METHODS, APPARATUS AND ARTICLES OF MANUFACTURE TO MONITOR COMMUNICATION PATHS IN COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

• US 20110075567A1
• Filed: 09/25/2009
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ching, Chee, Lu, Joseph, Xu, Zhijian, Yang, Chen-Yui, Zhang, Leah Li, Lu, David H., D'Souza, Kevin
• Granted Patent: US 8,279,771 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing

Abstract

Example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to monitor communication paths in communication systems are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes identifying first and second inter-network communication links of a communication system, identifying a first plurality of router pairs associated with the first inter-network communication link, identifying a second plurality of router pairs associated with the second inter-network communication link, partitioning the first plurality of router pairs into a first subset of router pairs and a second subset of router pairs, partitioning the second plurality of router pairs into a third subset of router pairs and a fourth subset of router pairs, during a first time interval, performing first reachability tests for respective ones of the first and third subsets of router pairs, and during a second time interval, performing second reachability tests for respective ones of the second and fourth subsets of router pairs.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying first and second inter-network communication links of a communication system;

identifying a first plurality of router pairs associated with the first inter-network communication link;

identifying a second plurality of router pairs associated with the second inter-network communication link;

partitioning the first plurality of router pairs into a first subset of router pairs and a second subset of router pairs;

partitioning the second plurality of router pairs into a third subset of router pairs and a fourth subset of router pairs;

during a first time interval, performing first reachability tests for respective ones of the first and third subsets of router pairs; and

during a second time interval, performing second reachability tests for respective ones of the second and fourth subsets of router pairs.

2. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the first and second reachability tests collectively test all pairs of the first and second pluralities of router pairs.

3. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a first plurality of routers associated with a first location;

identifying a second plurality of routers associated with a second location;

partitioning the first plurality of routers into a first subset of routers and a second subset of routers;

partitioning the second plurality of routers into a third subset of routers and a fourth subset of routers;

during the first time interval, performing third reachability tests for pairs of the first and third subsets of routers; and

during the second time interval, performing fourth reachability tests for pairs of the second and fourth subsets of routers.

4. A method as defined in claim 3, further comprising during the first time interval performing fifth reachability tests for pairs of the first and second subsets of routers.

5. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising performing a network trace to identify the inter-network communication links.

6. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising querying a network configuration server to identify the inter-network communication links.

7. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising correlating results of the first and second reachability tests to identify a communication system fault.

8. An apparatus comprising

a topology analyzer to create a list of router pairs for a communication system;

a monitoring subset creator to partition the list of router pairs into a first subset of router pairs and a second subset of router pairs to satisfy a network test coverage criteria; and

a collector to, during a first time interval, perform first reachability tests for respective ones of the first subset of router pairs, and to, during a second time interval, perform second reachability tests for respective ones of the second subset of router pairs.

9. An apparatus as defined in claim 8, wherein the network test coverage criteria comprises testing each inter-network communication link of the communication system during each of the first and second time intervals.

10. An apparatus as defined in claim 8, wherein the network test coverage criteria comprises testing each inter central office link of the communication system during each of the first and second time intervals.

11. An apparatus as defined in claim 8, further comprising:

a classifier to classify results of the first and second reachability tests; and

an interface to send the classified results to a troubleshooting correlation engine.

12. An apparatus as defined in claim 8, wherein the monitoring subset creator is to partition the list of the router pairs into the first subset and the second subset by:

identifying a first plurality of routers associated with a first location;

identifying a second plurality of routers associated with a second location;

partitioning the first plurality of routers into a first subset of routers and a second subset of routers; and

partitioning the second plurality of routers into a third subset of routers and a fourth subset of routers, wherein the first subset of router pairs includes respective pairs of the first and third subsets of routers, and the second subset of router pairs includes respective pairs of the first and third subsets of routers.

13. An article of manufacture storing machine-readable instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to:

identify a first plurality of routers associated with a first location;

identify a second plurality of routers associated with a second location;

partition the first plurality of routers into a first subset of routers and a second subset of routers;

partition the second plurality of routers into a third subset of routers and a fourth subset of routers;

during a first time interval, perform first reachability tests for respective first pairs of the first and third subsets of routers; and

during a second time interval, perform second reachability tests for respective second pairs of the second and fourth subsets of routers.

14. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 13, wherein the machine-readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to, during the first time interval, perform third reachability tests for respective third pairs of the first and second subsets of routers.

15. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 13, wherein the first and second pairs collectively comprise all pairs of the first and second plurality of routers.

16. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 13, wherein the machine-readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to correlate results of the first and second reachability tests to identify a fault in the network.