Interactive specification environment for communication service software

An automation environment which produces high-quality high-productivity communication service software (CSS) is described. It is a computer-aided interactive specification environment (ISE) for CSS. ISE consists of a CSS specification description system and a prototyping system of a communication node. The specification description system uses a CSS specification description language (newly developed LSDL and CCITT SDL) composed of three steps and a choice of language and graph forms. An intelligent graphic editor supports LSDL graphic input of CSS specification. The prototyping system controls the switching equipment by a general-purpose computer in command form, using a concurrent process environment for control software to switching equipment and a service control process which runs based on one-call-through. The time taken for CSS specification description is reduced to 30% to 70% of the time taken for C language description. By introducing ISE into CSS development, the reduction in total CSS development time is expected to be about 15%