obtain the information necessary to identify a user of the network 14 through a user ID and password, known Internet Protocol addresses, paging receiver numbers, cellular device installation notices, and the like. In addition, the personal agent may also have access to information such as account numbers and/or passwords for third-party services that the user has applied for. For example, users may apply for stock quotes and information services that require users to verify their identity before being granted access to the information. While personal agents bring convenience to users, users do not have to remember account numbers, passwords, etc. In these respects, personal agents can actually do better.

Specifically, users can instruct their personal agents to complete a variety of tasks, ranging from simple to quite complex. For example, the user may have stipulated that their personal agents should contact the above-mentioned stock quotation service every hour to determine the current price of one or more stocks, and if these prices reach a certain level, they will contact the user in a prescribed manner, For example, send them an electronic letter, or call them by radio paging, send them a synthesized voice message in voice mail or get in touch with them through their analog cellular telephone. It will be apparent that when the user is contacted through the appropriate client 40, the transducer bank 44 and transducer matrix switch 48 are used as needed, for example by giving them a voice notification on their cellular telephone using the text-to-speech transducer 46 . It is obvious to those skilled in the art that a personal agent is not service-specific, but can be used for all services available to the user. So it is conceivable that each user can use only one personal agent to complete all tasks. It is also conceivable that a user may use a computer GUI to select and specify tasks to be performed by their personal agent, which tasks are then transmitted over the network 14 to the personal agent. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art how to set up and operate such a personal computer interface, or other suitable means of assigning tasks and options to a personal agent.

As also described above, the present invention includes a caching system for personal agents. As shown in FIG. 3, the user's home network administrative device 18a includes a personal master agent 80 stored in the database engine 38a. When the user is connected to the network 14 through the remote network management device 18b, and when accessing the personal master agent 80 through the communication trunk line 28 does not reach the pre-specified quality of service, the personal master agent 80 is copied to the remote network management device through the communication trunk line 28 18b becomes the personal proxy copy 80r which is stored in the cache of the database engine 38b at the remote network administration device 18b. As mentioned above, in the beginning just copy as few parts of the individual agent as possible. For example, only the information necessary to identify the user, the service applied by the user, and the user's billing information are transmitted.

Once a full connection is established, depending on the user's usage, additional information may be passed to the personal agent copy 80r and/or updated information may be passed from the personal agent copy 80r back to the personal master agent 80. For consistency, the personal agent copy 80r always updates the personal master agent 80 to reflect all changes, and also updates the personal agent copy 80r for certain changes to the personal master agent 80. By restricting the user's activities within the local network management device 18b as much as possible, the way of using the replica reduces the requirements on bandwidth and communication volume, and reduces the communication volume of the communication trunk line 28 .

For example, the user can establish a connection with the remote network management device 18b, and the network management device manager of the network management device 18b finds the user's personal master agent 80 in the network management device 18a, that is, the user's home network management device. A copy of the user's personal proxy 80r is transferred from the network administration device 18a to the network administration device 18b and used to verify the identity of the user. Here, data may be frequently transferred between the cache in the database engine 38b of the network administration device 18b and the personal master agent 80 according to the usage of the user. If the user simply puts a voicemail message into another user's voicemail mailbox, a billing entry is added to the personal agent copy 80r, and the personal master agent 80 is updated to reflect this billing entry.

In a more interesting example, users can conduct e-mail conversations, read, reply, delete and create various messages as needed. In this case, the user's inbox and address list would need to be replicated in the personal proxy copy 80r, and the personal master proxy 80 would be updated to account for what messages had been read and/or to clear deleted messages, and to update the address list to reflect any modifications made by the user. When the user imports new e-mails, these messages are sent out in a common way, stored in the user's outbox in the cache, and the user's outbox of the personal master agent 80 is updated. All electronic correspondence received by the personal master agent 80 can be automatically copied to the personal agent copy 80r if desired. It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that such a duplication technique can also be used for the voice service of the global digital mobile telephone system to cooperate with the home location register and the visitor location register therein.

