Policy driven automation system for customer care

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10776146-B2
Application number	US-201715616344-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 7, 2017
Priority date	Jun 7, 2017
Publication date	Sep 15, 2020
Grant date	Sep 15, 2020

Abstract

A policy driven automated micro-service system comprising: a data collector, an analyzer, a virtual function manager, a decision engine, and a portal; the virtual function manager in communication with at least one virtual function and configured to collect at least one of a data and a metric therefrom; the data collector in communication with the virtual function manager and configured to retrieve at least one of the data and the metric therefrom; the analyzer in communication with the data collector and configured to analyze at least one of the data and the metric collected by the data collector; and the decision engine in communication with the analyzer and the portal, the decision engine configured to initiate an action based on an analysis from the analyzer, wherein the action includes providing an instruction to reset a uCPE device, reload a software, reload a vendor virtual function, and engage a transport automation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A network device comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled with the processor, the memory comprising executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:
generating a policy driven automated micro-service comprising a data collector virtual function, an analyzer virtual function, and a decision engine virtual function;
linking the data collector virtual function to a universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) in communication with a selected customer premises equipment (CPE);
retrieving, via the data collector virtual function, service chain data related to the selected CPE;
analyzing the service chain data via the analyzer virtual function and communicating analytics to the decision engine virtual function;
initiating an action via the decision engine virtual function, wherein the action comprises at least one of: providing an instruction to reset a uCPE device, reload a software, reload a vendor virtual function, and engage a transport automation; and
publishing, via the decision engine virtual function, a diagnose conclusion event to a universal event bus,
wherein the data collector virtual function is configured to perform fault detection testing that utilizes root cause analysis.

2. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the action further comprises providing a ticket identifying a CPE component via an input/output device.

3. The network device of claim 1 , wherein if a power outage was found by at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function, and the decision engine virtual function engages a virtual function manager to reset the uCPE.

4. The network device of claim 1 , wherein if a firewall problem is found by at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function, and the decision engine virtual function engages at least one software defined network to reload a software corresponding to the firewall problem.

5. The network device of claim 1 , wherein if a vendor virtual function problem is detected by at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function, and the decision engine virtual function transmits a notice to a virtual function manager to reload a software corresponding to a vendor virtual function.

6. The network device of claim 1 , wherein if a wide area network transport problem is detected by at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function, and the decision engine virtual function engages transport automation.

7. The network device of claim 1 , wherein if a local area network problem is detected by at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function, and the decision engine virtual function communicates a notice to check the selected CPE via an input/output device.

8. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the operation of linking comprises communicating with at least one of a legacy network and a software defined network.

9. The network device of claim 8 , wherein communicating with the at least one the legacy network and the software defined network occurs via a universal bus.

10. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise instantiating a portal virtual function, the portal virtual function communicating with at least one of the data collector virtual function, the analyzer virtual function and the decision engine virtual function to prepare at least one status, the portal virtual function communicating the at least one status to an input/output device.

11. The network device of claim 10 , wherein the portal virtual function defines a dashboard configured to prompt a user, the portal virtual function displaying the dashboard via an input/output device.

12. A system comprising:
a universal customer premises equipment (uCPE); and
a network device communicatively connected with the uCPE, the network device comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled with the processor, the memory comprising executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:
linking a data collector virtual function to the uCPE in communication with a selected customer premises equipment (CPE);
retrieving, via the data collector virtual function, service chain data related to the selected CPE;
analyzing the service chain data via an analyzer virtual function and communicating analytics to a decision engine virtual function;
initiating an action via the decision engine virtual function, wherein the action comprises at least one of: providing an instruction to reset a uCPE device, reload a software, and engage a transport automation; and
publishing, via the decision engine virtual function, a diagnose conclusion event to a universal event bus (UEB),
wherein the data collector virtual function is configured to perform fault detection testing that utilizes root cause analysis.

13. The system of claim 12 , the operations further comprising a virtual function manager, wherein the virtual function manager is in communication with at least one vendor virtual function.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein initiating an action via the decision engine virtual function comprises reloading the at least one vendor virtual function.

15. The system of claim 12 , the operations further comprising a fault event broker platform, wherein the fault event broker platform comprises the UEB.

16. The system of claim 12 , the operations further comprising a portal, wherein the portal is in communication with an input/output device, the portal providing a dashboard to the input/output device, wherein the dashboard displays at least one of: a software status, a vendor virtual function status, a uCPE status, and a CPE status.

17. The system of claim 12 , the operations further comprising a data store, stores at least one result of the fault detection testing in the data store.

18. The system of claim 12 , wherein the data collector virtual function trains a uCPE access circuit to detect a silent failure.

19. A computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions that when executed by a computing device cause said computing device to effectuate operations comprising:
linking a data collector virtual function to a universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) in communication with a selected customer premises equipment (CPE);
retrieving, via the data collector virtual function, service chain data related to the selected CPE;
analyzing the service chain data via an analyzer virtual function and communicating analytics to a decision engine virtual function; and
initiating an action via the decision engine virtual function, wherein the action comprises providing an instruction to reset a uCPE device and reload a software; and
publishing, via the decision engine virtual function, a diagnose conclusion event to a universal event bus (UEB),
wherein the data collector virtual function is configured to perform fault detection testing that utilizes root cause analysis.

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Qian Zhiqiang
• Zinnikas Michael
• Patel Monali
• Chakraborty Soumyajit

Classifications

• H04L43/20 Primary

  the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV · CPC title

• H04L41/06

  Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title

• G06F9/50

  Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU] · CPC title

• G06F9/48

  Program initiating; Program switching, e.g. by interrupt · CPC title