Connectivity Service-Level Guarantee Monitoring and Claim Validation Systems and Methods

• US 20090049170A1
• Filed: 10/23/2008
• Published: 02/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.), Raytheon BBN Technlogies Corp. (Rtx Corporation), Verizon Corporate Services Group Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Corporate Services Group Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: SCHICK, Irvin C., HERSH, Gregory
• Granted Patent: US 8,898,279 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• 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 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A system monitors performance in a network that includes several network resources. The system obtains a list of targets in the network. The targets include selected ones of the resources. The system sends a request to the targets, receives responses from the targets, and determines a status of the targets based on the received responses or a lack of responses from the targets. The system then analyzes the status of the targets to determine compliance with the service-level guarantee.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method that validates at least one customer claim relating to performance in a network, comprising:

receiving a customer claim, the claim identifying a path in the network between a source and a destination and a time interval for which an outage was experienced;

identifying resources located on the path; and

validating the customer claim by analyzing network status records relating to the identified resources to determine whether any of the identified resources experienced an outage lasting at least a predetermined period of time.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

periodically collecting the network status records.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the network status records includes:

examining the network status records obtained during the time interval.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying resources includes:

parsing a first path from the source to the destination;

parsing a second path from the destination to the source; and

identifying resources located on the first and second paths.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether to credit the customer based on a result of the analysis.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing the network status records includes:

identifying portions of the path between the identified resources, and

analyzing network status records associated with each of the portions of the path.

7. A system that validates at least one customer claim relating to performance in a network, a customer claim identifying a path in the network between a source and a destination and a time interval for which an outage was experienced, the system comprising:

a memory that stores instructions; and

a processor that executes the instructions stored in the memory to identify resources located on the path identified by the customer claim and validate the customer claim by analyzing network status records relating to the identified resources to determine whether any of the identified resources experienced an outage lasting at least a predetermined period of time.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to:

periodically collect the network status records.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein when identifying resources, the processor is configured to:

parse a first path from the source to the destination;

parse a second path from the destination to the source; and

identify resources located on the first and second paths.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to determine whether to credit the customer based on a result of the analysis of the network status records.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein when analyzing the network status records, the processor is configured to:

identify portions of the path between the identified resources; and

analyze network status records associated with each of the portions of the path.

12. A computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by a computer to perform a method for validating at least one customer claim relating to performance in a network, a customer claim identifying a path in the network between a source and a destination and a time interval for which an outage was experienced, the method comprising:

receiving the customer claim;

identifying resources located on the path identified by the customer claim; and

validating the customer claim by analyzing network status records relating to the identified resources to determine whether any of the identified resources experienced an outage lasting at least a predetermined period of time.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, further configured to:

periodically collect the network status records.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein when identifying resources, the computer-readable medium is configured to:

parse a first path from the source to the destination;

parse a second path from the destination to the source; and

identify resources located on the first and second paths.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein when analyzing the network status records, the computer-readable medium is configured to:

identify portions of the path between the identified resources; and

analyze network status records associated with each of the portions of the path.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, further configured to:

determine whether to credit the customer based on a result of the analysis.

17. A method of validating at least one customer claim relating to a service-level guarantee, comprising:

receiving the customer claim from a customer, the customer claim identifying a first path in a network from a source to a destination, a second path from the destination to the source, and a time interval for which an outage was experienced in the network; and

validating the customer claim by analyzing network status data reflecting availability of resources along the first and second paths and determining compliance with the service-level guarantee based on the network status data.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

collecting network status data.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

determining whether to credit the customer based on a whether there was compliance with the service-level guarantee.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the validating the customer claim includes:

identifying portions of the first and second paths between ones of the resources; and

analyzing network status data associated with each of the portions of the first and second paths.