Also, in some cases, data is passed from a personal agent (master agent 80 or agent replica 80r) to the client 40 and the data is modified within the client. When the client 40 subsequently connects to the network 14, the personal master agent 80 may be updated to reflect these changes by directly updating or updating the personal agent copy 80r. For example, a list of telephone numbers can be downloaded to a client machine 40 such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) or cellular telephone, and the user can then add, delete or modify entries in the list. When this client 40 is connected to the network 14 again, the list in the personal host agent 80 is updated according to the list of the client 40 to reflect additions, deletions and modifications made by the user.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the operation related to the cache is transparent to the user, and the purpose of adopting this cache is to improve the performance of the network 14 by reducing the waiting time, if possible, it can also be related to the replication strategy Cooperate to reduce bandwidth requirements. This caching can employ any suitable caching strategy, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Of course, it is conceivable that a FIFO (first-in-first-out) technique can be used, wherein the ranks are divided according to the storage time of the personal proxy copy 80r in the cache, and when a part of the cache must be cleaned, the earliest input entry is cleared. By tracking the entries in the cache, to know whether the corresponding personal master agent 80 in their home network jurisdiction device 18a has been accessed, or has been accessed, since the last access to the personal agent copy 80r in the cache. Copy to another remote network governing device, which can make the above strategy more effective. After the last visit to the personal agent copy 80r, the corresponding personal master agent 80 has been accessed or copied from the personal agent copy 80r in the network management device 18b, which can be removed from the cache in the network management device 18b.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, once a complete connection is established between the client 40 and the network administration device 18, security is ensured by the network 14. All connections via communication backbone 28 are secure and/or encrypted to ensure that user identities are authenticated and data communications within network 14 are kept confidential. Furthermore, the communication with other services via the adapter group 52 and service agents can be encrypted and decrypted as required.

Where appropriate, the components that make up the network administration device 18 are implemented in software, or they have some software interface, so that it is easy to upgrade and improve performance, and to achieve "hot swapping", that is, adding new components while the network 14 is still working. or the ability to revoke services and/or hardware. Specifically, bridge 36 includes the necessary hardware to establish a connection to client 40 and also includes software-implemented control functions to manage communications with network authority server 24 . Similarly, database engine 38 includes a suitable database engine and a control function implemented in software to manage caching and other functions of database engine 38 . The inverter 46 bank 44 and inverter matrix switch 48 also include components implemented in software that either control the hardware and/or firmware to perform their functions, or perform these functions themselves. Similarly, the adapter set 52 and service agent include the necessary hardware to perform the appropriate communication tasks, and a software-implemented control function to manage and control these tasks.

Preferably in the present invention, these software-implemented controls are made up of Java servlets (servlets), Java beans, and Java enterprise beans, just as Sun's JavaSoft Java servlet files and 1.1 edition Java language as stated in the document. Also as explained in the above document, the communication between the servlets is accomplished through the RMI (routing monitoring information) service of Java.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a wrapper is added over the plain Java servlet to provide fast synchronous and asynchronous communication. Specifically, this wrapper extends the functionality of the servlet from normal HTTP-based "post" and "get" APIs to a full-featured asynchronous Send messages to and receive messages from any servlet through a connection or through an asynchronous connection. A servlet extended with such a wrapper can communicate synchronously with any other servlet (extended or not), and can communicate asynchronously with any other extended servlet.

The wrapper basically includes the methods that the servlet must implement. The first method is "perform()", which is a synchronous event handler. It is called with the event, returns a value when complete, and is blocked during the processing of the event. The second method is "performAsynch()", which is an asynchronous event handler. This method returns a "FutureReply" placeholder object as soon as possible. When event processing is complete, this method sends an asynchronous reply event to the caller servlet. The FutureReply placeholder includes a unique identifier that allows the receiving servlet to compare a subsequently received reply event with the original event. Using this method, in the process of processing other events, the calling service applet can freely perform other processing.

To accommodate these two types of event handling techniques, two different types of events are defined. Specifically, "ServletEvent" and "ServletAsynchEvent" are defined, the former is used for synchronous events and the latter is used for asynchronous events. In this system, an event includes a character string type identifier, a parameter and a session, where the parameter can be any object (Object). Since more than one servlet can send an event to an extension servlet, providing a session, which is an object that includes a unique identifier, assists extension services by allowing the servlet to recognize the sequence of events Applets handle synchronous events.

