PROCESSING DIAGNOSTICS OF MEDIA SERVICES

• US 20150095704A1
• Filed: 09/30/2013
• Published: 04/02/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2013
• 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: Sokolik, Bryan, Freeman, Brian Dean, Velazquez, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 9,225,623 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/30 Monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5032 Generating service level reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• 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 43/0847 Transmission error

Abstract

A system that incorporates the subject disclosure may include, for example, a device receiving diagnostic information from a plurality of client devices delivering media content, wherein the diagnostic information relates to a media delivery service quality and wherein the diagnostic information is sent automatically by the client devices; performing a data compression procedure for the diagnostic information; transmitting compressed data comprising the diagnostic information to an aggregator device; and sending to the client devices a message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information in accordance with an instruction received from the aggregator device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a collector device comprising a processor, diagnostic information from a plurality of client devices delivering media content, wherein the diagnostic information relates to a media delivery service quality;

performing, by the collector device, a data compression procedure for the diagnostic information;

transmitting, by the collector device, compressed data comprising the diagnostic information to an aggregator device; and

sending, by the collector device, to the client devices a message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information in accordance with an instruction received from the aggregator device,

wherein the diagnostic information is sent automatically by each client device to the collector device periodically at a variable interval or in accordance with a change of state of the client device, and

wherein the diagnostic information comprises a report of a degradation of the service quality or a fault relating to the service quality.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the collector device and the client devices are communicatively coupled in a network distributing media services,

wherein the diagnostic information comprises a plurality of types of data according to a type of client device,

wherein the degradation of the service quality comprises a service outage, a service impairment, or scheduled network maintenance, and

wherein the fault comprises a timing error or a digital rights management error.

3. The method of claim 2,

wherein the media services include video content,

wherein the diagnostic information comprises a log of video content presented at the client device and a channel on which the content was presented, and

wherein the change of state comprises a channel change.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information is sent by the collector device in accordance with a volume of diagnostic information received at the collector device exceeding a predetermined threshold.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information is sent by the collector device in accordance with an instruction received from the aggregator device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the instruction is received from the aggregator device in accordance with an alarm signifying a service outage or a service impairment.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending, by the collector device, a first acknowledgment to a client device of reception of the diagnostic information where the first acknowledgment includes a first code, and wherein the message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information comprises a second acknowledgment including a second code different from the first code.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the message prevents publication by a client device of additional diagnostic information until expiration of a predetermined interval or a subsequent change of state of the client device.

9. A server comprising:

a memory to store instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor, responsive to executing the instructions, performs operations comprising;

receiving client reports published by client devices on a network for delivering media content to the client devices, wherein the client reports comprise diagnostic information relating to a media delivery service quality;

receiving additional reports from network components communicatively coupled to the server relating to the service quality;

correlating the client reports and the additional reports to generate correlated diagnostic data;

identifying a degradation of the service quality or a fault related to the service quality based on the correlated diagnostic data; and

determining that publication of subsequent client reports regarding the degradation of the service quality or the fault is to be delayed or suppressed.

10. The server of claim 9, wherein the client reports are received from an aggregator device, and wherein the client reports are published automatically to a collector device communicatively coupled to the aggregator device.

11. The server of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise sending, in accordance with the determining, an instruction to the aggregator device that the publication of subsequent client reports regarding the degradation of the service quality or the fault is to be delayed or suppressed.

12. The server of claim 10, wherein the client reports are received from the aggregator as compressed data.

13. The server of claim 9, wherein the degradation of the service quality comprises a service outage, a service impairment, or scheduled network maintenance, wherein the fault comprises a timing error or a digital rights management error, and wherein the operations further comprise sending a message to a network maintenance component signifying an alarm condition.

14. The server of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise causing the network maintenance component to generate a maintenance ticket to resolve the service outage or service impairment.

15. The server of claim 9, wherein the additional reports comprise server-side logs generated by the network components.

16. A tangible computer-readable storage device comprising executable instructions, which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving diagnostic information from a plurality of client devices delivering media content, wherein the diagnostic information relates to a media delivery service quality and wherein the diagnostic information is sent automatically by the client devices;

performing a data compression procedure for the diagnostic information;

transmitting compressed data comprising the diagnostic information to an aggregator device; and

sending to the client devices a message to delay or prevent transmission of additional diagnostic information in accordance with an instruction received from the aggregator device.

17. The tangible computer-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein the diagnostic information is received from each client device periodically at a variable interval or in accordance with a change of state of the client device, and

wherein the diagnostic information comprises a report of a degradation of the service quality or a fault relating to the service quality.

18. The tangible computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the diagnostic information comprises a plurality of types of data according to a type of client device,

wherein the media content is delivered over a network,

wherein the degradation of the service quality comprises a service outage, a service impairment, or scheduled network maintenance, and

wherein the fault comprises a timing error or a digital rights management error.

19. The tangible computer-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein sending the message prevents publication by a client device of additional diagnostic information until expiration of a predetermined interval or a subsequent change of state of the client device.

20. The tangible computer-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein the instruction is received from the aggregator device in accordance with an alarm signifying a service outage or a service impairment.