System and method for managing network communications

• US 9,154,634 B2
• Filed: 10/21/2013
• Issued: 10/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wiley, William L., Bugenhagen, Michael K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Yuen, Kan
• Application Number:
  US14/058,781
• Publication Number:
  US 20140043977A1
• Time in Patent Office: 715 Days
• Field of Search: 370/238, 370241-252, 370/401, 709223-225, 709238-241
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/28 using route fault recovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/304 Route determination for signalling traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/32 by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 QOS or priority aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0057 Services where the data services network provides a telephone service in addition or as an alternative, e.g. for backup purposes, to the telephone service provided by the telephone services network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0066 Details of access arrangements to the networks where the access arrangement is a PSTN/ISDN access H04M7/122
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0075 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing

Abstract

The disclosed embodiments include a computer implemented method for managing network communications. In one embodiment, the method includes gathering, using performance information packet (PIP) data packets, network performance information from a communications network that includes network performance information from a set of egress points between the communications network and an outside network. The method selects a network connection including an egress point and an egress packet path within the communications network to the egress point offering the best quality of service between the communications network and an outside network based on the network performance information. The method then establishes the network connection between the communications network and the outside network for routing communications.

Claims

1. A method for managing network communications, the method comprising:

gathering network performance information from a communications network using performance information packet (PIP) data packets, wherein gathering network performance information from the communications network includes gathering network performance information from a set of egress points between the communications network and an outside network, and wherein the network performance information for each egress point is attached to an end of a performance information payload of the PIP data packets;

sending a PIP data packet to a network device causing network performance issues, wherein the PIP data packet gathers diagnostic data regarding the network performance issues;

sharing the network performance information among the plurality of communicating networks;

selecting a network connection including an egress point and an egress packet path within the communications network to the egress point offering a best quality of service between the communications network and an outside network based on the network performance information; and

establishing the network connection between the communications network and the outside network for routing communications.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the outside network is either of a publicly switched telephone network or a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network connection is used for routing both ingress and egress communications.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein selecting the network connection comprises choosing the network connection from a plurality of network connections, wherein the network connection least negatively affects the performance of a remainder of the communications network.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein selecting the network connection comprises avoiding network devices that are experiencing problems to establish the network connection.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the network devices are any of a gateway, access point, connection admission control engine, server, and network-to-network interface.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network performance information includes historical information for the communications network.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein selecting the network connection comprises rating a plurality of network connections to establish the network connection with the best quality of service.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the rating is performed for one or more network entities based on any of latency, jitter, packet loss, percentage of real-time traffic, and real-time bandwidth.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the rating is performed based on weighted ratings for the plurality of network connections.

11. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

switching from the network connection to a second network connection in response to determining the second network connection provides the best quality of service.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

compiling network performance information for the plurality of communicating networks.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network performance information is received in real-time.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the PIP data packets are generated by a plurality of network nodes along a plurality of egress packet paths within the communications network, wherein the PIP data packets comprise at least some of the network performance information in at least one of a header portion and a payload portion, the method further comprising:

analyzing one or more of bandwidth, utilization, latency, jitter, or packet loss for each of the plurality of egress packet paths, based on the gathered network performance information from the PIP data packets.

15. A network management system comprising:

a processor configured to execute a set of instructions;

a memory configured to store the set of instructions that when executed using the processor performs operations comprising;

gathering network performance information from a communications network using performance information packet (PIP) data packets, wherein gathering network performance information from the communications network includes gathering network performance information from a set of egress points between the communications network and an outside network, and wherein the network performance information for each egress point is attached to an end of a performance information payload of the PIP data packets;

sending a PIP data packet to a network device causing network performance issues, wherein the PIP data packet gathers diagnostic data regarding the network performance issues;

sharing the network performance information among the plurality of communicating networks;

selecting a network connection including an egress point and an egress packet path within the communications network to the egress point offering a best quality of service between the communications network and an outside network based on the network performance information; and

establishing the network connection between the communications network and the outside network for routing communications.

16. The network management system according to claim 15, wherein the operations further comprises sharing the network performance information among a plurality of communicating networks.

17. The network management system according to claim 15, wherein the operations further comprises switching from the network connection to a second network connection in response to a determination that the second network connection provides a better quality of service than the network connection.

18. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for managing network communications, the computer executable instructions when executed causes one or more machines to perform operations comprising:

gathering network performance information from a communications network using performance information packet (PIP) data packets, wherein gathering network performance information from the communications network includes gathering network performance information from a set of egress points between the communications network and an outside network, and wherein the network performance information for each egress point is attached to an end of a performance information payload of the PIP data packets;

sending a PIP data packet to a network device causing network performance issues, wherein the PIP data packet gathers diagnostic data regarding the network performance issues;

sharing the network performance information among the plurality of communicating networks;

selecting a network connection including an egress point and an egress packet path within the communications network to the egress point offering a best quality of service between the communications network and an outside network based on the network performance information; and

establishing the network connection between the communications network and the outside network for routing communications.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprises sharing the network performance information among a plurality of communicating networks.