SYSTEM FOR AND METHOD OF SET-TOP BOX MEMORY MONITORING

• US 20110107389A1
• Filed: 11/04/2009
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: CHAKARAPANI, Lakshmi N.
• Granted Patent: US 8,528,039 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/132
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 17/004 for digital television systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 17/04 for receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25808 Management of client data terminal profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4424 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/443 OS processes, e.g. booting an STB, implementing a Java virtual machine in an STB or power management in an STB
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38

Abstract

A system and method for monitoring set-top box memory is presented. In one exemplary embodiment, the system and method for monitoring set-top box memory may comprise receiving memory data of a set-top box at a central computing device, monitoring the memory data of the set-top box, analyzing the memory data, identifying a memory management issue, and performing one or more remedial actions in response to the identified memory management issue.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving memory data of a set-top box at a central computing device;

monitoring the memory data of the set-top box;

analyzing the memory data;

identifying a memory management issue; and

performing one or more remedial actions in response to the identified memory management issue.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise at least one of:

terminating a thread, suspending a thread, terminating an application, resetting a set-top box, rebooting a set-top box, restoring default settings of a set-top box, flashing EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) of a set-top box, installing software on a set-top box, uninstalling one or more portions of software from a set-top box, and adjusting a setting of a set-top box.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the memory data comprises analysis using data from a plurality of set-top boxes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory data comprises Management Information Base (MIB) data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is transmitted from the set-top box.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the data is queried by a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) manager on the central computing device.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising querying memory data from a plurality of set-top boxes using port forwarding.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the set-top box pushes data to the central computing device using at least one of:

syslog, http, and ftp.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

measuring a portion of set-top box memory data against a specified criterion; and

transmitting the portion of set-top memory data in the event its meets the specified criterion.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the specified criteria comprises at least one of:

a percentage of overall memory used, a percentage of overall memory free, a percentage of memory used in a heap, a percentage of memory free in a heap, a quantity of memory used by a thread, a quantity of memory free, and a combination of the preceding.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory data is structured using XML.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the memory data is stored in a relational database.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory data comprises a stack trace dump.

14. The method of claim 3, wherein a memory manager on the central computing device queries a set-top box for further memory data in response to received memory data.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating one or more outputs based on the memory data, wherein the one or more outputs include at least one of a report and an alert.

16. A computer readable media comprising code to perform the acts of the method of claim 1.

17. A system, comprising:

a set-top box communicatively coupled to a network;

a central computing device communicatively coupled to a network, wherein the central computing device comprises one or more processors configured to;

receive memory data of the set-top box;

monitor memory data of the set-top box;

analyze the memory data;

identify a memory management issue; and

perform one or more remedial actions in response to the identified memory management issue.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise at least one of:

terminating a thread, suspending a thread, terminating an application, resetting a set-top box, rebooting a set-top box, restoring default settings of a set-top box, flashing EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) of a set-tog box, installing software on a set-top box, uninstalling one or more portions of software from a set-top box, and adjusting a setting of a set-top box.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein analyzing the memory data comprises analysis using data from a plurality of set-top boxes.

20. A system, comprising:

a network element communicatively coupled to a network wherein the network element comprises one or more processors configured to;

receiving memory data of a set-top box;

monitor memory data of the set-top box;

analyze the memory data;

identify a memory management issue; and

perform one or more remedial actions in response to the identified memory management issue.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise at least one of:

terminating a thread, suspending a thread, terminating an application, resetting a set-top box, rebooting a set-top box, restoring default settings of a set-top box, flashing EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) of a set-top box, installing software on a set-top box, uninstalling one or more portions of software from a set-top box, and adjusting a setting of a set-top box.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein analyzing the memory data comprises analysis using data from a plurality of set-top boxes.