Method and system for emulating a signaling point for testing a telecommunications network

A system for testing the integrity of at least one of a plurality of network elements in a telecommunications network, comprising:

• an emulator for emulating at least one of said plurality of network elements, said emulator connected to one of said plurality of network elements;
• a message configuration table coupled with said telecommunications network;
• a database that stores test information including critical event data of said telecommunications network;
• logic that retrieves an entry from said emulator and parses a signaling message to identify a call record;
• logic that extracts key fields from the signaling message;
• logic that sends a default response if the received signaling message is unidentifiable in the message configuration table and discards corresponding call records from the database;
• logic that sends a message response with corresponding response cause value indicating validity of a received signaling message if the signaling message is identified in the message configuration table;
• and
• means for correlating data from said database to anticipated test case results.

A computer program product embodied on a computer readable medium for testing the integrity of a plurality of network elements, the computer program comprising:

• a computer readable medium;
• first instructions for retrieving an entry from an emulator, said emulator connected to emulating at least one of said plurality of network elements, and parsing signaling messages from said emulator to identify a call record;
• second instructions for extracting key fields from the signaling message;
• third instructions for sending a default response if the received signaling message is unidentifiable in the message configuration table and discarding corresponding call records from the database;
• and
• fourth instructions for sending a message response with corresponding response cause value indicating validity of received signaling message if the signaling message is identified in the configuration table,
• wherein the instructions are embodied on the computer readable medium.

A method for testing at least one of a plurality of network elements in a network, wherein the network includes an emulator connected to and emulating at least one of said plurality of network elements, and a message configuration table coupled with a network, the method comprising data processing implemented steps of:

• receiving a message from one of said plurality of network elements in the network, wherein the message includes data;
• automatically identifying data in the message;
• automatically selecting a response from a plurality of responses using the data in the message;
• and
• automatically returning the response to the one of said plurality of network elements.