System and method for collecting network performance information

• US 20080002677A1
• Filed: 05/31/2007
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Embarq Holdings Company LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Embarq Holdings Company LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bugenhagen, Michael, Wiley, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,717,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/356
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1428 Invoice generation, e.g. customization, lay-out, database processing, algorithms for calculating the bill or formatting invoices as WWW pages invoicing in general G06Q30/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0894 Packet rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/28 using route fault recovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/3065 for real time traffic

Abstract

A network communications device including an input/output (I/O) unit configured to communicate data packets to and from a communications network and at least one module. The module(s) may be configured to count total data packets being communicated via the I/O unit during a time period, count data packets including real-time content being communicated via the I/O unit during the time period, determine bandwidth of total data packets being communicated via the I/O unit, determine bandwidth of data packets including real-time content being communicated via the I/O unit, and communicate indicia representative of the bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packets via said I/O unit to another network communications device. The module(s) maybe software, hardware, or a combination thereof.

Claims

1. A network communications device, comprising:

an input/output (I/O) unit configured to communicate data packets to and from a communications network; and

at least one module configured to;

count total data packets being communicated via said I/O unit during a time period;

count data packets including real-time content being communicated via said I/O unit during the time period;

determine bandwidth of total data packets being communicated via said I/O unit;

determine bandwidth of data packets including real-time content being communicated via said I/O unit; and

store indicia representative of the bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packets via said I/O unit to another network communications device.

2. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein said at least one module is further configured to concatenate the indicia representative of the bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packet bandwidth within a data packet payload being communicated over a network segment.

3. The network communications device according to claim 2, wherein the data packet to which the indicia is concatenated is a performance information data packet.

4. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein the determination of the bandwidth of data packets including real-time content is based on a number of performance information data packets received during the time period.

5. The network communications device according to claim 4, wherein the performance information data packets are IEEE standard 802.1AG data packets.

6. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein said at least one module includes a modified ITU-T Y.1731 module configured to separately count the total data packets and data packets including real-time content.

7. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein the other network communications device is configured to monitor performance of other network nodes.

8. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein said at least one module is further configured to convert the data packets from a first communications protocol to a second communications protocol.

9. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein said at least one module is further configured to operate as a firewall.

10. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein said at least one module is further configured to determine at least one transmission performance characteristic of the data packets including real-time content being communicated via said I/O unit.

11. The network communications device according to claim 1, wherein communication of the indicia is event triggered.

12. A method for monitoring transmission characteristics on a packet network, said method comprising:

monitoring data packets including real-time content being communicated over a network node segment of a packet network;

determining at least one transmission performance characteristic of the data packets including real-time content communicated over the network node segment of the packet network; and

storing indicia representative of the at least one transmission performance characteristic of the communicated data packets including real-time content to a network node located on the packet network for monitoring the at least one transmission performance characteristic of the network node segment.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein determining the at least one transmission performance characteristic of real-time data packets includes determining at least one of percent loss, jitter, and delay.

14. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

counting data packets including real-time content being communicated over the network node segment during a time period;

determining bandwidth of the data packets including real-time content during the time period;

counting total data packets being communicated over the network node segment during the time period;

determining bandwidth of total data packets being communicated over the network node segment during the time period; and

storing second indicia representative of bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packets.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising:

determining a time period from performance information data packets being communicated over the network node segment; and

determining the bandwidth of the real-time and total data packets being communicated over the network node segment based on the time period determined from the counted fault management data packets.

16. The method according to claim 15, further wherein counting performance information data packets includes counting 802.1AG data packets.

17. The method according to claim 15, further comprising communicating an indicia of the bandwidth of the data packets including real-time content and total data packets to a network controller.

18. The method according to claim 17, further comprising concatenating the indicia of the bandwidth of the data packets including real-time content and total data packets into a data packet.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein concatenating the indicia into a data packet including concatenating the indicia into a performance information data packet.

20. The method according to claim 12, wherein communicating indicia of the at least one transmission performance characteristic includes communicating the indicia in response to an event occurring.

21. The method according to claim 12, wherein communicating the indicia of the at least one transmission performance characteristic in response to an event occurring includes determining that a threshold has been crossed by the at least one transmission performance characteristic.

22. A network communications device, comprising:

an input/output (I/O) unit configured to communicate data packets over a network node segment; and

a memory unit configured to store network performance information associated with data packets including real-time content and total data packets communicated via said I/O unit.

23. The network communications device according to claim 22, further comprising a transmission performance collection module configured to collect the network performance information associated with data packets including real-time content communicated via said I/O unit.

24. The network communications device according to claim 22, wherein the transmission performance collection module is further configured to:

count data packets including real-time content being communicated over the network node segment during a time period;

determine bandwidth of data packets including real-time content during the time period;

count total data packets being communicated over the network node segment during the time period;

determine bandwidth of total data packets being communicated over the network node segment during the time period; and

communicate second indicia representative of bandwidth of data packets including real-time content and total data packets.

25. The network communications device according to claim 24, wherein the transmission performance collection module is further configured to:

count performance information data packets being communicated over the network node segment; and

determine the bandwidth of the real-time and total data packets being communicated over the network node segment based on the counted fault management data packets.

26. The network communications device according to claim 25, further wherein the performance information data packets are IEEE 802.1AG data packets.

27. The network communications device according to claim 22, wherein the network performance information includes at least one of packet loss, jitter, and delay associated with data packets including real-time content communicated via said I/O unit communications.

28. The network communications device according to claim 22, wherein the memory unit is further configured to store information indicative of bandwidth of the data packets including real-time content and total data packets communicated during a time period.