While the software components implementing the network 14 are preferably interfaced with Java Servlets, Java Beans, Java Enterprise Beans, and Java RMI, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to such an implementation and that the , CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) or other suitable implementations may be partially or fully applied.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, there are several advantages to using software to implement the control. Specifically, the network management device 18 can add or reduce components during operation without requiring the network 14 to be shut down. As a result, the network 14 becomes scalable. The device server 24 can still continue to operate. So, for example, additional bridges 36 or different converters 46 can be added to or removed from the network management device 18 as desired. Furthermore, it is possible to add new services and/or capabilities to the network management device 18 and only need to register a suitable service applet in the network management device 18 . This also allows maintenance of the physical components without affecting the network 14 or the network management device 18 .

Services and capabilities can also be loaded onto the network 18 . For example, when a network management device 18 is activated, services, adapters, gateways and transformers may be loaded onto network management devices 18 from other network management devices 18 or from a database maintained on the network 18 for this purpose. Components and services can also be loaded from a specific network management device 18 or the network management device server 24 of the network management device 18 as required. These services, etc., can be performed on the remote network 18, or they can be loaded into the network administration device 18 to run locally, as described below.

In order to achieve this "hot plugging", a layer of indirection is used between components of the network management device 18 and service requests to those components. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the network governing device manager 22 maintains a record, or list of available components, of the components available in the network governing device 18, and each request for a component service is made by accessing this list to identify available parts. In order to add a new component and/or service to the network management device 18, the component/service is added to this list of available components when the component/service is ready. To remove a part for preventive maintenance, etc., remove the part from the available parts list so that the part can be removed or taken offline after completing the current task. It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the list of available parts described above is only a feasible way to determine the available parts in the network management device 18 and/or other network management devices 18, and the present invention is not limited to the use of Such a list.

This also allows balancing of hardware and/or licenses. For example, network administration device 18 may include one or more text-to-speech converters 46 that rely on dedicated hardware or software that can perform a certain number of emulated conversions (or is simply permitted to do so). At this time, the service list can determine the service/component used before other services/components, and can also point to the components/services of other network management devices that can be accessed through the communication trunk 28 .

In the text-to-speech example, as long as a certain number of text-to-speech simulations are ongoing, other requests for text-to-speech conversions can be forwarded to another network administrator device 18 with similar dedicated hardware or additional licenses by referring to the service list . In this case, the service manifest may indicate an optional converter 46 which is less efficient than the licensing system and which can only be used if all dedicated hardware converters 46 are occupied. In this way, text-to-speech requests are processed without permissions, if any, being exceeded and/or hardware usage improved. Obviously, if the converter 46 is not fully occupied, the network management device manager 22 can report the available capacity to other network management devices 18 through the trunk line 28, so that other network management devices 18 can use this surplus capacity, thereby effectively using the network 14 hardware and/or allowable capacity.

Similarly, the network administrative device manager 22 can be used to monitor the utilization level of each network administrative device server and update the service list appropriately to account for the similar components of the more heavily used network administrative device server 24. The components of the network management device server 24 that are less used are preferentially used.

Therefore, existing network resources can be effectively used, and resources can be increased or decreased according to needs. Although the business list of all available components in the network management device 18 is kept in the network management device manager 22 now, it is conceivable that in some cases, part or all of the services can also be stored in each network management device server 24. Business list. For example, it is conceivable that one or more network administration device servers 24 maintain a list of available transducers 46 within the network administration device server 24 . It is also conceivable that if a network governing device server does not find the desired component available in its inventory, it may send a request to another network governing device server 24 directly or through the network governing device manager 22 through the communication trunk 28, requiring the use of Required components, or a service list of services available in other network management devices 18 can be kept in each network management device manager 22, which can be queried as needed to determine where the service can be obtained. The network management device manager 22 can make another network management device 18 provide this service remotely, or download this service to a network management device server 24 of the network management device 18 through the network 14 to perform.

