Cross-Layer Link Failure Alerts

• US 20160065433A1
• Filed: 11/19/2014
• Published: 03/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Hui, Jie, Liu, Jun, Sontineni, Kranthi, Jia, Yunhan
• Granted Patent: US 9,825,828 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0847 Transmission error
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition

Abstract

Described herein is a network device configured to determine and provide alerts of communication link failures across layers of a communication stack of the network device. The network device determines at a radio link layer of the communication stack that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed. The network device then alerts one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the determination that the communication link has failed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining, at a radio link layer of a communication stack of a network device, that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed; and

alerting one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the determination that the communication link has failed.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more components include an operating system, a connection manager, an application controller, or an application.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining and the alerting are performed independently of any link failure timers of the one or more components.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing one or more radio link layer logs to identify the one or more components.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the alerting includes alerting a transmission control protocol (TCP) layer component, analyzing a TCP layer log, identifying one or more applications from the TCP layer log, and alerting the one or more applications.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the alerting comprises exposing a status of the communication link and receiving polling from the one or more components.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the alerting comprises providing one or more reasons for the failure of the communication link to the one or more components.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more components utilize the one or more reasons to determine whether to terminate connections, wait, or reestablish connections.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein different ones of the one or more components take different actions depending on at least one of the one or more reasons or a time since the determination of the failure of the communication link.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the alerting comprises instructing the one or more components to terminate connections, wait, or reestablish connections.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining is performed by a radio chipset of the network device.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises detecting a loss of the communication link, waiting for a time period, and determining whether the communication link is reestablished before determining that the communication link has failed.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the alerting comprises broadcasting a notification of the determination that the communication link has failed.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having programming instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a network device, cause the telecommunication device to perform operations comprising:

determining, at a radio link layer of a communication stack of the network device, that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed; and

alerting one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the of the failure of the communication link and of a reason for the failure of the communication link to enable the one or more components to take action based on the reason,

wherein the alerting comprises providing notification of the failure of the communication link or exposing a status of the communication link and receiving polling from the one or more components.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the one or more components include an operating system, a connection manager, or an application.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise analyzing one or more radio link layer logs to identify the one or more components.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the alerting includes alerting a transmission control protocol (TCP) layer component, analyzing a TCP layer log, identifying one or more applications from the TCP layer log, and alerting the one or more applications.

18. A network device comprising:

a processor;

a radio chipset coupled to the processor, associated with a radio link layer of a communication stack, and configured to establish a radio communication link to a network and determine that the radio communication link has failed;

one or more components coupled to the radio chipset and the processor, associated with one or more other layers of the communication stack, and configured to receive an alert of the failure of the radio communication link,

wherein the radio chipset is further configured to provide or make available the alert to the one or more components.

19. The network device of claim 18, wherein the one or more components include an application controller or connection manager configured to receive the alert, determine one or more applications with active connections, and provide the alert to the applications.

20. The network device of claim 18, wherein the radio chipset include a radio link analyzer to detect loss of the radio communication link, wait for a time period, and when the radio communication link is not reestablished, determine that the radio communication link has failed.