Network access and quality of service troubleshooting

• US 7,830,816 B1
• Filed: 08/13/2007
• Issued: 11/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Gonzalez, Jose A., Mariscal, Matt, Lushear, Brian, Szymanski, Todd, Ham, David M., Parrott, Steve D., Shinholster, Drew A. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Corsaro; Nick
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nair; Sowmini
• Application Number:
  US11/838,175
• Time in Patent Office: 1,184 Days
• Field of Search: 370/245, 370/252, 370/216, 370/237, 709/223
• US Class Current: 370/252
• 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 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0864 Round trip delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput

Abstract

A method of maintaining a communication service is disclosed. The method comprises providing a communication path from a customer premises equipment (CPE) in a customer network to a port of a router located in a communication service provider network, wherein the port is allocated to the CPE, and wherein the customer network is different from the communication service provider network. The method also comprises determining a connectivity of the communication path from the CPE to the port of the router and determining an interface status of the port located on the router. The method also comprises determining a quality of service (QoS) of the communication path from the CPE to the port located on the router. Determining the connectivity and QoS of the communication path and determining the interface status of the port are initiated from the CPE.

Claims

1. A method of maintaining a communication service, comprising:

providing a communication path from a customer premises equipment (CPE) in a customer network to a port of a router located in a communication service provider network, wherein the port is allocated to the CPE, and wherein the customer network is different from the communication service provider network;

receiving one or more status queries by a query tool in the communication service provider network based on a request from a user interface presented by a computer in the customer network coupled to the CPE;

polling the port of the router by the query tool in response to the query tool receiving the one or more status queries, the polling obtains operational parameters of the port;

returning the operational parameters of the port obtained by the query tool to the user interface;

determining based on the operational parameters of the port returned to the user interface a connectivity of the communication path from the CPE in the customer network to the port of the router in the communication service provider network;

determining based on the operational parameters of the port returned to the user interface a status of an interface to the port of the router in the communication service provider network; and

determining based on the operational parameters of the port returned to the user interface a quality of service (QoS) of the communication path from the CPE to the port of the router in the communication service provider network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the connectivity and the QoS of the communication path and determining the status of the interface is performed in real time.

3. The method of claim 1, further including determining by the query tool a possible root cause of one of the status of the interface and the QoS of the communication path and determining a recommended network management action based on the possible root cause.

4. The method of claim 1, further including determining a latency of the communication path, wherein determining the latency is initiated via a status query invoking a ping functionality of the query tool in the communication service provider network, and wherein the latency of the communication path is based, at least in part, on a round trip time of one or more pings initiated by the query tool from the port of the router to the CPE and back to the port of the router.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining the latency includes determining a maximum round trip time, a minimum round trip time, and an average round trip time of a plurality of pings.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the QoS is based on the operational parameters of the port of the router including at least one of a current router port queue depth, an average router port queue depth, an offered throughput rate, and a drop rate.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the operational parameters of the port returned to the user interface comprise counter values of the port, and wherein determining the interface status of the port on the router is based on the counter values of the port of the router, wherein the counter values include at least one of a count of input packet discards, a count of output packet discards, a count of input errors, a count of output errors, and a count of interface resets.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface executes on a computer in the customer network.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein polling the port of the router by the query tool further comprises initiating a ping by the query tool from the router to the CPE.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the time between receiving the one or more status queries and returning the operational parameters of the port of the router obtained by the query tool to the user interface is less than about ten seconds.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication service comprises a virtual private network (VPN) functionality based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS).

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising comparing the QoS of the communication path with a service level agreement (SLA) associated with the communication service, thereby confirming the communication service, wherein determining the connectivity and the QoS of the communication path are initiated by a subscriber of the communication service.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the subscriber of the communication service initiates determining the connectivity and QoS of the communication services by clicking on a button presented by the user interface that causes an asynchronous JAVASCRIPT request (AJAX) to be sent to a web server in the communication service provider network, wherein executing the AJAX request on the web server causes a simple network management protocol (SNMP) message to be sent from the query tool to the port of the router to obtain the operational parameters of the port of the router, and wherein the port of the router replies to the SNMP message by returning an SNMP message containing the operational parameters of the port of the router.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface executes on a computer in the service provider network.

15. The method of claim 1, further including the query tool determining the condition of the communication service in real-time in response to invocation.