Method of modifying the home location register (HLR) system database for digital wireless communication whenever the database contents of main memory are altered

The present invention provides a method for modifying the Home Location Register (HLR) system database for digital wireless mobile communication. The method modifies or revises the database of the HLR system that is used to manage mobile subscribers by maintaining all the wireless communication system subscribers' information such as electronic serial number, directory number, international mobile station identification, user profile and current location, etc. The method includes extracting subscriber information from the database which resides in a main memory device and is being used at the present time; migrating the extracted information to a new database; and saving the migrated information onto a disk. In addition, the present method automatically generates the structure and contents of the database to be modified, regardless of each database version and structure, and without requiring the modification and testing of the source code by an operator.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
 1. Field of the Invention
 The present invention relates to a wireless communication system that uses
 a Code Division Multiple Access and a Personal Communications Service.
 More specifically, it relates to a method of modifying the Home Location
 Register (HLR) system database used to manage the subscribers in a digital
 wireless communication system.
 2. Description of the Related Art
 A Home Location Register (HLR) system is a functional unit that is used to
 manage mobile subscribers by maintaining all subscriber information such
 as electronic serial number, directory number, international mobile
 station identification, user profile and current location, etc. The HLR
 can serve many mobile switching centers (MSC) and can be arranged together
 or independently with the MSC to manage the mobile station in the wireless
 communication system.
 The HLR system changes all the subscriber information to be managed into a
 database and saves it. The HLR system database is called the System Load
 Data (SLD) database in a wireless mobile communication system. The SLD
 database resides in the main memory device due to the limitation of the
 processing speed, and responds to various inquiries. The SLD also includes
 subscriber location information, additional service information, and other
 information. A change in the contents of the database in the memory
 influences the database to be saved on the disk.
 In this type of SLD, when there is a necessity that the database structure
 is to be changed, or that a new additional service is to be added, the
 developer must modify and test source code one by one according to each
 database version and structure.
 In the prior art method of modifying the SLD, the extent of database
 modification has to be determined based on the existence of the contents
 of each database. This is because since the database structure is
 different according to the contents of each. This requires the
 modification process of the database source program to be able to carry
 out the operation immediately.
 The developer needs to revise and test the source code one by one to
 prepare the source program according to each database structure.
 Therefore, the management of these programs acts as another large burden.
 Especially, since there are a lot of problems at the beginning of system
 installation when frequent service development and modification are
 necessary. These types of modification work impose a burden on the program
 developer and the system users because of the management of a different
 source program according to the database structure and operator.
 In other words, the databases to be used in the wireless mobile
 communication system requires the management of the source program for
 generating databases appropriate to each with different structure
 depending on the contents. Because this source program has different
 information as according to the operator, the database structure and the
 additional service, another program must be developed and managed
 according to each kind.
 Therefore, many separate operations have to be performed to modify the
 database which results in a waste of time and human resources in the
 program developer and the system manager.
 To solve the above problems, it is necessary that operations for database
 modification operations be integrated and processed as a program so that
 an ordinary person can easily and simply modify the database.
 Thus, there is a necessity to develop a new, integrated program that can
 easily and conveniently modify the SLD database based on a fast, changing
 additional service request, and generate and revise the new database table
 regardless of the modification of the database structure and contents. In
 addition, the program can also serve by extracting information from the
 previous database to increase processing speed.
 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
 The present invention solves the above problem by providing a method to
 modify the HLR system database for a digital wireless mobile communication
 which generates a file for saving the previous database information and
 the database information to be made into a new database. The file includes
 the contents for the additional service to be added or deleted and the
 part of the database to be modified. The file is used as an input to
 generate the structure and contents, regardless of each database version
 and structure without requiring operator revision or testing of the source
 code.
 To achieve the above object, the invention provides a method to modify the
 HLR system database for digital wireless mobile communication comprising
 the steps of: extracting necessary subscriber information from the SLD
 database which resides in a main memory device and is being used at the
 present time; migrating the extracted information to a new database; and
 saving said migrated information onto a disk.
 In one embodiment, the extraction process comprises:
 receiving and parsing a conversion specification file (CSF) that has the
 information regarding the name and contents to extract from the present
 SLD database and the values desired to be changed, and a configuration
 file (CFG) which describes the information about the name, kit value,
 version, etc. for the database from which information will be extracted
 and the information of the name, kit value, version etc. for the newly
 made database;
 examining and extracting the subscriber information data by said two files
 from a previous System Load Data (SLD) database; and
 generating said extracted data into a subscriber file.
 In one embodiment, the extraction of subscriber information uses the
 subscriber file to contain the information about the modified contents of
 the database. Also in the extraction process, it is preferable to make use
 of other processors by residing the migrated information in the main
 memory.
 In another embodiment, the extracting process comprises the steps of:
 saving again the SLD database saved in the main memory and newly generated
 onto the hard disk in order to make the hard disk contents agree with the
 database contents in the main memory device; and automatically modifying
 and saving the database contents of said hard disk when the database
 contents of said main memory device is altered.
 Another object of the invention is to provide a method for easily and
 simply generating a new HLR system database even when the information
 about the database contents and structure is not known.
 A further object of the invention is to provide a method for modifying the
 HLR system database by modifying the input file which saves the
 information needed to develop a new program as related to each database
 version.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
 The present invention makes it possible to operate existing multiple
 programs by integrating them into one, which were separated according to
 operation, database structure, and additional service. The present method
 makes it possible to generate a database easily and simply even when the
 information of the contents and the structure of the database is not
 known.
