Systems and methods for an infrastructure centralized heartbeat

A method of monitoring a service node in an electronic telecommunications network, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a service node having a plurality of service package applications running thereon, the service node also having a single heartbeat message generating application that is accessible by each of the service package applications;
• generating a heartbeat message with the heartbeat message generating application, the heartbeat message comprising identification data that identifies at least one of the service package applications and indicates a status of the at least one service package application;
• sending the heartbeat message to a service control point (SCP) in the telecommunications network and updating a database stored on the SCP, the database stored on the SCP including a status field for the status of the at least one service package application;
• and
• routing a call to the service node when the status field in the database stored on the SCP indicates that the at least one service package application is available to receive the call.

A method of monitoring the status of a service package application operating on a service node, comprising the steps of:

• storing status information related to at least two different service package applications in a single database;
• generating a message including data based at least in part on the status information stored in the single database;
• sending the message to a control point;
• receiving the message at the control point and extracting the data from the message;
• and
• controlling access to a service package application based on the data received.