Capability-based testing and evaluation of network performance

• US 7,894,357 B2
• Filed: 02/06/2007
• Issued: 02/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Purpura, William J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Trost, IV; William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jiang; Charles C
• Application Number:
  US11/702,745
• Publication Number:
  US 20070206511A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,477 Days
• Field of Search: 370/241, 370/252, 716/100, 716/102, 716/106, 709227-229, 718/100, 718102-107
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76

Abstract

A method for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network. From a set of predefined network capabilities, one or more of the network capabilities is attributed to an application of the network. Activity of the application running in the network is sampled to individually monitor each capability attributed to the application. This method allows the collection and evaluation of usage information for each application by network capability. A user can also manipulate a NCO environment by adding phantom nodes and/or resources to observe effects on capability loads.

Claims

1. A method for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network including a plurality of nodes having one or more applications, the method comprising:

predefining an ordered relationship hierarchy of network capabilities providable by applications in the network;

attributing, from the hierarchy, one or more of the network capabilities to a given application of the network;

modeling each of the one or more attributed capabilities of the given application, the modeling being executed by at least one processor;

using the processor to evaluate use of one or more network resources by the modeled capability as the given application executes in the network; and

based on the modeling, using the processor to determine and provide to a user a capability-specific loading of the network by the given application; and

further using the ordered relationship hierarchy to establish an order in which the processor evaluates the one or more network capabilities.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the given application is included in a given node of the network, the method further comprising performing the attributing and the modeling for each application of the given node;

and based on the modeling, determining a capability-specific loading of the network by the given node.

3. The method of claim 2, performed for every node in the network to determine a total capability-specific loading of the network.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

monitoring use of a resource of the network by a given one of the capabilities; and

based on the monitoring, identifying one or more applications causing a cumulative level of loading by the given one of the capabilities to exceed a predetermined level.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising disabling the one or more identified applications.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

adding one or more applications to the network which emulate network activity; and

performing the attributing and the modeling to observe one or more effects by the one or more added applications on performance of the network.

7. The method of claim 6, performed to predict performance of the network.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the further comprises defining interoperability as the first capability for evaluation within the ordered relationship hierarchy of capabilities.

9. A method for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network including a plurality of nodes having one or more applications, the method comprising:

predefining an ordered relationship hierarchy of network capabilities providable by applications in the network;

for each of a plurality of applications of the network, attributing to the application one or more of the network capabilities and conditioning each of the one or more network capabilities attributed to the application by one or more performance parameters for the application;

using at least one processor to model each of the one or more network capabilities as conditioned by the application performance parameters to evaluate use of one or more network resources by the modeled capability as the plurality of applications execute in the network;

sampling use of a given resource in the network to monitor each of the one or more network capabilities; and

further using the ordered relationship hierarchy to establish an order in which the processor evaluates use of the one or more network capabilities;

based on the modeling and the monitoring, using the at least one processor to determine and provide to a user a capability-specific loading of the given resource by each one of the network capabilities; and

based on the evaluated use of the one or more network resources, identifying one or more applications causing a cumulative level of loading by a given one of the network capabilities to exceed a predetermined level.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the sampling is performed on each of the plurality of applications executing in the network.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the hierarchy is ordered based on relative dependencies intrinsic to the capabilities.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the ordered relationship hierarchy of capabilities specifies an order in which the capabilities are evaluated, the method comprising predefining interoperability as the first capability for evaluation.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the network capabilities include interoperability, information assurance, data management, knowledge management, and collaboration in communities of interest.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the method is performed to determine a trend of a cumulative level of resource use by at least one of the predefined network capabilities.

15. A system for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network including a plurality of nodes having one or more applications, the system comprising one or more computers configured to:

predefine an ordered relationship hierarchy of network capabilities providable by applications in the network;

attribute one or more of the predefined network capabilities of the hierarchy to the applications;

for substantially each application running in the network, for each of one or more predefined network capabilities attributed to the application, model resource usage by the application in support of the attributed network capability; and

use the modeled usage to monitor, by network capability, network resource usage; and

further use the ordered relationship hierarchy to establish an order in which the one or more computers evaluates the one or more network capabilities.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more computers are further configured to compare a level of resource use for one of the network capabilities to a predetermined performance level to monitor the one of the capabilities.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more computers are further configured to use one or more performance parameters associated with the one or more predefined network capabilities to model the resource usage.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more computers are further configured to sample resource usage by substantially each application running in the network to obtain a cumulative level of resource usage for each predefined network capability.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more computers are further configured to monitor, by capability, network resource usage by one or more of the nodes.

20. A method for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network having a plurality of applications, the method comprising:

predefining an ordered relationship hierarchy of network capabilities in which an interoperability capability is the basis for the other predefined capabilities;

attributing one or more of the capabilities of the hierarchy to each application;

using at least one processor to dynamically monitor resource usage by a selected one of the capabilities across the applications, and using the at least one processor to determine a cumulative value for the monitored resource usage;

using the at least one processor to determine when the cumulative value exceeds a predetermined value that affects the performance of the network; and

providing a result of the determining to a user.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising identifying an application and an attributed capability of the application causing the cumulative value to exceed the predetermined value.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the cumulative value is compared to a minimum level for the selected capability, the minimum level defined to support a required overall mission probability of capability effectiveness.

23. A method for real-time monitoring of the performance of a network including a plurality of nodes having one or more applications, the method comprising:

predefining an ordered relationship hierarchy of network capabilities providable by applications in the network;

attributing, from the hierarchy, one or more of the network capabilities to a given application of the network;

modeling each of the one or more attributed capabilities of the given application, the modeling being executed by at least one processor;

using the processor to evaluate use of one or more network resources by the modeled capability as the given application executes in the network;

based on the modeling, using the processor to determine and provide to a user a capability-specific loading of the network by the given application;

monitoring use of a resource of the network by a given one of the capabilities; and

based on the monitoring, identifying one or more applications causing a cumulative level of loading by the given one of the capabilities to exceed a predetermined level.