MEASURING RESPONSE TRENDS IN A DIGITAL TELEVISION NETWORK

• US 20150032876A1
• Filed: 07/26/2013
• Published: 01/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: OpenTV, Inc. (Kudelski SA)
• Original Assignee: OpenTV, Inc. (Kudelski SA)
• Inventors: Staunton-Lambert, Kevin
• Granted Patent: US 10,063,450 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• 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 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes

Abstract

Techniques and systems for providing a trend server outside a content provider network to communicate with the content provider network to build a trend record based on responses received from the content provider network for monitoring certain activity trend or tendency in the content provider network and provide an alert when the content provider network behaves abnormally.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to monitor status of a content provider network, comprising:

sending, from a trending server, a first request message to the content provider network, wherein the first request message has an associated type value;

receiving, at the trending server, a first response message from the content provider network;

determining, by the trending server, whether or not the first response message is normal by comparing with a trend record for the type value associated with the first request message;

selectively updating the trend record based on the first response message; and

generating an alert when it is determined that the first response message is abnormal.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the trending server, a second request message from a user device; and

generating the first request message based on the second request message.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the trend record is based on the second request message.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the trend record accumulates a predetermined number of previously received response messages having the type value.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the operation of determining whether or not the first response message is normal comprises:

comparing a parameter included in the first response message with a range of normal values for that parameter.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a second response message, based on the first response message, to a user device originating the first request message.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the second response message comprises the first response message and the second response message is provided irrespective of whether the first response message is determined to be normal or not.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the second response message comprises the first response message and further includes an alert message when the first response message is determined to be not normal.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the trending server is located external to the content provider network.

10. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

configuring the trending server to be a part of a plurality of geographically separated servers configured to perform trending and monitoring operations and wherein at least one of the plurality of geographically separated server performs trending and monitoring without receiving the first request message from the user device.

11. An apparatus for monitoring operation of a content provider'"'"'s network, comprising:

a status request transmission module that transmits a plurality of status requests to the content provider'"'"'s network, each status request having an associated request type;

a status response reception module that receives status responses from the content provider'"'"'s network;

a response sorting module that assigns, for every received status response, a corresponding request type based on a status request for which the status response was received;

a trending record-keeping module that maintains trend records based on a predetermined number of prior status responses received for each request type;

a trending estimation module that estimates a trend for each request type, based on the status response and a user setting for that request type;

a trend checker module that checks, for each received status response, whether or not the received status response is within the trend for the corresponding request type; and

a trend alert module that issues an alert when the received status response is not within the trend for the corresponding request type.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, further including:

a trend user interface module that receives an input for the user setting, wherein the input provides an input request type and an associated trend to use for the input request type.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein:

the status request transmission module transmits the plurality of status request messages using a stateless protocol.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein a first status request comprises a request to purchase a multimedia program and a corresponding first status response comprises a value representing cost of purchase of the multimedia program.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein a first status request comprises a request to receive a web page and a corresponding first status response comprises contents of the web page.

16. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having code stored thereupon, the code, when executed by a processor, causing the processor to implement a method of monitoring operation of a content provider'"'"'s network, the method comprising:

receiving a first message from the content provider'"'"'s network;

determining whether the first message is normal by comparing with a trend of previously received messages having a same message type as the first message;

selectively updating, based on the first message, the trend for the message type of the first message; and

generating an alert when the first message is determined to be not normal.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises:

transmitting a status request message to the content provider'"'"'s network and wherein the first message is received in response to the status request message.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a second message from the user device; and

transmitting the status request message based on the second message.

19. A system for monitoring operation of a web service provider, the system comprising:

one or more web servers under management of the web service provider, the one or more web servers located inside the web service provider'"'"'s network;

a plurality of monitoring servers positioned external to the web service provider'"'"'s network and geographically separated from each other;

wherein each monitoring server is configured to;

transmit sync messages to the one or more web servers;

maintain a record of expected responses to the sync messages;

receive a status response messages from the one or more web servers;

issue an alert when the status response message is not an expected response.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein each monitoring server is further configured to:

update the record when a new status response message is received.