Another advantage of network 14 is that it can provide tunnels for Internet Protocol addresses (or similar). Specifically, as part of the security model of many networks, the security model of many networks includes the identification of the user's Internet Protocol address, which is included in the header of each Internet Protocol packet. The Internet generally rejects information from unknown Internet addresses. While this model works in many cases, it can be difficult for mobile or nomadic users. For example, if a salesman tries to access his employer's network from a distance, the IP address of the IP packet he sends will be different than the path the salesman took when sending the message from his home address. The information pathways of the employer are obviously different, and the employer network will therefore refuse to receive this information. Using a network of the present invention, such as network 14, it is possible to "tunnel" Internet Protocol packets between a home network management device and a remote network management device. The information packet sent from the remote network management device will be sent to the home network management device as an encapsulated information packet to save its Internet protocol address, and the home network management device will unpack the information packet and forward it to the home network management device. required services, and leave the original Internet Protocol headers/addresses intact. Similarly, the home network management device encapsulates the information packet received from the service, and then sends it to the remote network management device, where it unpacks and delivers it to the user. Whenever a user is connected to a remote network management device, this channel process is transparent to the user. It is believed that this channel has obvious advantages for network users who adopt a security model based on Internet addresses.

Although only specific combinations of various features and components in the present invention are discussed here, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that these features and components can be reselected and combined as required.

The present invention provides a novel distributed network that enables users to access telecommunications and other services from any access point in the network. These services provided to users are transparent. For example, no special steps are required at all for a user to access a hypertext markup language file using a personal communication system telephone. The provision of these services is also transparent to the service provider. For example, the author of the hypertext link markup language file can give it to the user who uses the personal communication system telephone without changing this file. The network can be set up for this client type using the client parameters in the client registry, or it can be set up according to the user's preferences stored in the user profile table. Network communication does not depend on the transmission protocol used, because all protocols, data, application program interfaces, etc., are automatically converted by the network. Also, the network and its services are transparent no matter where the user connects to the network.

The present invention also provides a data flow conversion system and method, which allows the communication agent to connect to a network and access the services of the network, so that the data flow from the service to the communication agent can be converted into the format required by the client without The user of the client machine is required to enter certain information. The data conversion system and method receives information related to the type of communication client, user preferences for data to be sent to the client, information about services accessed over the network, and/or preferences specified by the services for the communication client. The data conversion system and method then employs one or more transformers accordingly to convert data streams from and to the communication client. The data conversion system and method also employs one or more converters to convert the data stream from the communication client from the received format to the format required by the business.

The present invention also provides a novel method for processing data access requests from users accessing a multi-connection point network independent of the actual connection point and the communication client used by the users connecting to the network. In addition, new services can be added to the network as required, and user information, user data and other data stored in a distributed manner are provided, and these information are allowed to be accessed from any connection point of the network.

Claims (75)

1. a network that is used for the distributed telecommunications net is administered equipment, comprising:

At least one network administration device server, this server comprises at least one transducer and a communication host, this transducer can be transformed into the input traffic of first form output stream of second form, and communication host can communicate with other network administration device server in the described distributed telecommunications net by communication trunk;

At least one bridge links to each other with a described network administration device server at least, can connect with communication client;

At least one adapter follows a described network administration device server to link to each other at least, and this adapter can link to each other with an external business, and supports this external business and above-mentioned at least one network to administer the communication of carrying out between device server; With

A network administration equipment manager, catching up with each that state at least one network administration device server links to each other, can determine type with the continuous communication client of described network administration equipment, and select a network administration device server to be attached thereto to keep being connected with this communication client with a bridge, when the data layout of receiving from external business or communication client is during with incompatible first data layout of the data layout of another external business or communication client, just it is transformed into second data layout of suitable described other external business and communication client with transducer.

2. the network of claim 1 is administered equipment, also comprise one group of at least two transducer and a transducer matrix switch, first transducer in this group is used for the input traffic of first form is transformed to the output stream of second form, and second transducer in this group is used for the input traffic of second form is converted to the output stream of the 3rd form; And

The transducer matrix switch, the communication client type that it is determined according to network administration equipment manager, from converter groups, select transducer, with the data output of a transducer in this group input as second transducer in this group, like this, will convert other external business and desired the 3rd data layout of communication network to from first formatted data that external business or communication client receive.

3. the network of claim 2 is administered equipment, wherein converter groups comprises at least two transducers that the input traffic of first form can be transformed into the output stream of second form, in at least two transducers each can both connect with second between the external business with first connection between the external business and second communication client computer first communication client, and the data stream of a corresponding connection in these two connections is changed.

4. the network of claim 1 administration equipment at least also comprises two networks administration device servers, and each at least two servers all comprises at least two bridges and at least two adapters.

