Telecommunications network subscriber experience measurement

• US 7,328,262 B2
• Filed: 11/04/2004
• Issued: 02/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetScout Systems Texas, LLC (NetScout Systems Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Aran Communications Ltd. (NetScout Systems Incorporated)
• Inventors: Morrisroe, Thomas, Collins, Augustine, McDonagh, Brendan, Beck, Philip William
• Primary Examiner(s): Le; Lana
• Assistant Examiner(s): GONZALES, APRIL GUZMAN
• Application Number:
  US10/980,248
• Publication Number:
  US 20050097209A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,188 Days
• Field of Search: 455/423, 455/67.11, 455/425, 455/307, 455/226.1, 709/224, 375/350
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• 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 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5087 wherein the managed service relates to voice services management of VoIP services H04M7/0081
• 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 41/5093 wherein the managed service relates to messaging or chat services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0847 Transmission error
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

In a mobile network a packet interface (103) is monitored by a tap (160-163) in a non-intrusive manner. Captured transaction data is uploaded to a probe (155-158) linked to one or more taps. The probe acts as a slave to a server (159), activating and terminating data capture. A coordinator (601) of the probe (155) manages data capture and buffering according to the server. The server (150) filters the data according to a subscriber registry (203) and loads data until there are complete protocol descriptions. These provide real time subscriber-centered QoS metrics.

Claims

1. A management system for a telecommunication network, the management system comprising:

a plurality of taps for monitoring in real time activity at network entity interfaces to provide network transaction data,

a filter for filtering the transaction data on a subscriber identifier basis to provide per-user quality-of-service metrics in real time,

a server for aggregating the metrics and for storing at least some of the metrics and transaction data;

wherein the taps each capture network messages and generate a transaction event record for one or more messages, the transaction records being provided as the transaction data,

wherein there are a plurality of probes located remotely from the server and each is connected to at least one tap,

wherein each probe comprises a task coordinator, and a registry storing data concerning taps presently linked to the probe and characteristics of the network interfaces where the taps are located,

wherein the task coordinator manages commands from the server defining monitoring tasks including start times and end times, and

the task coordinator comprises a function for receiving filtering commands from the server for filtering in the probes.

2. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least some of the taps are non-invasive.

3. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one tap is connected to monitor traffic at a network interface between network elements handling messages for multiple subscribers.

4. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one tap is a software agent executing on a subscriber device.

5. The management system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the software agent executes on a SIM card of a subscriber mobile device or in the device'"'"'s circuit.

6. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the registry holds data concerning mobile terminal configurations.

7. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the probe buffers transaction data for periodic upload to the server.

8. The management system as claimed in claim 7, wherein the server polls the probes for transaction data uploads.

9. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server comprises a collection process associated with each tap or each probe, at least some collection processes performing format conversion or decryption on data received from an associated probe.

10. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server comprises a subscriber registry for storing identifiers of subscribers for whom quality-of-service metrics are to be determined and for transferring identifiers to the filter, located either in the server or in a probe.

11. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server comprises a data loading function for loading filtered data into memory.

12. The management system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the data loading function performs transaction data processing.

13. The management system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the server comprises a filtering memory structure for incomplete records and the data loading function writes filtered data to said memory structure, and monitors the data to determine when a complete protocol procedure description for a subscriber has been loaded, and transfers the complete descriptors as metrics to a complete records memory structure.

14. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server comprises a report generating function for analysing the metrics and generating reports according to operator configurations.

15. The management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server comprises an alarm generating function for analysing the metrics and generating alarms according to operator configurations.

16. The management system as claimed in claim 15, wherein the configurations comprise service level agreements.

17. The management system as claimed in claim 14, wherein the server comprises a publish-and-subscribe mechanism to allow remote mechanisms to receive alarm notifications.

18. The management system as claimed in claim 14, wherein thresholds are set in the report by Key Performance Indicators.

19. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the metrics include:

attach success rate,

time to complete an Attach procedure,

detach success rate,

time to complete Detach procedure,

abnormal termination rate and cause,

PDP Context Activation success rate,

time to complete PDP Context Activation procedure,

PDP Context De-activation success rate,

time to complete PDP Context De-activation procedure,

PDP Context Abnormal De-activation rate &

cause, or

PDP Context Throughput in uplink &

downlink.

20. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the metrics include:

service activation success rate,

service completion success rate,

service average bitrate,

service startup and shutdown latencies,

how often the actual bitrate is within x % of maximum bitrate,

how often SDUs are delivered out of order,

number of SDUs lost or detected as erroneous,

residual bit error rates in SDU'"'"'s subflows,

how often the transfer delay of SDUs is within X % of the maximum allowed, or

how often the actual bitrate is within x % of guaranteed bitrate.

21. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the metrics

are classified in one or more of:

a conversation class of telephony speech, VoIP, audio conferencing, or VPN,

a streaming class of one-way video streams (e.g. sports highlights, music videos, security camera feeds), or one-way audio streams (e.g. music or sound broadcasts),

an interactive class of database retrieval, client/server interactions, browsing and Internet access, WAP access, process control, remote sensing, remote control, or file transfer, and

a background class;

non-urgent measurement collection, email, or SMS/MMS.

22. A management system for a telecommunication network, the management system comprising:

a plurality of taps for monitoring in real time activity at network entity interfaces to provide network transaction data,

a filter for filtering the transaction data on a subscriber identifier basis to provide per-user quality-of-service metrics in real time,

a server for aggregating the metrics and for storing at least some of the metrics and transaction data;

wherein the taps each capture network messages and generate a transaction event record for one or more messages, the transaction records being provided as the transaction data,

wherein there are a plurality of probes located remotely from the server and each is connected to at least one tap,

wherein each probe comprises a task coordinator, and a registry storing data concerning taps presently linked to the probe and characteristics of the network interfaces where the taps are located,

wherein the task coordinator manages commands from the server defining monitoring tasks including start times and end times, and

the task coordinator comprises a function for receiving filtering commands from the server for filtering in the probes;

wherein the probe buffers transaction data for periodic upload to the server;

wherein the server comprises a collection process associated with each tap or each probe, at least some collection processes performing format conversion or decryption on data received from an associated probe;

wherein the server comprises a data loading function for loading filtered data into memory; and

wherein the data loading function performs transaction data processing.