Dynamic mobile application quality-of-service monitoring and reporting

• US 8,578,020 B2
• Filed: 12/24/2009
• Issued: 11/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cobblestone Wireless, LLC (Bedrock IP Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Inventors: Van Den Bogaert, Etienne A. H., Motte Dit Falisse, Ananda
• Primary Examiner(s): Baturay, Alicia
• Application Number:
  US12/647,256
• Publication Number:
  US 20110161484A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,412 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/32 Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/06 Testing, supervising or monitoring using simulated traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a process for determining a quality-of-service for a mobile application running on a mobile device coupled with a mobile network is presented. The process may be implemented to monitor, on an application layer level, a network usage pattern of the mobile application communicating via the mobile network. The process may emulate the network usage pattern of the mobile application by transmitting or receiving test data via the mobile network. And the process may determine the quality-of-service for the mobile application by analyzing the test data being transmitted or received.

Claims

1. A method for determining a quality-of-service for a mobile application running on a mobile device coupled with a mobile network, comprising:

monitoring, on an application layer level by a monitoring application, a network usage pattern of the mobile application as the mobile application is running on the mobile device and communicating via the mobile network;

emulating, by the monitoring application, the network usage pattern of the mobile application by transmitting or receiving test data via the mobile network; and

determining, by the monitoring application, the quality-of-service for the mobile application by analyzing the test data being transmitted or received.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

identifying the mobile application installed on the mobile device; and

detecting the mobile application being activated on the mobile device.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the identifying of the mobile application further comprising:

identifying the mobile application based on the network usage pattern of the mobile application communicating via the mobile network.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the monitoring of the network usage pattern further comprising:

detecting whether the mobile application is transmitting or receiving application data via the mobile network.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the emulating of the network usage pattern further comprising:

simultaneously transmitting or receiving the test data via the mobile network when the mobile application is transmitting or receiving the application data.

6. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the emulating of the network usage pattern further comprising:

upon a determination that the mobile application is transmitting the application data via the mobile network, simultaneously transmitting the test data via the mobile network; and

upon a determination that the mobile application is receiving the application data via the mobile network, simultaneously receiving the test data via the mobile network.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the emulating of the network usage pattern further comprising:

loading a predefined set of data as the test data; and

transmitting or receiving the predefined set of data to or from a remote monitoring system using the mobile application'"'"'s network transmission mechanism.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the emulating of the network usage pattern further comprising:

emulating the network usage pattern by transmitting or receiving a sample of the test data via the mobile network, wherein the sample of the test data is generated by reducing the test data by a sample rate.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein the determining of the quality-of-service for the mobile application further comprising:

multiplying a network performance measurement, collected from the transmitting or receiving of the sample of the test data, with the sample rate.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining of the quality-of-service for the mobile application further comprising:

collecting a plurality of network performance measurements from the transmitting or receiving of the test data; and

determining the quality-of-service for the mobile application based on the plurality of network performance measurements.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining of the quality-of-service for the mobile application further comprising:

evaluating a transmitting pattern of the test data of the test data being transmitted and received; and

identifying a network problem occurring in the mobile network based on the transmitting pattern.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method is embodied in a non-transitory machine readable medium as a set of instructions which, when executed by a computing processor, cause the computing processor to perform the method.

13. A method for determining a quality-of-service for a mobile application running on a mobile device coupled with a mobile network, comprising:

receiving, from the mobile device, a first request to emulate the mobile application based on a network usage pattern obtained by monitoring the mobile application as the mobile application is running on the mobile device and communicating via the mobile network, wherein the network usage pattern shows the mobile application is receiving application data from the mobile network using a network transmission mechanism;

emulating the network usage pattern of the mobile application by transmitting a first set of test data to the mobile device using the network transmission mechanism; and

receiving, from the mobile device, the quality-of-service for the mobile application based on the transmitting of the first set of test data.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

receiving, from the mobile device, a second request to emulate the mobile application based on the network usage pattern, wherein the network usage pattern shows the mobile application is transmitting the application data to the mobile network using the network transmission mechanism;

emulating the network usage pattern of the mobile application by receiving a second set of test data from the mobile device using the network transmission mechanism; and

receiving, from the mobile device, the quality-of-service for the mobile application based on the receiving of the second set of test data.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further comprising:

receiving, from multiple mobile devices, a plurality of quality-of-services for the mobile application running on each of the multiple mobile devices; and

determining, based on the plurality of quality-of-services, an aggregated quality-of-service for the mobile application running on the multiple mobile devices.

16. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the determining of the quality-of-service for the mobile application further comprising:

selecting an utility function associated with the mobile application;

collecting a plurality of network performance measurements from the transmitting of the first set of test data; and

calculating the quality-of-service by inputting the plurality of network performance measurements to the utility function.

17. A system configured to determine a quality-of-service for a mobile application running on a mobile device, comprising:

a monitoring system configured to connect with a mobile network; and

a monitoring application configured to run on the mobile device and to monitor a network usage pattern of the mobile application as the mobile application is running on the mobile device and communicating via the mobile network,

wherein the network usage pattern indicates whether the mobile application is transmitting or receiving application data to or from the mobile network,

the monitoring application is configured to emulate the network usage pattern of the mobile application in receiving the application data by receiving a first set of test data from the monitoring system, and

the monitoring application is configured to determine the quality-of-service for the mobile application by analyzing the received first set of test data.

18. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein

the monitoring system is configured to emulate the network usage pattern of the mobile application in receiving the application data by transmitting the first set of test data to the monitoring application and receiving a second set of test data from the monitoring application, and

the monitoring system is configured to determine the quality-of-service for the mobile application by analyzing the first set of test data and the second set of test data.

19. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein

the monitoring application is configured to emulate the network usage pattern of the mobile application in transmitting the application data by transmitting a third set of test data to the monitoring system, and

the monitoring system is configured to determine the quality-of-service for the mobile application by analyzing the third set of test data.

20. The system as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

a monitoring queue coupled with the monitoring application and the monitoring system, wherein the monitoring queue is configured to store the first set of data and associate the first set of data with the mobile application.