5. the network of claim 1 is administered equipment, and wherein network administration equipment manager comprises a database engine, and this database engine has stipulated to follow the type of the communication client of at least one bridge connection.

6. the network of claim 1 is administered equipment, the user's of wherein said communicator identity be by described network administration equipment after the type of having determined communication client, network administration equipment manager selects network administration device server and bridge to examine before being attached thereto with being connected of communication client in order to keep.

7. the network of claim 6 is administered equipment, and network administration equipment manager wherein comprises a database engine, its objective is the user identity of determining to follow the continuous communication client of at least one bridge with it.

8. the network of claim 6 is administered equipment, and the verified information that at least one network administration device server wherein utilizes communication trunk to provide is determined the user identity with the continuous communication client of at least one bridge.

9. the network of claim 4 is administered equipment, network administration equipment manager is wherein monitored each network administration device server to determine their usage degree, and can between the bridge that links to each other with different network administration device servers, shift connection, with the described usage degree of balance.

10. the network of claim 1 is administered equipment, and wherein the form that mails to the data of described communication client from described network administration equipment is to determine according to the type of determined communication client.

11. the network of claim 6 administration equipment, wherein the form that mails to the data of described communication client from described network administration equipment is to determine according to the type of determined communication client.

12. the network of claim 10 administration equipment, set of preferences wherein is predefined by the communication client user, changes described form with the preference according to the user at each class communication client.

13. a distributed service network comprises that at least two network administration equipment connect with a communication trunk, each network administration equipment comprises:

At least one network administration device server, this server comprises at least one transducer and a communication host, this transducer can convert the input traffic of first form to the output stream of second form, and communication host can communicate with other network administration device server in the described distributed telecommunications net by communication trunk;

At least one bridge links to each other with at least one described network administration device server, can connect with communication client;

At least one adapter follows at least one described network administration device server to link to each other, and this adapter can link to each other with an external business, and supports this external business and above-mentioned at least one network to administer the communication of carrying out between device server; With

A network administration equipment manager, catching up with each that state at least one network administration device server links to each other, can determine type with the continuous communication client of described network administration equipment, and select a network administration device server to be attached thereto to keep being connected with this communication client with a bridge, when the data layout of receiving from external business or communication client is during with incompatible first data layout of the data layout of another external business or communication client, just it is transformed into second data layout of suitable described other external business and communication client with transducer.

14. the distributed service network of claim 13, wherein at least one at least two network administration equipment comprises at least two networks administration device servers, and each at least two network administration device servers all comprises at least two bridges and at least two adapters.

15. the distributed service network of claim 13 also comprises at least one database engine that links to each other with described network administration device server, and the type definition that can follow the communication client of described network connection.

16. the distributed service network of claim 15 also comprises at least one database engine that connects with described network administration device server, and the preference that is used for user's setting of the connection between user's calcaneus rete network.

17. the distributed service network of claim 16, database comprising the set preference of user is in a network administration equipment of the home network administration equipment that is defined as described user, safeguard at each user, when described user connects with the telecommunication network administration equipment that is different from home network administration equipment, this access of database is undertaken by communication trunk.

18. the distributed service network of claim 17, database engine have wherein also been preserved the information that is used to examine user identity for network.

19. the distributed service network of claim 17, wherein the visit to described preference comprises that at least a portion preference that user in the described database engine is set copies to a telecommunication network administration equipment.

20. the distributed service network of claim 19, the part that wherein is replicated are stored in the Cache of telecommunication network administration equipment.

21. the distributed service network of claim 20, preference wherein also comprise the information that allows the user capture external business and about the information of the activity of user and external business.

22. the distributed service network of claim 21 wherein copies in the described Cache according to the other parts of service request from user with preference.

23. the home network administration equipment that the distributed service network of claim 22, renewal wherein are sent to described user is with preference, the visit permission information revising the user and be provided with, duplicate the relevant information of activity partly with user's response.

