Data flow in telecommunications networks using network flow diagrams and associated data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10819595-B2
Application number	US-201916378247-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 8, 2019
Priority date	Apr 9, 2018
Publication date	Oct 27, 2020
Grant date	Oct 27, 2020

Abstract

Systems and methods for configuring telecommunications networks include obtaining network data flow information for a telecommunications network that includes attributes of multiple routes of data transmission through the telecommunications network. Utilizing at least one processing device, a filtering criteria is applied to the network data flow information to identify a subset of the routes having a shared attribute to generate filtered data. The filtered data is then used to generate a diagrammatic representation of the network flows and/or processed to automatically generate reconfiguration messages to improve network traffic distribution and flow.

First claim

I claim:

1. A method for configuring a telecommunications network, the method comprising:
obtaining network data flow information for a telecommunications network, the network data flow information including attributes of a plurality of routes of data transmission through the telecommunications network;
applying, utilizing at least one processing device, a filtering criteria to the network data flow information to identify a subset of the plurality of routes, the filtering criteria including an attribute shared among each of the subset of the plurality of routes; and
generating a network flow diagram from the network data flow information corresponding to the subset of the plurality of routes by:
identifying low traffic routes of the subset of the plurality of routes, traffic for each of the low traffic routes falling below a traffic threshold;
generating an aggregated route by combining the low traffic routes; and
replacing the low traffic routes in the subset of the plurality of routes with the aggregated route,

wherein the network flow diagram includes a representation of the attribute of the filtering criteria, representations of other attributes of the subset of the plurality of routes, and representations of the subset of the plurality of routes.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the network flow diagram to a display device in communication with the at least one processing device;
subsequent to providing the network flow diagram, receiving, at the at least one processing device and from a computing device in communication with the at least one processing device, a configuration instruction for reconfiguring an attribute of the plurality of routes of data transmission; and
transmitting a configuration command from the at least one processing device to the attribute, the configuration command corresponding to the configuration instruction and configuration to cause the attribute to alter the network data flow.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the attributes of the plurality of routes comprise at least one of an ingress Autonomous Service Network (ASN), an egress ASN, an ingress gateway device, and an egress gateway device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the filtering criteria is received from a user interface executed on a computing device.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the filtering criteria includes an ingress gateway, an egress gateway, an ingress network, an egress network, an ingress autonomous system number (ASN), an egress ASN, or a content distribution network (CDN) identifier.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the aggregated route by combining the low traffic routes comprises:
generating a generic attribute corresponding to attributes of each of the low traffic routes, the attributes of each of the low traffic routes having a common relationship to the attribute of the filtering criteria; and
assigning aggregated data flow information to the generic attribute, the aggregated data flow information being an aggregate of data flow information for the attributes of each of the low traffic routes.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
collecting the network data flow information by deploying a network flow collector in the telecommunications network, the network flow collector configured to collect network data flow information from devices within the telecommunications network and to transmit the collected network data flow information to a central storage system,
wherein obtaining the network data flow information comprises retrieving the network data flow information from the central storage system.

8. A method for configuring telecommunications networks, the method comprising:
obtaining network data flow information for a telecommunications network, the network data flow information including attributes of a plurality of routes of data transmission through the telecommunications network;
applying, utilizing at least one processing device, a filtering criteria to the network data flow information to identify a subset of the plurality of routes, the filtering criteria including an attribute shared among each of the subset of the plurality of routes;
generating filtered data from the network data flow information corresponding to the subset of the plurality of routes by:
identifying low traffic routes of the subset of the plurality of routes, traffic for each of the plurality of low traffic routes falling below a traffic threshold;
generating an aggregated route by combining the low traffic routes; and
replacing the low traffic routes in the subset of the plurality of routes with the aggregated route, wherein the filtered data includes network data flow information for the attribute of the filtering criteria, network data flow information for other attributes of the subset of the plurality of routes, and network data flow information for the subset of the plurality of routes;

identifying a network data flow from the subset of the plurality of routes through an analysis of the filtered data, the network data flow comprising a performance metric exceeding a performance threshold; and
generating a reconfiguration message for an attribute of the identified network data flow, the reconfiguration message configured to reconfigure the attribute of the identified network data flow to alter the identified network data flow.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising transmitting the reconfiguration message to the attribute of the identified network data flow to reconfigure the attribute.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein
generating the aggregated route comprises:
generating a generic attribute corresponding to attributes of each of the low traffic routes, the attributes of each of the low traffic routes having a common relationship to the attribute of the filtering criteria; and
assigning aggregated data flow information to the generic attribute, the aggregated data flow information being an aggregate of data flow information for the attributes of each of the low traffic routes.

11. The method of claim 8 , further comprising generating a network flow diagram from the filtered data, the network flow diagram comprising a representation of the attribute of the filtering criteria, representations of other attributes associated with the subset of the plurality of routes, and representations of the subset of the plurality of routes.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein the performance metric is an estimated geographic distance of transmission for the particular network data flow.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
collecting the network data flow information by deploying a network flow collector in the telecommunications network, the network flow collector configured to collect network data flow information from devices within the telecommunications network and to transmit the collected network data to a central storage system,
wherein obtaining the network data flow information comprises retrieving the network data flow information from the central storage system.

14. The method of claim 8 , the filtering criteria includes an ingress gateway, an egress gateway, an ingress network, an egress network, an ingress autonomous system number (ASN), an egress ASN, or a content distribution network (CDN) identifier.

15. A telecommunications system comprising:
a telecommunications network comprising:
a plurality of network attributes; and
a network flow connecting the plurality of network attributes; and

at least one processing device in communication with the plurality of network attributes, the network flow configured b

Assignees

• Level 3 Communications Llc

Inventors

• Hopkins William

Classifications

• H04L45/02

  Topology update or discovery · CPC title

• H04L45/033

  by updating distance vector protocols · CPC title

• H04L43/045 Primary

  for graphical visualisation of monitoring data · CPC title

• H04L43/028 Primary

  by filtering · CPC title

• H04L43/16

  Threshold monitoring · CPC title