An object-oriented data model for Intelligent Network services

A critical issue in achieving flexibility and extendibility in telecommunications networks, where the network data bases are increasingly involved in call processing, is the data model, and the application interface to network services data. The data model should provide application independent data structures and interfaces. The paper presents an object database model of Intelligent Network (IN) services that describes the data as objects and includes dynamicity (operations are associated to objects) and deals with distinctions between persistent and non persistent data. The structure is oriented to Service Independent Building Blocks (SIBs) that are abstract representations of network capabilities existing in an IN. Objects of similar structure and behaviour are grouped together in classes. Classes are organized in a class hierarchy. A service is invoked and activated by request for method (operation) execution connected to the object representing the service.