24. be used for a network administration equipment of reconfigurable distributed telecommunications network, comprise:

At least one network administration device server comprises at least one transducer and a communication host, this transducer can convert the input traffic of first form to the output stream of second form, and this communication host can communicate with other network administration device server in the described distributed telecommunications net by communication trunk;

At least one bridge or other parts link to each other with at least one network administration device server, can set up contact with communication client;

With at least one adapter that described at least one network administration device server links to each other, it can be connected to a business, and supports the communication between this business and described at least one network administration device server; With

A network administration equipment manager, with each connection in described at least one network administration device server, and preserve each available service and parts at least one network of record declaration administration device server, this network administration equipment manager can be determined the type with the communication client of described network administration equipment connection, and other parts of selecting a network administration device server and a bridge or be attached thereto from described record, to serve the connection of described communication client.

25. the network of claim 24 administration equipment, wherein be increased in described at least one network administration device server any one supplementary service and parts, thereby after having upgraded the business and parts that described record comprises these increases, just become the part of described network administration equipment.

26. the network of claim 24 administration equipment, wherein therefrom delete business of any one and quoting of parts at least one network administration device server by new record more, will be from described business of network sweep and parts, these business are just removed from network administration equipment after finishing current task.

27. the network of claim 24 administration equipment, wherein the record preserved of network administration equipment manager also comprises the information of the professional and sequencing that parts are used in the explanation network administration equipment.

28. the network of claim 27 administration equipment, wherein the record of network administration equipment manager preservation also comprises passing through the available external business of communication host and the explanation of parts in another network of network administration equipment, just selects available external business and parts when only business in described network of network administration equipment and parts are occupied.

29. the network of claim 27 administration equipment, network administration equipment manager wherein changes described order according to the usage degree of each in described at least one network administration device server, the network that utilization rate is relatively low is administered business and the parts in the device server in described order, comes the business of the higher relatively network administration device server of utilization rate and the front of parts.

30. the network of claim 24 administration equipment, network administration equipment manager wherein comprises a database engine, is used for examining the user identity of the communication client that links to each other with described at least one bridge.

31. the network of claim 24 administration equipment, parts wherein comprise the transducer in the data stream converting system, and these transducers can convert the input traffic of first data layout to the output stream of different data format.

32. comprise the reconfigurable distributed business of at least two network administration equipment that link to each other with communication trunk, each network administration equipment all comprises:

At least one network administration device server, this server comprises at least one transducer and a communication host, this transducer can be transformed into the input traffic of first form output stream of second form, and communication host can communicate with other network administration device server in the described distributed telecommunications net by communication trunk;

At least one bridge links to each other with a described network administration device server at least, can connect with communication client;

At least one adapter follows a described network administration device server to link to each other at least, and this adapter can link to each other with an external business, and supports this external business and above-mentioned at least one network to administer the communication of carrying out between device server; With

A network administration equipment manager, with each connection in described at least one network administration device server, and preserve available service and parts at least one network of record declaration administration device server each, this network administration equipment manager can be determined the type with the communication client of described network administration equipment connection, and other parts of selecting a network administration device server and a bridge or be attached thereto from described record, to serve the connection of described communication client.

33. the network of claim 32, wherein at least one at least two network administration equipment comprises at least two networks administration device servers, in at least two networks administration device server each all comprises at least two bridges and at least two adapters, and the record of preserving in the network administration equipment manager also comprises the business of at least one and the use explanation in proper order of parts at least two the network administration equipment.

34. the network of claim 32, wherein the network administration equipment manager of at least one network administration equipment changes described order according to each the usage degree at least one network administration device server, the business of the network administration device server that utilization rate is relatively low comes the relative higher network of utilization rate with parts and administers the business and the parts front of device server, also comprise at least one database engine that connects with described network administration device server, and comprise the type definition of the communication client that is connected to this network.

35. the network of claim 32, parts wherein comprise the transducer in the data stream converting system, and these transducers can convert the input traffic of first data layout to the output stream of different data format.

36. handle the method for the user's data request of access that connects with reconfigurable distributed service network, comprise a plurality of internet administration equipment, each network administration equipment comprises at least one network administration device server, described user adopts at least a in the multiple communication client, described network may further comprise the steps with a plurality of professional connections:

(i) be record of each network administration equipment preservation of network, operable parts in the network of network administration equipment are described;

(ii) determine the type of the communication client that the user uses, and this communication client linked to each other with the parts that can obtain that these parts choose in the described record and are suitable for described client computer;

(iii) receive the data access request of described user to a business in a plurality of business, selecting; With

(iv) described communication client is followed parts of electing in the described record and linked to each other, thereby communication client is linked to each other with selected business.

