TUNNELING REPORTS FOR REAL-TIME INTERNET PROTOCOL MEDIA STREAMS

• US 20080285463A1
• Filed: 06/12/2007
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Oran, David R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,936,695 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/241
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS

Abstract

A router, switch, or other network node generates reports that contain packet level statistics and other information for a monitored media stream. The media stream reports reduce the amount of bandwidth typically required for sending monitored media stream information back to a central analysis device. However the computation of other media stream analytics, such as long term statistical averaging or quality metric computation, is performed by the central analysis device to remove some of the processing burden from the individual network nodes.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

requesting one or more network devices to monitor one or more media streams;

setting up tunnels with the network devices; and

receiving media stream reports over the tunnels from the network devices that contain monitoring statistics for the requested one or more media streams.

2. The method of claim 1 including:

requesting monitoring of the one or more media streams from a central monitoring device that is not in a native network path of the media streams;

sending monitoring requests to intermediary nodes for the media streams located between media stream endpoints; and

receiving the media stream reports at the central monitoring device from the intermediary nodes.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the media stream reports comprise at least some packet level statistics similar to ones contained in Real-Time Control Protocol (RTCP) reports.

4. The method according to claim 1 including receiving the media stream reports encapsulated in Real-Time Protocol (RTP) tunnel headers that include a RTP tunnel timestamp and a RTP tunnel sequence number.

5. The method according to claim 4 including:

decapsulating the RTP tunneling headers from the media stream reports; and

performing further analytics on the one or more media streams using the decapsulated media stream reports.

6. The method according to claim 1 including sending messages that identify how frequently the media stream reports are generated

7. The method according to claim 1 including using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Session Description Protocol (SDP) for identifying the media streams for the media stream reports and setting up the tunnels for sending the media stream reports.

8. The method according to claim 7 including sending multiple SDP messages that cause media stream reports for multiple different media streams to be encapsulated in the same tunnel.

9. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the one or more processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

monitor one or more media streams;

conduct preliminary packet level analysis on the monitored media streams;

generate reports that contain the results from the packet level analysis; and

send the reports over tunnels to a network analysis device.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors:

monitor the media streams and generate the reports at an intermediary router or switch node between a media source and one or more media stream receiver endpoints for the media streams; and

send the reports to a Network Operation Center (NOC) that is located outside of a native network path for the media streams.

11. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors encapsulate the media stream reports in a tunnel header that identifies when the reports were generated and in what sequence the reports were encapsulated and sent over the tunnels.

12. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors:

generate statistics that identify a number of lost media packets in the media streams, time stamps when the reports were generated, and media stream packet jitter; and

include the generated statistics in the reports that are tunneled to the network analysis device.

13. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors:

receive an ingress or egress interface identifier; and

generate media reports for the media streams at an ingress or egress interface corresponding with the ingress or egress identifier.

14. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors encapsulate the reports generated for multiple different media streams into a same tunnel and then send the multiple different encapsulated reports in a same tunnel to the network analysis device.

15. The apparatus according to claim 9 wherein the one or more processors:

use an Internet Protocol (IP) address of a local interface where the media streams are monitored as a source address for the reports; and

use a Real-Time Protocol (RTP) session IP address for the media streams as a destination address for the reports.

16. A method, comprising:

monitoring one or more media streams at an intermediary node operating in a native media stream path between media stream endpoints;

conducting preliminary analytics on the monitored media streams at the intermediary node;

generating reports that contain packet-level statistics derived from the preliminary analytics; and

sending the reports to a Network Operation Center (NOC) not located in the native media stream path.

17. The method according to claim 16 including encapsulating the reports in a tunnel and sending the tunneled reports to the NOC.

18. The method according to claim 16 including:

accumulating packet level statistics including a number of lost packets in the media streams, time stamps for the packets in the media streams, or inter-arrival packet jitter in the media streams;

putting the accumulated packet level statistics into the reports; and

tunneling the reports to the NOC.

19. The method according to claim 16 including encapsulating the reports in Real Time Protocol (RTP) headers that identify when the reports were generated and in what sequence the reports were encapsulated and sent to the NOC.

20. The method according to claim 16 including:

using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to initiate generation of the reports and tunneling of the generated reports back to the NOC; and

using a Session Description Protocol (SDP) to identify which media streams to monitor and how to tunnel the reports back to the NOC.