Dynamic quality-of-service mapping apparatus and method through hybrid monitoring in digital home service

• US 20060146703A1
• Filed: 04/06/2005
• Published: 07/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Koh, Jun-Ho, Shim, Chang-Sup, Cha, Do-Hun
• Granted Patent: US 7,450,508 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2838 Distribution of signals within a home automation network, e.g. involving splitting/multiplexing signals to/from different paths adaptations of television systems for transmission by electric cable for domestic distribution H04N7/106; hybrid transport H04L12/6418; home network arrangements specially adapted for distribution of digital video signals H04N7/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0864 Round trip delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/262 Content or additional data distribution scheduling, e.g. sending additional data at off-peak times, updating software modules, calculating the carousel transmission frequency, delaying a video stream transmission, generating play-lists scheduling strategies for dispatcher in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/4881; arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/06; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10; establishing a time schedule or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4424 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38

Abstract

A media server coupled to a service network by means of a media gateway provides network-adaptive media streams through hybrid monitoring for the digital home service. Clients coupled to the service network measures a network state of the service network and system states of the clients through the hybrid monitoring. A monitoring server includes a domain manager and receives metric information fed back from the clients, performs comparison and analysis with respect to the received measurement information, determines causes of quality degradation of the digital home service, and delivers indication information according to the causes to the media server and the media gateway. The domain manager also determines a problem of the media streams according to a predetermined policy and an analysis result of the condition-analyzing unit and for createing the indication information in order to solve the problem.

Claims

1. An apparatus for providing a dynamic quality-of-service (QoS) mapping through hybrid monitoring in digital home service, comprising:

a media server for providing network-adaptive media streams for the digital home service;

a media gateway for coupling the media server to a service network;

a plurality of clients coupled to the service network for receiving media streams from the media server and for measuring a network state of the service network and system states of the clients through the hybrid monitoring; and

a monitoring server including a domain manager, the domain manger receiving metric information fed back from the clients, performing comparison and analysis with respect to the received measurement information, determining causes of quality degradation of the digital home service, and delivering indication information according to the causes to the media server and the media gateway.

2. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the clients further includes a hybrid-monitoring module comprising:

a passive monitoring module for analyzing real-time transport control protocol (RTCP) packets of the media streams to measure delay, jitters, and a loss rate of a user data flow and to measure the systems states of the clients; and

an active monitoring module for measuring the network state of the service network by transmitting measurement packets generated by the active monitoring module to the service network.

3. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the domain manager further includes:

a collection module for receiving the metric information about the network state and the system states from the clients;

a condition analysis unit for analyzing system conditions and network conditions based on the metric information provided through the collection module; and

a network adaptation manager for determining a problem of the media streams according to a predetermined policy and an analysis result of the condition-analyzing unit and for creating the indication information in order to solve the problem.

4. The apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the collection module further includes:

a passive monitoring module for receiving from the passive monitoring module of the clients a first metric information regarding a central process unit state and a memory state of the clients and a second metric information regarding delay, jitters, and loss rates for a user data flow of each client; and

an active monitoring module for receiving a third metric information regarding delay, jitters, and loss rates of the service network.

5. The apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein the condition analysis unit further includes:

a system condition matrix creating unit for creating a system condition matrix using the first measurement information; and

a network condition matrix creating unit for creating a network condition matrix using the second metric information and the third measurement information.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the network adaptation manager includes:

a problem decision module for determining an overload type from a system overload, network overload, and system/network overload by receiving the system condition matrix and the network condition matrix; and

a resource-management unit for creating one indication of a system overload indication, a network overload indication, and a system/network overload indication according to the determined overload type and transmitting the created indication to the media server and the media gateway.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 6, wherein the system overload indication represents control over a transmission rate, filtering, and a coding rate for the media streams, the network overload indication represents whether or not FEC coding is applied to the media streams and a transmission rate is controlled with respect to the media streams, and the system/network overload indication represents control over a transmission rate for the media streams.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the media gateway further includes:

an estimation unit for determining an operation of the media gateway according to indication information sent from the monitoring server;

at least one optimum QoS mapping unit for receiving streams of each server from at least one media server and for mapping packets in the streams of each server to an optimum priority class under the control of the estimation unit;

a traffic controller for classifying the streams of each server according to priorities based on the priority class mapped by the optimum QoS mapping unit and for enabling a corresponding class on the streams according to priorities; and

a packet-delivering unit for transmitting the streams according to the priority to the service network through scheduling.

9. A method for providing a dynamic quality-of-service (QoS) mapping through a hybrid monitoring in digital home service, the method comprising the steps of:

measuring a network state of a service network and system states of clients through the hybrid monitoring in the clients coupled to a media server through the service network; and

receiving metric information fed back from the clients, performing comparison and analysis with respect to the received measurement information, determining causes of quality degradation of the digital home service, and delivering indication information according to the causes to the media server and the media gateway.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the step of measuring the network state of the service network and the system states of the clients includes:

a passive monitoring step of analyzing real-time transport control protocol (RTCP) packets of the media streams to measure delay, jitters, a loss rate of a user data flow and to measure the systems states of the clients; and

an active monitoring step of measuring the network state of the service network by transmitting measurement packets created through active monitoring to the service network.

11. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the step of delivering the indication information includes the steps of:

collecting metric information for the network state and the system states from the clients;

analyzing system conditions and network conditions based on the metric information; and

determining a problem of the media streams according to a predetermined policy and an analysis result and creating the indication information in order to solve the problem.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, wherein the step of collecting the metric information includes the steps of:

receiving a first metric information regarding a central process unit state and a memory state of the clients and a second metric information regarding delay, jitters, and loss rates for a user data flow of each client from the clients; and

receiving a third metric information regarding delay, jitters, and loss rates of the service network.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the step of analyzing the system conditions and the network conditions includes the steps of:

creating a system condition matrix by using the first measurement information; and

creating a network condition matrix by using the second metric information and the third measurement information.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the step of creating the indication information includes the steps of:

determining one overload type from among system overload, network overload, and system/network overload by receiving the system condition matrix and the network condition matrix; and

generating one indication of a system overload indication, a network overload indication, and a system/network overload indication according to the determined overload type and transmitting the created indication to the media server and the media gateway.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the system overload indication represents control over a transmission rate, filtering, and a coding rate for the media streams, the network overload indication represents whether or not coding and control over a transmission rate are applied to the media streams, and the system/network overload indication represents control over a transmission rate for the media streams.

16. The method as claimed in claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

determining an operation of the media gateway according to indication information sent from the monitoring server;

receiving streams of each server from at least one media server and mapping packets in the streams of each server with an optimum priority class;

classifying the streams of each server according to priorities based on the mapped priority class and marking a corresponding class on the streams according to the priority; and

transmitting the streams according to priorities to the service network through scheduling.