37. the method for claim 36, parts wherein comprise the transducer in the data stream converting system, step wherein (iv) also comprises the available transducer that employing is determined from record, as required the step of converting data streams suitably between communication client and business.

38. the method for claim 36 also comprises the step of increasing new parts for every now and then at least one network administration equipment and upgrading described record in view of the above.

39. the method for claim 36 also comprises the step of record ordering with the order of the similar parts of explanation visit.

40. the usage degree of the method for claim 39, order dependent wherein each network administration device server in network administration equipment.

41. a data stream converting system comprises:

At least two transducers, each can receive the input traffic of first kind of form, and produces form with first kind of output stream that form is different; With

A kind of transducer matrix switch, it can select at least one transducer, and first input traffic is provided, and therefrom receives output stream, the basis of this selection is an input signal to described transducer matrix switch, this signal instruction first form and required different data layout.

42. the data stream converting system of claim 41, transducer matrix switch wherein can be selected first and second transducer at least, and input traffic offered first transducer, the output stream of first transducer is offered second transducer as input traffic, first transducer becomes the output stream of second form with the input data-switching of first form, and second transducer converts the input traffic of second form to required form.

43. the data stream converting system of claim 41, in store transducer of transducer matrix switch wherein and their input, a record of output format, can on data conversion system, increase extra transducer as required, and upgrade described record in view of the above.

44. the data stream converting system of claim 41, matrix converter switch wherein comprises a record having worked out index according to the input and output form of each transducer, and the clauses and subclauses of this record have determined how to select input format is converted at least one transducer of the output format that needs.

45. the data stream converting system of claim 41, adopted wherein at least that first transducer will convert second needed form of communicator from the data stream that first communicator is received to, and adopted at least the second converter to convert the data stream of second communication client to first communicator desired form.

46. the data stream converting system of claim 45 wherein has at least one to be the communication client that the user uses in first and second communicator.

47. the data stream converting system of claim 46, wherein at least one another is the business that the user inserts in first and second communicator.

48. the data stream converting system of claim 45, first transducer is wherein finished the inverse transformation of second conversion that transducer carried out.

49. the data stream converting system of claim 41, matrix converter switch wherein uses at least two transducers arranged side by side, and wherein each of at least two conversion all converts the data stream of first form to needed different corresponding output format.

50. the data stream converting system of claim 41, wherein first input traffic obtains from a communication service, described input signal comprises first signal of explanation first data layout of receiving from described business, also comprise second signal receiving from a bridge that is connected with communication client, second described required form of signal instruction.

51. the data stream converting system of claim 50, input signal wherein also comprise the 3rd signal of one or more preferences of explanation communication client user, this 3rd signal also stipulated described required form.

52. the data stream converting system of claim 45, input signal wherein also comprises from first signal of first communication client with from second signal of second communication client, and these first and second signals have been stipulated in first and second communication client input data layout and the required form of each.

53. the data stream converting system of claim 52 wherein has at least one to be a business in first and second communication client.

54. comprise the distributed communication network of a data stream translation system in the claim 41, be used for the network data flow transmitted between communication client and the business is changed.

55. a method is used to change data flow transmitted between communication client that connects user and distributed service network and the business that is connected with described network, this method may further comprise the steps:

(i) determine the type of described communication client and the data characteristic that this client computer requires;

(ii) determine the desired data characteristic of described business;

(iii) select a conversion equipment at least, it can be between desired data characteristic of described client computer and the desired data characteristic of described business converting data streams;

(iv) at least one described conversion equipment is applied to data flow transmitted in the described network.

56. the method for claim 55, therein the (iii) the step is selected two conversion equipments at least, in at least two conversion equipments one is received in the network corresponding to first of desired data characteristic, with the first form data flow transmitted, and it is transformed into second form, another one at least two conversion equipments receives the translation data of second form, and convert it to the 3rd form corresponding to another characteristic of desired data characteristic, and in network the data of transmission the 3rd form.

57. the method for claim 55, wherein the selection of step in (iii) is to finish by consulting the table of having worked out index with the data characteristic of first and second needs.

58. the method for claim 55, wherein in step (i), the characteristic of determining client computer also comprises the step to the preference of described characteristic of determining that all users set.

