Priority-based network fault analysis

• US 8,068,432 B2
• Filed: 11/12/2004
• Issued: 11/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Natarajan, Srikanth, Wong, Kam Chooi, Walker, Anthony Paul Michael, Smith, Darren D., Huonder, Russell John, Rhodes, David M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Harper; Kevin C
• Assistant Examiner(s): MURPHY, RHONDA L
• Application Number:
  US10/986,966
• Publication Number:
  US 20060104208A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,573 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/242
• 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 41/0677 Localisation of faults
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route

Abstract

A method and system for reducing fault analysis times in a network having a plurality of pollable objects. Poll responses are received from pollable objects, priorities are assigned to each received poll response in accordance with one or more of a received poll response value, a pollable object status and a type of pollable object, and the assigned priorities are processed and to determine any fault locations, wherein a pollable object with a higher priority is processed before a second pollable object with a lower priority. A status manager is operable to receive poll responses from one or more of the pollable objects, a status analyzer is operable to assign, in conjunction with one or more analyzers, priorities to each received poll response in accordance with the received poll response value, a pollable object status and a type of pollable object, and analyzers coupled the status analyzer use the assigned priorities and the corresponding received poll responses to determine a fault location.

Claims

1. A method for reducing network infrastructure fault analysis times in a network comprising a plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects, comprising:

determining a fault area within the network, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects not containing faults that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

sending polls targeting each network infrastructure object within the fault area;

receiving poll responses from the pollable network infrastructure objects within the fault area;

assigning priorities to each received poll response of the received poll responses; and

processing the assigned priorities of the received poll responses and the corresponding received poll responses to determine any network infrastructure fault locations within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a poll result of a pollable network infrastructure object with a higher priority is processed before a second poll result of a second pollable network infrastructure object with a lower priority.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network infrastructure fault analysis times are selected from the group consisting of:

mean time from failure to report of root cause;

mean time from failure to fix of root cause; and

mean time from failure to processing of all impacted network infrastructure devices.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising using more than one thread to poll the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising listing and sorting by priority the received poll responses with assigned priorities.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising using one or more threads to analyze the received poll responses.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein an UP pollable network infrastructure object status and a DOWN pollable network infrastructure object status has a higher priority than a NORESPONSE pollable network infrastructure object status.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a default priority, wherein the default priority is set in accordance with one or more of the pollable network infrastructure object status and a poll response value.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising setting the default priority to one or more of:

High, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is DOWN;

Medium, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of UP and MARGINAL;

Low, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of UNDETERMINED and NORESPONSE; and

Very Low, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is VALIDATE.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising overriding the default priority using one or more of the pollable network infrastructure object type and the pollable network infrastructure object status.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising overriding the default priority to one of:

High, when the pollable network infrastructure object is one of an Egress router and a gateway router and the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of DOWN, UP, UNDETERMINED, and UNRESPONSIVE; and

Medium High, when the pollable network infrastructure object is one of a node, interface and IP address and the pollable network infrastructure object status is UP and a previous pollable network infrastructure object status value is one of DOWN and MARGINAL.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning pollable network infrastructure objects in a Fault Area a higher priority than pollable network infrastructure objects in a Far-From-Fault Area.

12. A system operable to reduce network infrastructure fault analysis times of a network comprising a plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects, the system comprising:

a status manager operable to receive poll responses from each of the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects within a fault area, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects not containing faults that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

a status analyzer operable to assign, in conjunction with one or more analyzers, priorities to each received poll response of the received poll responses; and

one or more analyzers coupled to the status analyzer, said one or more analyzers operable to use the assigned priorities of the received poll responses and the corresponding received poll responses to determine a network infrastructure fault location within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a poll response for a pollable network infrastructure object with a higher priority is processed before a second poll response for a second pollable network infrastructure object with a lower priority.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the type of pollable network infrastructure object is selected from the group consisting of a gateway device, an egress device, an end node, a network electronic component and a node.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the pollable network infrastructure object status is selected from the group consisting of UP, DOWN, MARGINAL, UNDETERMINED, NORESPONSE, and VALIDATE.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the received poll response value is one of reachable AND unreachable.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein pollable network infrastructure objects in a Fault Area are operable to be processed before pollable network infrastructure objects in a Far-From-Fault Area.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the network infrastructure fault analysis times are selected from the group consisting of:

mean time from failure to report of root cause;

mean time from failure to fix of root cause; and

mean time from failure to processing of all impacted network infrastructure devices.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein more than one thread produced by a poller is used to poll the plurality of network infrastructure objects.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the status analyzer lists and sorts by priority the received poll responses with assigned priorities.

20. The system of claim 12, wherein one or more analyzers of the status analyzer are operable to process the assigned priorities and the received poll responses to determine the network infrastructure fault location.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the status analyzer is operable to select which analyzer of the one or more analyzers is used to process the assigned priorities and the received poll responses to determine the network infrastructure fault location.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the analyzer assigns the assigned priority.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein more than one thread is used by the one or more analyzers.

