Method and apparatus for discovering, negotiating, and provisioning end-to-end SLAs between multiple service provider domains

• US 20090279444A1
• Filed: 05/12/2008
• Published: 11/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Blouin, Francois, Ravindran, Ravishankar, Montuno, Delfin
• Granted Patent: US 7,924,715 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5006 Creating or negotiating SLA contracts, guarantees or penalties
• 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 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5058 Service discovery by the service manager
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage

Abstract

Domains (multiple collaborating service providers) create service offerings between pairs of edge nodes that interconnect with other domains in the network. The service offerings may specify the available bandwidth, quality of service, reliability, available security, price, subscriber and service contextual specific and other SLA information. When a new service is to be created, the service definition is used along with information about the available service offerings to determine a set of networks to implement the service. Information associated with the service offerings may be flooded to all other networks. Alternatively, the service offering information may be provided to a trusted third party (SLA broker) which may provide SLA services on the network to select sets of domains to implement inter-domain services, and may also proxy to set up the service for the SLA requesting party. A hybrid approach may also be used wherein some SLA information is flooded and other information is retained in secret and provided only to the SLA broker.

Claims

1. A method of selecting a set of service provider domains of a network for an inter-domain service across multiple service provider domains forming a path across the network based on SLA information associated with the multiple service provider domains, the method comprising the steps of:

determining, by each domain, available service offerings that are able to be provided by the domain between pairs of nodes on the domain;

forming for each domain, SLA information associated with the available service offerings that are able to be provided by that domain;

establishing a set of parameters associated with an inter-domain service to be implemented across the network; and

using the set of parameters associated with the inter-domain service to be implemented across the network and the SLA information associated with the available service offerings, to select the set of domains forming the path across the network for the inter-domain service to be implemented across the network.

2. A method of exchanging Service Level Agreement (SLA) information between domains on a network, the method comprising the steps of:

discovering SLA information available in a first domain, the SLA information being node-pair specific and relating to capabilities of the domain to provide service through the domain between a pair of border nodes;

transmitting the SLA information to enable the SLA information to be used when another domain is seeking to set up a service on the network.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the SLA information is transmitted to the other domains on the network.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the SLA information is transmitted only to a trusted SLA broker on the network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the trusted SLA broker uses the SLA information to choose a set of domains on behalf of the domain seeking to set up the service on the network.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein some of the SLA information is transmitted to the other domains on the network and some of the SLA information is transmitted only to a trusted SLA broker on the network.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the SLA information comprises performance related metrics and business metrics.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the performance related metrics relate to guarantees the network may offer.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the performance related metrics include quality of service, availability, and security properties of a service that is available and guaranteed to be provided by the network between the pair of nodes.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the SLA information is transmitted to an SLA broker that uses the SLA information to choose a set of domains on behalf of the domains seeking to set up the service on the network, and wherein the SLA broker also monitors the services after the services are established to ensure compliance by the domains with the SLA information.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the business metrics define the service offering in terms of pricing and also include context, and behavioral properties of customers being served in the domains associated with the SLA information.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the business metrics further include demography, context, and subscriber behavioral characteristics.

13. A system for discovering, negotiating and exchanging Service Level Agreement (SLA) information, comprising:

a SLA agent to collect SLA information associated with services that are able to be provided within a domain and make the SLA information available outside of the domain;

a SLA database to store the SLA information; and

a SLA manager to monitor services that have been established through the domain.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the SLA agent advertises the SLA information to peer domains to make the SLA information available outside of the domain.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the SLA agent transmits the SLA information to a trusted SLA broker to make the SLA information available outside of the domain.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the SLA agent advertises some of the SLA information to peer domains and transmits other portions of the SLA information to a trusted SLA broker to make the SLA information available outside of the domain.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the SLA agent further receives other domain SLA information advertised by other domains and stores the other domain SLA information in the SLA database.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the SLA information comprises performance related metrics and business metrics, and wherein the performance related metrics are associated with service guarantees that the domain is able to provide between pairs of border nodes on the domain.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the performance related metrics include quality of service, availability, and security properties of a service that is available and guaranteed to be provided by the network between the pair of nodes.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the business metrics define the service offering in terms of pricing, context, and behavioral properties.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the SLA information includes multiple service offerings to be defined between a given pair of nodes, each of the multiple service offerings having unique performance related metrics and business metrics which may be customer specific.