There exist many types of networks and shared information communications systems. From a hierarchical standpoint, network topologies typically comprise a plurality of local area networks (LANs), such as Ethernet, which, depending upon the amount of users, location and amount of traffic, may be further interconnected locally with a high-speed backbone network, such as backbone fiber distributed data interface (FDDI), and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) backbone networks. Multiple LANs owned by a single entity and geographically dispersed, may be interconnected via wide area networks (WANS) for long distance information transport. Such WAN transport technologies may include dial-up private networks, switched digital services, leased-lines, packet-switching and frame-relay services, cell relay, and public packet-switched network such as the Internet. It is understood that each type of network is capable of carrying different types of information: data, voice, multimedia including audio and video data. As known, ATM networks in particular, are connection oriented and capable of achieving certain quality of service (QoS) guarantees so that data, e.g., video, is transported across networks to their destinations in a timely manner. Other QoS guarantees include bandwidth control, prioritization of selected traffic, and traffic security.
In the telecommunications industry, there exist many types of call processing networks and network topologies for carrying prevalent types of traffic such as real-time call processing traffic, e.g., for toll-free number calls, and ATM provisioning traffic, e.g., for other types of prioritized traffic. Each of these traffic types have differing latency and processing requirements. In order to meet these differing requirements, it is advantageous to provide an overall network topology that is physically and logically partitioned to enable traffic segregation within a LAN and WAN, as desired, such that specific traffic types may be segregated to specific interfaces on network devices, and that specific traffic types may be delivered in the most mission efficient manner.
Furthermore, current call processing network/system validation techniques comprise server to server validation, or validation of network device to network device latencies and paths. Consequently, it is highly desirable to provide a comprehensive system and method designed to verify that an IP based LAN/WAN network architecture implementing Internet Protocol (IP) subnet topology, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) WAN configuration, and network devices configured for partitioning a call processing application across multiple LAN sites, meets latency requirements and routes data as required by a functional call processing application.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds