Service level view of audiovisual conference systems

• US 8,441,516 B2
• Filed: 10/07/2008
• Issued: 05/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Satyanarayanan, Ottalingam, Saswade, Sachin, Lizambri, Todd
• Primary Examiner(s): Brandt, Christopher M
• Application Number:
  US12/246,895
• Publication Number:
  US 20100085417A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,680 Days
• Field of Search: 348/14.08, 348/14.09
• US Class Current: 348/14.09
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems

Abstract

In an embodiment, a machine-readable volatile or non-volatile storage medium stores one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform monitoring a plurality of video conference locations, each of the locations comprising one or more video conference rooms, resulting in creating and storing monitored data; generating service level view data which when displayed on a video display unit concurrently comprises graphical representations of all the locations and all the rooms, and graphical representations of faults associated with each of the rooms. Rooms can include coder-decoders (codecs), cameras, video monitors, and network packet data routing or switching elements. Embodiments provide a holistic view of all video conference rooms in a deployment, with aggregated call usage, quality and fault data, with highly useful graphical management displays.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform:

monitoring a plurality of video conference locations, each of the locations comprising one or more video conference rooms, resulting in creating and storing monitored data;

based on the monitored data, generating service level view data which when displayed on a video display unit cause displaying of a service level view comprising concurrent graphical representations of all the locations and all the rooms, and graphical representations of faults associated with each of the rooms;

organizing the service level view data which when displayed on the video display unit cause displaying of the service level view that presents all rooms associated with a plurality of different customers each having a plurality of locations and a plurality of rooms within the locations.

2. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the graphical representations of faults are generated and displayed in near real time in relation to a time at which the monitoring is performed.

3. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total calls previously processed by all the locations and rooms;

total number of then currently active video conference meetings involving all the locations and rooms;

or percentage of current usage of all the locations and rooms.

4. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total number of all the rooms;

total number of devices in all the rooms.

5. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total number of travel mileage saved from use of all the video conference locations and rooms;

total cost savings from use of all the video conference locations and rooms.

6. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying the rooms as selectable hyperlinks associated with the rooms, receiving user input selecting one of the hyperlinks, and displaying room level view data for that room associated with the selected one of the hyperlinks.

7. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying a table of alerts associated with all rooms shown in the service level view, wherein the alerts comprise alert identifiers, alert names, and one or more of the selectable hyperlinks which when selected cause launching one or more of a trouble ticket system and an impact analysis system.

8. The machine-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the room level view data comprises a graphical representation of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements, and comprises a graphical representation of a fault status of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements;

further comprising instructions which when executed cause re-displaying the table of alerts to show only those alerts that are associated with the room represented in the room level view.

9. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions which when executed cause displaying in association with the service level view one or more graphical representations of currently active paths connecting two or more rooms that are currently involved in a video conference call.

10. The machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein monitoring the rooms comprises monitoring, in each of the rooms, one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements.

11. A data processing apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors;

means for monitoring a plurality of video conference locations, each of the locations comprising one or more video conference rooms, resulting in creating and storing monitored data;

means for generating, based on the monitored data, service level view data which when displayed on a video display unit cause displaying of a service level view comprising concurrent graphical representations of all the locations and all the rooms, and graphical representations of faults associated with each of the rooms;

means for organizing the service level view data which when displayed on the video display unit cause displaying of the service level view that presents all rooms associated with a plurality of different customers each having a plurality of locations and a plurality of rooms within the locations.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for generating and displaying graphical representations of faults in near real time in relation to a time at which the monitoring is performed.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total calls previously processed by all the locations and rooms;

total number of then currently active video conference meetings involving all the locations and rooms;

or percentage of current usage of all the locations and rooms.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total number of all the rooms;

total number of devices in all the rooms.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total number of travel mileage saved from use of all the video conference locations and rooms;

total cost savings from use of all the video conference locations and rooms.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for displaying the rooms as selectable hyperlinks associated with the rooms, receiving user input selecting one of the hyperlinks, and displaying room level view data for that room associated with the selected one of the hyperlinks.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising means for displaying a table of alerts associated with all rooms shown in the service level view, wherein the alerts comprise alert identifiers, alert names, and one or more of the selectable hyperlinks which when selected cause launching one or more of a trouble ticket system and an impact analysis system.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the room level view data comprises a graphical representation of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements, and comprises a graphical representation of a fault status of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements;

further comprising means for re-displaying the table of alerts to show only those alerts that are associated with the room represented in the room level view.

19. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein further comprising means for displaying in association with the service level view one or more graphical representations of currently active paths connecting two or more rooms that are currently involved in a video conference call.

20. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the means for monitoring the rooms comprises means for monitoring, in each of the rooms, one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements.

21. A data processing method, comprising:

monitoring a plurality of video conference locations, each of the locations comprising one or more video conference rooms, each of the rooms comprising one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements, resulting in creating and storing monitored data;

generating service level view data which when displayed on a video display unit cause displaying of a service level view comprising concurrent graphical representations of all the locations and all the rooms, and graphical representations of faults associated with each of the rooms;

organizing the service level view data which when displayed on the video display unit cause displaying of the service level view that presents all rooms associated with a plurality of different customers each having a plurality of locations and plurality of rooms within the location.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising displaying in association with the service level view one or more of:

total number of travel mileage saved from use of all the video conference locations and rooms;

total cost savings from use of all the video conference locations and rooms.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising displaying the rooms as selectable hyperlinks associated with the rooms, receiving user input selecting one of the hyperlinks, and displaying room level view data for that room associated with the selected one of the hyperlinks.

24. The method of claim 21, further comprising displaying a table of alerts associated with all rooms shown in the service level view, wherein the alerts comprise alert identifiers, alert names, and one or more of the selectable hyperlinks which when selected cause launching one or more of a trouble ticket system and an impact analysis system.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the room level view data comprises a graphical representation of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements, and comprises a graphical representation of a fault status of one or more codecs, one or more cameras, one or more video monitors, and one or more network packet data routing or switching elements;

further comprising re-displaying the table of alerts to show only those alerts that are associated with the room represented in the room level view.

26. The method of claim 21, further comprising displaying in association with the service level view one or more graphical representations of currently active paths connecting two or more rooms that are currently involved in a video conference call.