 Also it is possible to carry out the desired work by only modifing the
 input file to save the information to be modified using an integrated
 program without the need to develop a new program by each version.
 FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the method to modify the HLR system
 database for a digital wireless mobile communication according to an
 embodiment of the present invention.
 In order to carry out the extraction process (100) and the migration
 process (200), first the database which will be generated is loaded into a
 memory from the disk. If this is already loaded, it can be skipped.
 The extraction process (100) is a process, which receives and parses the
 configuration (CFG) file having the information of the name and contents
 to extract from present database (105) and the information of the values
 to be changed. The CFG file describes the information of the name, kit
 value, version, etc. of the database to extract, and the information of
 the name, kit value, version, etc. of the database to be newly made.
 The necessary data is extracted from the main memory device database which
 is loaded in the present memory by the two files (i.e. CSF and CFG) and
 saves the extracted data as a file.
 In the parsing and extraction processes, since the database to be loaded
 into a memory has the shared kit value and start address, it is possible
 to extract the necessary data, if such information is needed, and the CSF,
 and CFG files are used as an input value.
 The conversion specification file (CSF) contains the information about the
 attribute name, contents to extract from the present database and, the
 values to be changed. The CFG file has the information of the name, kit
 value, version, etc. of the database to extract and the name, kit value,
 version etc. of the database to be newly made.
 The CSF file, as a conversion specification file, has the name and
 attribute of various tables of the SLD to be newly generated, and the
 scope of the field value.
 The CSF file configuration is shown as follows:
 .Salinity.
 VERSION=NEW_SLD_Version
 .music-sharp.
 RELATION=NEW_Relation_Name
 NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 1[SIZE]=OLD_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 1[RANGE]
 NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 2[SIZE]=OLD_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 2[RANGE]
 NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 3[SIZE]=OLD_SLD_ATT_NAME.sub.-- 3[RANGE]
 . . .
 NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME_N-1[SIZE]=OLD_SLD_ATT_NAME_N-1[RANGE]
 NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME_N[SIZE]=ODL_SLD_ATT_NAME_N[RANGE]
 As shown above, NEW_SLD_ATT_NAME_N [SIZE] illustrates the attribute, the
 name and the size (in bytes) of the SLD, (i.e., in the database to be
 newly generated), and the OLD_SLD_ATT_NAME_N [RANGE] shows a range about
 the part to be used in the new SLD field, and a previous SLD attribute and
 size.
 For example, the command, TEST_FIELD [3]=A[0-1].vertline.UDVAL[00], means
 that the TEST_FIELD takes the first and second value of A in the previous
 database and the rest 1 byte is taken as 00 in the database that will be
 generated.
 The initial value has to be taken, in case of making a new field that
 didn't exist before, like the CTIME [4]=UDVAL [19961010].
 The data extracted through this process generates a fixed form of
 subscriber data file (XXX.subs) by the field order fit for database
 structure. The subscriber file consists of the raw data saving the
 information from the previous database.
 The migration process (200) of the extracted data is a process which
 migrates the extracted information from the previous database to the
 database to be newly created. Other processors residing in the memory can
 use the migrated information which is migrated into the new database
 through this process.
 The database which will be generated freshly (125) means the bulk database
 which has the structure of various existing databases. The specific parts
 of the contents of the database (105) are extracted according to the CSF
 file and CFG file (115) and saved in the file forms like ***.subs. The
 saved files combine the structure of a specific database among many
 databases (125) to generate a new database (120). The database (125) has
 other additional information and database structure. Through the
 extraction and migration processes, the system saves the new information
 into the bulk database (e.g. database with no subscriber information)
 which is loaded into the main memory device.
 In order to create a new database, the migration process (200) reads the
 xxx.sub files containing the extracted information, adds to the bulk
 database to be loaded in the memory and saves the required information
 onto each field fit for the database structure including the information
 to be newly migrated. These kinds of processes are saved as an exact value
 by virtue of an inner algorithm and check routine.
 The saving process (300) which saves the extracted information onto a disk
 saves the database information of the main memory device (e.g., like
 subscriber information) saved in the newly generated memory database onto
 a disk.
 The database to be used in the mobile communication system must reside in
 the main memory device because of the limitations of processor speed. In
 addition, the present method must be capable of processing the queries. If
 the database is deleted from memory, it has to save the same information
 onto a disk in order to prepare for an abrupt crisis, as a result of a
 serious obstacle or increased load in a system usage. There is also
 another object to sustain data consistency because the database of the
 main memory device interworks with the database in a disk.
 So as to carry out the saving process (300), the newly generated database
 saved in the memory has to be saved again onto the hard disk, with
 reference to the shared memory kit value and the database version. This
 process is used to recover the deleted database contents of the main
 memory device and has an object to make the database contents in the main
 memory agree with the contents in the hard disk.
 Also the database contents of the disk are automatically changed and saved
 if the database contents in the main memory device are changed.
 This database includes subscriber position information, the additional
 service information etc., and also the contents of the memory database to
 affect the saving of the database onto a disk.
 The present invention makes it possible to modify the structure and
 function of the database by modifying only of the CSF and CFG files
 containing the information to extract from the database being presently
 used, in case that the contents and structure of database in the HLR
 system are to be used in a mobile communication system.
 Furthermore, in an integrated environment, all works can be executed
 simultaneously in a first attempt at performing the change, and so the
 modification or the deletion of the database, in an operator's point of
 view, can be done more easily and simply, and it is possible that even an
 ordinary operator who doesn't know the database contents can operate
 easily and simply.