SYSTEM AND METHOD OF MONITORING VIDEO DATA PACKET DELIVERY

• US 20090064248A1
• Filed: 08/31/2007
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shrikhande, Kapil, Li, Zhi, Savoor, Raghvendra, Kwan, Dick
• Granted Patent: US 9,106,800 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/109
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1868 Measures taken after transmission, e.g. acknowledgments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/555 Error detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2404 Monitoring of server processing errors or hardware failure error or fault detection G06F11/07; monitoring in general G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/258 Client or end-user data management, e.g. managing client capabilities, user preferences or demographics, processing of multiple end-users preferences to derive collaborative data arrangements for services using the result on the distributing side of broadcast systems H04H60/66; profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Systems and methods of monitoring packet delivery are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method is disclosed that includes querying multiple network devices for performance metrics corresponding to video data packets sent from a video server. The network devices may include multicast branching points between the video server and the destination. A delivery failure may be identified based on the performance metrics, and a response to the delivery failure may be initiated.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring video data packet delivery, the method comprising:

querying a plurality of network devices for performance metrics corresponding to multicast video data packets, the multicast video data packets sent from a video server of an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system to a multicast destination, wherein the plurality of network devices comprises multicast branching points between the video server and the multicast destination;

identifying a delivery failure based on the performance metrics; and

initiating a response to the delivery failure.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a threshold event corresponding to receiving video data packets at the nulticast destination.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the threshold event corresponds to a number of multicast video data packets that are not received at the multicast destination.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the threshold event corresponds to a number of failed packet recovery requests.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a warning from at least a first network device of the plurality of network devices, the warning indicating a trend associated with the multicast video data packets.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the warning indicates a prediction that a rate of loss of the multicast video data packets will exceed a threshold.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the warning indicates a prediction that a number of failed packet recovery requests will exceed a threshold.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the first network device does not include a switch or router.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics include a traffic metric associated with the multicast video data packets.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics include a dropped packet metric.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics include a packet error metric.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending instructions to each network device of the plurality of network devices to substantially simultaneously record data associated with the performance metrics during a specified time interval.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving performance data from at least one network device of the plurality of network devices, the performance data corresponding to a time period prior to the delivery failure; and

generating at least one signature associated with the delivery failure based at least partially on the performance data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

sending data corresponding to the at least one signature to at least one network device of the plurality of network devices.

15. A method of monitoring video data packet delivery, the method comprising:

monitoring video data packets in transit to a multicast destination, the video data packets associated with an internet protocol (IP) multicast transmission;

recording performance data associated with a performance metric based on the video data packets;

determining a trend based on the performance data; and

sending a warning to a server, the warning identifying the performance metric and a threshold.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the video data packets include multicast video data packets, each of the multicast video data packets having a distinct sequence number associated with the IP multicast transmission, the method further comprising:

inspecting at least some of the multicast video data packets;

determining that at least one multicast video data packet is lost based at least partially on the distinct sequence numbers of the at least some of the multicast video data packets; and

recording lost packet data corresponding to the IP multicast transmission.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

inspecting data packets sent to a video server from the multicast destination;

identifying a request from the multicast destination to retransmit a first multicast video data packet; and

recording retransmission request data corresponding to the request.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the video data packets are monitored at a network device, the method further comprising:

comparing the retransmission request data to the lost packet data to determine at least one of an upstream delivery failure and a downstream delivery failure.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the video data packets further include a unicast video data packet sent to the multicast destination to replace a lost multicast video data packet, the method further comprising:

inspecting the unicast video data packet; and

recording retransmission data corresponding to the unicast video data packet.

20. A system comprising:

a processor;

a network interface accessible to the processor; and

a memory accessible to the processor, the memory having instructions to cause the processor to execute a method comprising;

determining that a number of multicast video data packets not received at a multicast destination exceeds a threshold, the multicast video data packets sent from a video server to the multicast destination;

querying a plurality of network devices for performance metrics corresponding to the multicast video data packets;

identifying a delivery failure; and

initiating a response to the delivery failure.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the method further comprises receiving performance data corresponding to a time period prior to the delivery failure from at least two network devices of the plurality of network devices, the performance data indicating a first number of packets discarded due to errors and a second number of packets discarded due to network congestion.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises performing pattern matching to compare the performance data to a signature representing an IPTV trouble pattern that is associated with the delivery failure, and wherein the signature is maintained at a knowledge base of an Internet Protocol television (IPTV) system that maintains signature data to capture and update IPTV trouble patterns and to detect occurring or potential video delivery problems.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the method further comprises updating the signature based at least partially on the performance data.

24. A system comprising:

a first network interface to communicate with a first network;

a second network interface to communicate with a second network;

a processor coupled to the first network interface and the second network interface; and

a memory accessible to the processor, the memory having instructions to cause the processor to execute a method comprising;

receiving video data packets at the first network interface, the video data packets sent to a multicast destination coupled to the second network;

recording performance data associated with the video data packets;

determining a trend based on the performance data; and

sending a warning to a server when the trend indicates that the performance data is to exceed a threshold.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising:

receiving a request from the server for at least a portion of the performance data;

sending the at least a portion of the performance data to the server; and

receiving a signature associated with a delivery failure from the server.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the performance data includes a first number of packets discarded due to errors and a second number of packets discarded due to network congestion, and wherein the threshold includes a total number of discarded packets.

27. A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions to cause a processor to execute a method comprising:

recording a first number of lost video packets of a multicast transmission that are not received at a multicast destination;

recording a second number of lost retransmission packets that are requested from a first server but not received at the multicast destination; and

sending a message to a second server when at least one of the first number and the second number exceeds a threshold.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 27, wherein the threshold includes a number of lost packets during a predetermined time interval.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 28, wherein the threshold is determined based on at least one prior number of lost packets.