Rapid fault detection and recovery for internet protocol telephony

• US 20050281204A1
• Filed: 09/29/2004
• Published: 12/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arlington Technologies, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Karol, Mark John, Krishnan, P., Li, Juan Jenny
• Granted Patent: US 7,782,787 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/248
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

Techniques for performing rapid fault detection and recovery in communication networks are disclosed. For example, in one aspect of the invention, a technique for detecting one or more conditions in a communication network comprises the following steps/operations. One or more keep-alive packets are transmitted from a source node in the communication network to a destination node in the communication network over two or more paths between the source node and the destination node, wherein the two or more paths are at least partially disjoint. Upon receipt of the one or more keep-alive packets at the destination node via the two or more paths, at least one quality measure is computed at the destination node for each of the two or more paths, the at least one quality measure being indicative of one or more conditions in the communication network. While not limited thereto, the invention is particularly well-suited to Internet Protocol (IP) telephony networks, particularly those that provide Voice over IP (VoIP) applications.

Claims

1. A method of detecting one or more conditions in a communication network, comprising the steps of:

transmitting one or more keep-alive packets from a source node in the communication network to a destination node in the communication network over two or more paths between the source node and the destination node, wherein the two or more paths are at least partially disjoint; and

upon receipt of the one or more keep-alive packets at the destination node via the two or more paths, computing at least one quality measure at the destination node for each of the two or more paths, the at least one quality measure being indicative of one or more conditions in the communication network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of comparing the quality measures computed for each of the two or more paths.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of transmitting results of the comparisons from the destination node to the source node.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of transmitting one or more communication packets from the source node based on at least a portion of the received results.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more communication packets are VoIP packets.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more communication packets are signalling packets.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the comparing step further comprises comparing the quality measures computed for each of the two or more paths based on relative receive times.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets simultaneously via the two or more paths.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets via the two or more paths at regular intervals.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets via tunnelling through one or more intermediate nodes in the communication network.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one quality measure relates to one of delay, jitter, and loss.

12. Apparatus for use in detecting one or more conditions in a communication network, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative to transmit one or more keep-alive packets from a source node in the communication network to a destination node in the communication network over two or more paths between the source node and the destination node, wherein the two or more paths are at least partially disjoint, such that, upon receipt of the one or more keep-alive packets at the destination node via the two or more paths, at least one quality measure is computable at the destination node for each of the two or more paths, the at least one quality measure being indicative of one or more conditions in the communication network.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the transmitting operation further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets simultaneously via the two or more paths.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the transmitting operation further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets via the two or more paths at regular intervals.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the transmitting operation further comprises transmitting the one or more keep-alive packets via tunnelling through one or more intermediate nodes in the communication network.

16. Apparatus for use in detecting one or more conditions in a communication network, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative to, in response to a transmission of one or more keep-alive packets from a source node in the communication network to a destination node in the communication network over two or more paths between the source node and the destination node, wherein the two or more paths are at least partially disjoint, and upon receipt of the one or more keep-alive packets at the destination node via the two or more paths, compute at least one quality measure at the destination node for each of the two or more paths, the at least one quality measure being indicative of one or more conditions in the communication network.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further operative to compare the quality measures computed for each of the two or more paths.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the at least one processor is further operative to transmit results of the comparisons from the destination node to the source node.

19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the comparing operation further comprises comparing the quality measures computed for each of the two or more paths based on relative receive times.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the at least one quality measure relates to one of delay, jitter, and loss.