DETECTING INTERMITTENT NETWORK LINK FAILURES

• US 20120008506A1
• Filed: 07/12/2010
• Published: 01/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Astigarraga, Tara, Dickens, Louie A., Winarski, Daniel J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,917,610 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0677 Localisation of faults
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route

Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for detecting intermittent network link failures. A tracking module tracks link failures of a network link of a network over a specified time interval. A failure module determines the network link is failing in response to a number of link failures exceeding a specified failure threshold. A mitigation module mitigates communications over the network link.

Claims

1. An apparatus for detecting intermittent network link failures, the apparatus comprising:

a computer readable storage medium storing a computer readable program;

a processor executing the computer readable program, the computer readable program comprising;

a tracking module tracking link failures of a network link of a network over a specified time interval;

a failure module determining the network link is failing in response to a number of link failures exceeding a specified failure threshold; and

a mitigation module mitigating communications over the network link.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the specified failure threshold is zero link failures per the specified time interval.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, the computer readable program further comprising a detection module detecting each link failure by:

detecting a missed heartbeat message at an Ethernet physical layer;

notifying an Ethernet data link layer of the missed heartbeat message; and

notifying a network agent of the missed heartbeat message.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the mitigation module mitigates communications by removing the network link from the network.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the network employs a spanning tree protocol to organize a loop-free topology.

6. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium storing a computer readable program executing on a processor to perform operations for detecting intermittent network link failures, the operations of the computer program product comprising:

tracking link failures of a network link of a network over a specified time interval;

determining the network link is failing in response to a number of link failures exceeding a specified failure threshold; and

mitigating communications over the network link.

7. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the specified failure threshold is zero link failures per the specified time interval.

8. The computer program product of claim 6, further comprising detecting each link failure.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein detecting each link failure comprises:

detecting a missed heartbeat message at an Ethernet physical layer;

notifying an Ethernet data link layer of the missed heartbeat message; and

notifying a network agent of the missed heartbeat message.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the network agent is notified using an internet control message protocol message.

11. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein mitigating communications over the network link comprises removing the network link from the network.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising communicating a removal notice to remove the network link from the network.

13. A method for detecting intermittent network link failures, the method comprising:

tracking link failures of a network link of a network over a specified time interval;

determining the network link is failing in response to a number of link failures exceeding a specified failure threshold; and

mitigating communications over the network link.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the specified failure threshold is zero link failures per the specified time interval.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising detecting each link failure by:

detecting a missed heartbeat message at an Ethernet physical layer;

notifying an Ethernet data link layer of the missed heartbeat message; and

notifying a network agent of the missed heartbeat message.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the mitigation module mitigates communications by removing the network link from the network.

17. A system to detect intermittent network link failures, the system comprising:

a network;

a data processing device in communication with network, the data processing device comprising;

a tracking module tracking link failures of a network link of the network over a specified time interval;

a failure module determining the network link is failing in response to a number of link failures exceeding a specified failure threshold; and

a mitigation module mitigating communications over the network link.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the network is an Ethernet network.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the Ethernet network is selected from the group consisting of a one Gigabit Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) network, a ten Gigabit FCoE network, an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) network, a Hyper Small Computer System Interface (HyperSCSI) network, and an Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) over Ethernet (AoE) network.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the Ethernet network employs a transport medium selected from the group consisting of a fiber optic transport medium, a copper transport medium, and a wireless transport medium.