Managing service levels on a shared network

• US 20080037532A1
• Filed: 08/19/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: OPNET Technologies Incorporated (Riverbed Technology Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: OPNET Technologies Incorporated (Riverbed Technology Incorporated)
• Inventors: Cohen, Alain, Sykes, Edward, Singh, Pradeep, Gurevich, Yevgeny, Narayanaswamy, Shobana, Jeyachandran, Vinod, Narayanan, Vivek, Brauwerman, Michael
• Application Number:
  US11/507,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20080037532A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5087 wherein the managed service relates to voice services management of VoIP services H04M7/0081
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS

Abstract

Devices and methods for modeling and analysis of services provided over a common network include a processor configured to track services connected to the common network through nodes and links; run service models associated with the services under selected conditions, the selected conditions including failure and repair of one of the nodes or links; and propose corrective action and/or change of network resources of the common network to minimize impact of the failure. The processor may also run Network model(s). The models may be executed successively or simultaneously, and outputs of one model may be used as input to other models, including any necessary conversions for compatibility.

Claims

1. A method for modeling and analysis of a plurality of services provided over a common network, the method comprising:

representing each service of the plurality of services in terms of at least one of a service requirement and a level of service;

representing an interconnection of each service to at least one of the common network and at least another service of the plurality of services;

one of simulating and receiving from the operational environment a change in at least one of the plurality of services and the common network; and

determining an impact of the change on at least one of the plurality of services and the common network.

2. The method of claim 1, including forecasting service traffic and service problems.

3. The method of claim 1, including

automatically reconfiguring the common network in response to the impact.

4. The method of claim 1, including:

monitoring in real-time at least one of the plurality of services and the common network; and

providing a visualization of the at least one of the service requirement and the level of service of selected services.

5. The method of claim 1, including providing a visualization of network resources consumed by the at least one of the plurality of service.

6. The method of claim 1, including:

monitoring a service of the plurality of services and resources of the common network;

determining that the service requires additional resources; and

changing an allocation of the resources to provide the additional resources to the service.

7. The method of claim 6, before changing the allocation, including

providing a visualization of the effect of the changing on remaining services of the plurality of services.

8. The method of claim 6, before changing the allocation, including:

simulating the changing to determine the effect on remaining services of the plurality of services;

displaying a visualization of the effect; and

performing the changing if the effect is within a predetermined threshold or in response to operator action.

9. The method of claim 1, including tracking network resources consumed by the at least one of the plurality of services.

10. The method of claim 1, including maintaining a log of service status, including interconnection of one service to at least one of another service and the common network.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising:

representing the plurality of services by respective service models; and

representing causal relationships among the respective service models.

12. The method of claim 11, comprising:

running the respective service models to obtain service model outputs;

converting the service model outputs to inputs compatible with a network model representing the common network;

running the network model using the inputs; and

determining an effect of changes in the inputs in the output of the network model.

13. The method of claim 1, including maintaining a set of rules and evaluation functions which causally define success or failure of at least one part of the plurality of services.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the set of rules are user customizable.

15. The method of claim 13, including

computing a status of one service of the plurality of services as a function of a condition of remaining services and the common network.

16. The method of claim 13, comprising:

recording a use and effect of the set of rules to form a record; and

using the record to provide a user with analysis of service failures.

17. The method of claim 13, comprising:

forming a common model;

embedding at least one of the set of rules and evaluation functions into the common model; and

coupling together selected services and selected elements of the common network.

18. The method of claim 1, including

providing a service impact report including at least one of impacted services and users of the impacted services.

19. The method of claim 1, including

abstracting configuration changes of individual devices used by at least one of the common network and the plurality of services.

20. A method of monitoring at least one of a network and services sharing the network comprising:

tracking the services connected to the network through nodes and links;

running network and service models associated with the services under selected conditions, the selected conditions including at least one of a failure and a repair of one of the nodes or links; and

proposing at least one of a corrective action and a change of network resources to minimize impact of the failure.

21. An on-line monitoring system comprising a processor configured to:

track services connected to a common network through nodes and links;

run service models associated with the services under selected conditions, the selected conditions including a failure of one of the nodes or links; and

use the results of the service model runs to determine the impact of the failure on the services and the common network.

22. The on-line monitoring system of claim 21, wherein the processor is configured to propose at least one of a corrective action and a change of network resources of the common network to minimize the impact of the failure.

23. The on-line monitoring system of claim 22, wherein the processor is configured to dynamically adjust the network resources to minimize an impact of the failure.

24. The on-line monitoring system of claim 22, comprising

a display,

wherein the processor is configured to provide a visualization on the display of a status of the services and the network resources, and effects of changing the network resources.

25. A modeling and analysis system comprising a processor configured to:

receive a representation of services in terms of at least one of a service requirement and a level of service;

receive a representation of an interconnection of the services to each other and to a shared network;

one of simulate and receive from the operational environment a change in at least one of the services and the shared network; and

determine an impact of the change on at least one of services and the shared network.

26. The modeling and analysis system of claim 25, wherein the processor is configured to dynamically adjust network resources of the shared network to minimize an impact of a failure.

27. The modeling and analysis system of claim 25, comprising

a display,

wherein the processor is configured to provide a visualization on the display of status of the services and the network resources, and effects of changing the network resources.

28. A monitoring method comprising:

collecting service data relating to services provided through a network;

continually collecting network data relating to the network; and

determining an impact of a change in at least one of the services on the network.

29. The method of claim 28, comprising:

running service models modeling the services using the service data to provide modeled service outputs; and

running a network model using at least one of the network data and the modeled service outputs.

30. The method of claim 29, including

automatically populating the service models with the service data including service traffic data.