Visualising the behaviour of intelligent networks

Abstract

Telecommunication systems in general, and Intelligent Networks as well, are large distributed systems with a high degree of concurrency. To investigate the specific aspects of the behaviour of such systems adequate formal specification techniques are required. In this paper, we show how designers of services in an Intelligent Network can use Coloured Petri Nets, to obtain a description of the services which on the one hand is precise and unambiguous, and on the other hand provides the basis for a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the behaviour by visualising the processes. Coloured Petri Nets supported by adequate tools can therefore serve as basis for investigations of new services to be provide.

For a formal description technique to be successful, it is necessary to have tool support. This provides the designer with support for the development and test of the design. Further more the tool should also allow flexible graphical feedback which can be tailored to the needs of the specific domain in question.

In this paper we show how the overall system behaviour of an Intelligent Network can be visualised, how the user can interact with the system, and how the history of important events can be captured in ways which are easy to understand for engineers familiar with Intelligent Networks, even though unfamiliar with the formal description technique in use.