System and method for monitoring interlayer devices and optimizing network performance

• US 8,472,326 B2
• Filed: 07/05/2012
• Issued: 06/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Morrill, Robert J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Thier, Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): MENSAH, PRINCE AKWASI
• Application Number:
  US13/542,220
• Publication Number:
  US 20120269089A1
• Time in Patent Office: 355 Days
• Field of Search: 370215-228, 370241-253
• 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 system and method is disclosed for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance that includes determining at the data link layer of a network device whether there is degradation in transmission performance over at least one link in the network using network performance information data and if so, the system and method communicates from data link layer of the network device to a second layer of the network device information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network. The system and method optimizes, at the second 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.

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 (Layer

     2) 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 second 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 second 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 second 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

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

2. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is an Application layer (Layer 7) of the network device, wherein said Application layer performs one of informing a user of a 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.

3. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is a Presentation layer (Layer 6) of the network device, wherein the Presentation layer alters network traffic by dynamically controlling a video codec, wherein the dynamically controlling includes forcing a repeat of a last video frame, reduce frame quality, frame resolution, frame size, and frame rate.

4. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is a Session layer (Layer 5) of the network device, wherein the session layer alters network traffic by adjusting a quantity of packets in a session.

5. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is a Transport layer (Layer 4) of the network device, wherein the transport layer alters network traffic by modify a window size of a TCP Sliding window.

6. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is a Network layer (Layer 3) of the network device, wherein the Network layer alters network traffic routing to reroute packets in the network, which includes moving a session from one network operator to another network operator.

7. The method for monitoring and optimizing interlayer network performance of claim 1, wherein the second layer is a Physical layer (Layer 1) of the network device, wherein the physical layer is configured to route a data transmission to an alternative physical link.

8. 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.

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

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

a network device configured to;

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

     2) of the 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 second layer of the network device information regarding the degradation in transmission performance associated with the at least one link in the network; and

in response to the second 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 second 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, wherein the second layer is a Network layer (Layer

     3) of the network device, wherein the Network layer alters network traffic routing to reroute packets in the network, which includes moving a session from one network operator to another network operator.

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 data link layer is configured to separately count total data packets and data packets including real-time content.

14. 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 (Layer

     2) 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 second 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 second 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 second 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, wherein the second layer is a Network layer (Layer

     3) of the network device, wherein the Network layer alters network traffic routing to reroute packets in the network, which includes moving a session from one network operator to another network operator.