59. a method is used to a user to provide service by the data access request that inserts a network with any one communication client that links to each other in two or more network administration equipment, it may further comprise the steps:

(i) determine the type of communication client at described network administration equipment, and described connection is passed to a bridge that is suitable for this customer service machine type in the described network administration equipment;

(ii) examine user identity;

Be a user file of this user storage (iii), determine the business that the predefined preference of all these users and this user can obtain by accesses network; With

(iv) allow this user to insert any fixed business, described network administration equipment is at the form that is suitable for client type and be access between the professional form that adopts and be the client computer converting data streams.

60. (ii) also comprising, the method for claim 59, step wherein determine the home network administration equipment that described network administration equipment is the user or the step of telecommunication network administration equipment.

61. the method for claim 60, wherein, when determining that described network administration equipment is telecommunication network administration equipment of this user, step (iv) in, access to the business that is determined is provided by home network administration equipment by communication trunk connection telecommunication network administration equipment and home network administration equipment, like this, administer address and other identifying information of equipment from home network administration equipment corresponding to home network to being access in professional address and other identifying information.

62. the method for claim 60, wherein step (iii) in, when the user connect with the network of telecommunication network administration equipment go up after, copy to this telecommunication network administration equipment to major general certain customers summary table.

63. the method for claim 62, wherein certain customers' summary table is kept in the Cache of telecommunication network administration equipment.

64. the method for claim 63, subscriber survey table wherein also comprises the information that inserts described business.

65. the method for claim 64, telecommunication network administration equipment wherein be with home network administration devices communicating, the subscriber survey table of home network administration equipment is upgraded in the variation of the subscriber survey table that causes in order to the operation that is used in user in the telecommunication network administration equipment.

66. the method for claim 64, wherein telecommunication network administration equipment and home network administration equipment utilization network will reflects that the lastest imformation of the information change of home network administration equipment or telecommunication network administration equipment mails to telecommunication network administration equipment or home network administration equipment, and the subscriber survey table that makes the described part of telecommunication network administration equipment user summary table administer equipment with home network is consistent.

67. the method for claim 63, after user's calcaneus rete network disconnects connection, still in store described information in the high-speed cache of described network administration equipment, up to surpassing preset time, perhaps this user reconnects the above network at different network administration equipment.

68. the method for claim 59 comprises that also monitoring connects the step with the variation of determining to be connected client computer, when the type of the client computer that connects when monitoring changes, just re-executes step (iii) and (iv).

69. handle a kind of method of the user's data request of access that links to each other with a distributed service network, this user has adopted at least one in the multiple communication client type, and described network is continuous with multiple business, this method may further comprise the steps:

(i) determine the type of the communication client that the user adopts, the storage ground in the described network takes out the parameter of the characteristic that this communication client requires;

(ii) receive the data access request of the business that the user elects in the multiple business him;

The characteristic of the data of the selected business of input and output that (iii) determine to require; With

(iv) the characteristic of the business selected of characteristic that requires according to communication client and user is changed the data of transmitting between described business and the communication client automatically.

70. the method for claim 69, wherein step (iv) in, also change described data according to being stored in the preference that the user sets in the network.

71. the method for claim 69 also comprises the step of the described connection of monitoring with the variation of definite connected communication client, when the type that monitors connected communication client changes, just re-executes step (i)～(iv).

72. a kind of method of the data access request of process user, these users link to each other with the distributed service network that a plurality of tie points are arranged, and this method may further comprise the steps:

(i) set up the connection of following a user at a tie point of described network;

(ii) determine the position of user profile, this information stores is in a predetermined area of described network;

(iii) with the copy of described information at least a portion from determine the place by described Network Transmission to described tie point;

(iv) according to the data access request of copies of information process user, and a copy will finishing the needed additional information of described request is from determining that the place is transferred to described tie point;

(v) on the network of determining between place and the described tie point,, pass to copies of information and user's canned data, to keep the consistance between them with expression user's the canned data and the lastest imformation of copies of information variation.

73. the method for claim 72, wherein said part comprises described user's identifier.

74. the method for claim 72, user profile wherein also comprises user's personal agent.

75. the method for claim 72, the information of wherein duplicating is stored in described tie point, up to this user this network on another tie point connects.