System and method for monitoring interlayer devices and optimizing network performance

• US 8,238,253 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2007
• Issued: 08/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Embarq Holdings Company LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Morrill, Robert J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Chi
• Assistant Examiner(s): MENSAH, PRINCE AKWASI
• Application Number:
  US11/809,887
• Publication Number:
  US 20080049631A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,895 Days
• Field of Search: 370/236.1, 370216-228, 370241-253, 709/203, 709/220, 709/223, 709/224, 709/227
• US Class Current: 370/241
• 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 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices

Abstract

A method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance including generating network performance information data indicative of network transmission characteristics from one of a data link layer device, physical layer device, network layer device, transport layer device, session layer device, presentation layer device, and application layer device; including the network performance information data in a data packet; communicating the network performance information data in the data packet from one of the data link layer device, physical layer device, network layer device, transport layer device, session layer device, presentation layer device, and application layer device to a data link layer device; and in response to receiving the network performance information data, optimizing network performance by performing a function by the data link layer device. A system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance is also included.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance comprising:

receiving a data packet that includes network performance information data indicative of network transmission characteristics at a data link layer of a network device;

determining at the data link layer of the network device whether there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network using the network performance information data;

responsive to a determination at the data link layer of the network device that there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network, communicating from data link layer of the network device to a physical layer of the network device information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network;

in response to the physical layer of the network device receiving said information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network from the data link layer of the device, optimizing, at the physical layer of the network device, network performance to overcome the degradation in the transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network; and

communicating the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a transport layer of the network device, wherein the transport layer alters network traffic by modify the window size of the TCP Sliding window.

2. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein optimizing network performance includes reducing a number of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation windows.

3. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein optimizing network performance includes changing alternative transmission schema.

4. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein said optimizing includes routing a data transmission to an alternative physical link.

5. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, further comprising communicating the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a network layer of the network device, wherein the network layer alters network traffic routing to reroute packets around the least one link in the network, which includes moving a session from one network operator to another network operator.

6. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, further comprising communicating the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a session layer of the network device, wherein the session layer alters network traffic by adjusting the quantity of packets in a session.

7. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, further comprising communicating the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a presentation layer of the network device, wherein the presentation layer alters network traffic by dynamically controlling a video codec, wherein the dynamically controlling includes the ability to force a repeat of the last video frame, reduce frame quality, frame resolution, frame size, and frame rate.

8. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, further comprising communicating the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to an application layer of the network device, wherein said application layer device performs one of informing a user of the status of said network, disconnecting said user from said network, suggesting to said user to attempt re-connecting to said network, controlling communications to manage multiple real-time sessions when said user exceeds available communications resources, communicating statistics to said user reflecting their real-time data usage versus total bandwidth, communicating statistics to said user reflecting their session usage of real-time bandwidth, and presenting one of CODEC and sessions selections to said user for their selection.

9. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, further comprising:

concatenating indicia of the bandwidth of the data packets including real-time content and total data packets into said data packet.

10. A system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance comprising:

a network device configured to communicate using a data link layer, a physical layer, a network layer, a transport layer, a session layer, a presentation layer, and an application layer, the network device configured to;

determine network performance information data indicative of network transmission characteristics, which includes determining whether there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network using the network performance information data;

responsive to a determination at the data link layer of the network device that there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network, communicate to the physical layer device of the network device information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network;

in response to the physical layer of the network device receiving said information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network from the data link layer of the device, optimizing, at the physical layer of the network device, network performance to overcome the degradation in the transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network; and

communicate the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a transport layer of the network device, wherein the transport layer alters network traffic by modify the window size of the TCP Sliding window.

11. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein optimizing network performance includes reducing a number of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation windows.

12. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein optimizing network performance includes changing alternative transmission schema.

13. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said function of said physical layer device is configured to one of route a data transmission to an alternative physical link.

14. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said network device is further configured to communicate the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a network layer of the network device, wherein the network layer alters network traffic routing to reroute packets around the least one link in the network, which includes moving a session from one network operator to another network operator.

15. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said network device is further configured to communicate the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a session layer of the network device, wherein the session layer alters network traffic by adjusting the quantity of packets in a session.

16. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said network device is further configured to communicate the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to a presentation layer of the network device, wherein the presentation layer alters network traffic by dynamically controlling a video codec, wherein the dynamically controlling includes the ability to force a repeat of the last video frame, reduce frame quality, frame resolution, frame size, and frame rate.

17. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said network device is further configured to communicate the information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network to an application layer of the network device, wherein said application layer device is configured to one of inform a user of the status of said network, disconnect said user from said network, suggest to said user to attempt re-connecting to said network, control communications to manage multiple real-time sessions when said user exceeds available communications resources, communicate statistics to said user reflecting their real-time data usage versus total bandwidth, communicate statistics to said user reflecting their session usage of real-time bandwidth, and present one of CODEC and sessions selections to said user for their selection.

18. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said data packets are IEEE standard 802.1AG data packets.

19. The system for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 10, wherein said data link layer device includes an ITU-T Y.1731 module configured to separately count total data packets and data packets including real-time content.