APPLICATION DATA FLOW MANAGEMENT IN AN IP NETWORK

• US 20110238825A1
• Filed: 11/26/2008
• Published: 09/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telecom Italia S.p.A.
• Original Assignee: Telecom Italia S.p.A.
• Inventors: Garofalo, Angelo, Bincoletto, Luca, Maffione, Eugenio Maria
• Granted Patent: US 8,504,687 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• 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 41/5032 Generating service level reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a two-level, network-based application control (NBAC) architecture for monitoring services provided via a packet-based network. The NBAC architecture includes a Network Trigger System provided at a network level to analyze data flows relating to services to be monitored to detect occurrence of configurable events, and to generate and send event reports; and a Usage Status Engine provided at a control level to configure the Network Trigger System to detect occurrence of events of interest, and to receive and process the event reports from the Network Trigger System to monitor the services.

Claims

1. :

A two-level, network-based application control architecture for monitoring services provided via a packet-based network, comprising;

a first computing device programmed to provide a Network Trigger System at a network level to;

analyze data flows relating to services to be monitored,

detect occurrence of configurable events, and

generate and send event reports; and

a second computing device programmed to provide a Usage Status Engine at a control level to;

configure the Network Trigger System to detect occurrence of events of interest in the analyzed data flows, and

receive and process the event reports from the Network Trigger System to monitor the services.

2. :

The architecture of claim 1, wherein the configurable events include configurable patterns in the analyzed data flows.

3. :

The architecture according to claim 2, wherein the Network Trigger System is configured to detect a specific pattern in an analyzed data flows by carrying out a pattern matching based on Deep Packet Inspection.

4. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

associate a monitored service with a corresponding Finite State Automaton having states associated with phases of the connection to the service, and state-to-state transitions associated with events the occurrence of which is detected in the analyzed data flows, to provide a representation of possible phases of connection to the service; and

cause the Finite State Automaton to evolve based on the received event reports, to monitor the service.

5. :

The architecture of claim 4, wherein the Finite State Automaton further has a callback function which is associated with an entry into or an exit from a state of the Finite State Automaton, or with a state-to-state transition of the Finite State Automaton, and which is configured to take actions at both an application level and the control level.

6. :

The architecture of claim 4, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

create the Finite State Automaton specific for the monitored service.

7. :

The architecture of claim 6, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

store a Finite State Automaton template for each service to be monitored; and

generate the Finite State Automaton specific for the monitored service by instantiating the corresponding Finite State Automaton template.

8. :

The architecture of claim 4, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

dispatch a received event report to a relevant Finite State Automaton.

9. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

receive and interpret a configuration file containing configuration settings for the Network Trigger System and the Usage Status Engine.

10. :

The architecture of claim 2, wherein the configuration file includes;

patterns and associated application usage parameters to be detected in the analyzed data flows; and

Finite State Automaton templates for the service to be monitored.

11. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Network Trigger System is further configured to;

identify requests for connection to the services; and

notify the Usage Status Engine of the identified requests for connection to the services, and provide the Usage Status Engine with corresponding data related to the connection setup, the generated traffic, and the phases of the connections;

and wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

store in a database all data received from the Network Trigger System.

12. :

The architecture according to claim 11, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

correlate data received from the Network Trigger System and relating to the analyzed data flows.

13. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Usage Status Engine is further configured to;

associate one or more capabilities with the monitored service.

14. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Network Trigger System includes a plurality of modules arranged in different points of the network to analyze data flows therein.

15. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the Usage Status Engine includes a plurality of modules specialized for specific application domains.

16. :

The architecture according to claim 1, wherein the services to be monitored are Non-Session-based services.

17. :

A method for monitoring services provided via a packet-based network, comprising;

providing a two-level, network-based application control architecture including;

a Network Trigger System (NTS) provided at a network level to;

analyze data flows relating to services to be monitored,

detect occurrence of configurable events, and

generate and send event reports; and

a Usage Status Engine provided at a control level to;

configure the Network Trigger System to detect occurrence of events of interest in the analyzed data flows, and

receive and process the event reports from the Network Trigger System to monitor the services.

18. :

Non-transitory computer readable media having software modules stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, implement a system comprising;

a first computing device programmed to provide a Network Trigger System at a network level to;

analyze data flows relating to services to be monitored,

detect occurrence of configurable events, and

generate and send event reports; and

a second computing device programmed to provide a Usage Status Engine at a control level to;

configure the Network Trigger System to detect occurrence of events of interest in the analyzed data flows, and

receive and process the event reports from the Network Trigger System to monitor the services.