24. A method for analyzing a network comprising a plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects, the method comprising:

initializing one or more analyzer threads;

scheduling for polling pollable network infrastructure objects within a fault area, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects not containing faults that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

one or more polling threads polling each of the pollable network infrastructure objects;

placing received poll responses in a queue wherein the received poll responses are ordered when received in the queue based upon priority; and

the one or more analyzer threads processing the received poll responses of the queue to determine one or more network infrastructure fault locations within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a poll result of a pollable network infrastructure object with a higher priority is processed before a second poll result of a second pollable network infrastructure object with a lower priority.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising using one or more threads to process the assigned priorities and the received poll responses.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising assigning the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a default priority, wherein the default priority is set in accordance with one or more of a pollable network infrastructure object status and a poll response value.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising overriding the default priority using one or more of the pollable network infrastructure object type and the pollable network infrastructure object status.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising setting the default priority to one or more of:

High, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is DOWN;

Medium, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of UP and MARGINAL;

Low, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of UNDETERMINED and NORESPONSE; and

Very Low, when the pollable network infrastructure object status is VALIDATE.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising overriding the default priority to one of:

High, when the pollable network infrastructure object is one of an Egress router and a gateway router and the pollable network infrastructure object status is one of DOWN, UP, UNDETERMINED, and UNRESPONSIVE; and

Medium High, when the pollable network infrastructure object is one of a node, interface and IP address and the pollable network infrastructure object status is UP and a previous pollable network infrastructure object status value is one of DOWN and MARGINAL.

30. The method of claim 24, further comprising assigning pollable network infrastructure objects in a Fault Area a higher priority than pollable network infrastructure objects in a Far-From-Fault Area.

31. A system operable to analyze pollable network infrastructure objects of a network, comprising:

one or more analyzer threads operable to schedule pollable network infrastructure objects to be polled within a fault area, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects not containing faults that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

one or more polling threads operable to poll each of the pollable network infrastructure objects within the fault area;

a status manager operable to receive poll responses from the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects;

a status analyzer operable to assign, in conjunction with one or more analyzers, a priority to each received poll response when received,

wherein the status analyzer is operable to place the received poll responses in a queue sorted by priority; and

one or more analyzers coupled to the status analyzer and operable to process the received poll responses in the queue to determine the location of any network infrastructure faults within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a pollable network infrastructure object with a high priority is processed before a second pollable network infrastructure object with a low priority.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein more than one thread is operable to be used to poll the plurality of network infrastructure objects.

33. The system of claim 31, wherein one or more analyzers are coupled with the status analyzer, said one or more analyzers operable to process the assigned priorities and the received poll responses to determine the network infrastructure fault location.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the status analyzer is operable to select which analyzer of the one or more analyzers is used to process the assigned priorities and the received poll responses to determine a network infrastructure fault location.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the status analyzer is operable to assign a default priority, wherein the default priority is set in accordance with one or more of a pollable network infrastructure object status and a poll response value.

36. The system of claim 33, wherein an analyzer of one or more analyzers is operable to override the default priority using one or more of the pollable network infrastructure object type and the pollable network infrastructure object status.

37. The system of claim 31, wherein more than one thread is usable by the one or more analyzers.

38. The system of claim 31, wherein an analyzer that analyzes a pollable network infrastructure object marks one or more of the pollable network infrastructure object, neighbor nodes of the pollable network infrastructure object, and devices connected to the pollable network infrastructure object busy until the analyzer has finished the analysis.

39. The system of claim 31, wherein if a pollable network infrastructure object that comprises an assigned priority is busy, then an analyzer skips analysis of the pollable network infrastructure object and selects a next item from the queue.

40. The system of claim 31, wherein pollable network infrastructure objects in a Fault Area are operable to be processed before pollable network infrastructure objects in a Far-From-Fault Area.

41. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed on a programmed processor, reduce network infrastructure fault analysis time in a network, comprising:

instructions for receiving poll responses from each pollable network infrastructure objects within a fault area, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects not containing faults that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

instructions for assigning priorities to each received poll response of the received poll responses; and

instructions for processing the assigned priorities of the received poll responses and the corresponding received poll responses to determine any network infrastructure fault locations within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a poll result of a pollable network infrastructure object with a higher priority is processed before a second poll result of a second pollable network infrastructure object with a lower priority.

42. A system for locating a network infrastructure fault in a network, comprising:

means for receiving poll responses from each pollable network infrastructure objects within a fault area, the fault area comprising a portion of the network comprising network infrastructure objects that contain a fault and network infrastructure objects not containing faults that are directly connected to the network infrastructure objects that contain a fault;

means for assigning, in conjunction with one or more analyzers, priorities to each received poll response of the received poll responses; and

means for using the assigned priorities of the received poll responses and the corresponding received poll responses to determine a network infrastructure fault location within the fault area, wherein for the plurality of pollable network infrastructure objects a poll response for a pollable network infrastructure object with a higher priority is processed before a second poll response for a second pollable network infrastructure object with a lower priority.