System and method for monitoring global network performance

• US 7,814,201 B2
• Filed: 12/29/2008
• Issued: 10/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dynatrace LLC (Dynatrace, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Compuware Corporation (KKR & Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Mansell, Brian E., Maiocco, James N., McCaskey, John A., Belanger, Bradley M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jean; Frantz B
• Application Number:
  US12/344,785
• Publication Number:
  US 20090245122A1
• Time in Patent Office: 652 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 370/252, 702/188, 715/736
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• 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 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters

Abstract

The present invention provides a system and method for monitoring global network performance across a public Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or private networking through a secure IPSec gateway, and providing a user interface for performance metrics through a secure Internet browser.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring performance of a global network comprising:

a poller initiating requests for and receiving SNMP-attribute data from a monitored device across a public wide area network at repeated regular time intervals, wherein the requests include a test indicative of availability of a service on the monitored device;

the poller further accumulating utilization information from the SNMP attribute data, accumulating utilization information occurring in a read-only manner from the device being monitored;

the poller further accumulating utilization information indicative of availability of a service on the monitored device;

a notifier analyzing time-based performance criteria for providing alerts to a user when received SNMP-attribute data meets one or more established threshold criteria for the monitored device;

a database for storing received SNMP-attribute data wherein the database maintaining the SNMP-attribute data in a raw format; and

a graphical user interface to the received SNMP-attribute data stored in the database, wherein the graphical user interface identifying performance and availability of services provided by monitored devices utilizing the SNMP-attribute data in the raw format.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a plurality of datacenters, a first datacenter providing an active poller and a failover poller, and a second datacenter providing an additional failover poller.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the poller initiates requests for, and receives SNMP attribute data from a plurality of monitored devices, the requests initiated in parallel.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the poller comprises:

a customer application tester for each customer associated with the plurality of monitored devices, the customer application tester querying a database to determine what SNMP attribute data the poller requests from a subset of the plurality of monitored devices associated with a respective customer.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the notifier comprises:

a plurality of escalation levels established by the user, each of the plurality of escalation levels indicating a delay in a notification to the user, the notification associated with an error with the monitored device, the error identified by the poller.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the notifier comprises:

a disabler allowing the user to disable the plurality of escalation levels.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the database comprises:

the SNMP attribute data maintained in the raw format until a client workstation authenticates a user session and requests the SNMP attribute data.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the database comprises:

the database storing the SNMP attribute data uncompressed, providing granularity to the SNMP attribute data when rendered in a graphical user interface.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user interface comprises:

an application service provider rendering the graphical user interface, the application service provider balancing a traffic load to the application service provider.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user comprises:

the graphical user interface rendering the SNMP attribute data with a user specified granularity, the SNMP attribute data dynamically configurable.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the graphical user interface comprises:

the SNMP attribute data rendered within the graphical user interface according to a personal profile associated with a customer, the personal profile indicating which of the SNMP attribute data received from the monitored device is rendered within the graphical user interface.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user comprises:

a graphing engine rendering the SNMP attribute data within the graphical user interface, the graphic engine generating user specified graphs in real time.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user interface comprises:

an application service provider rendering the SNMP attribute data identified as associated with the monitored device, the monitored device identified with a user specified identification provided by the user via the application service provider.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the graphical user comprises:

the graphical user interface rendering a service availability notification window indicating an availability of the monitored device.