Network management apparatus and network management method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12200514-B2
Application number	US-202117767117-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 23, 2021
Priority date	Jun 23, 2021
Publication date	Jan 14, 2025
Grant date	Jan 14, 2025

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a network management apparatus, comprising: a correlating information storage unit configured to store correlating information, about a failure that occurs, that correlates a notification notified when the failure occurs to a workaround for the failure; a notification acquisition unit configured to acquire, a plurality of notifications notified in relation to a plurality of components related to a device in which the failure has occurred, respectively; a failure determination unit configured to determine whether the failure is a known failure in which the notification is correlated to the workaround or an unknown failure, by referring to the correlating information based on the plurality of notifications; and a workaround determination unit configured to determine, when the failure is determined to be the known failure, the workaround that is correlated to a notification determined according to a predetermined ordering of the components, as the workaround to be applied.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A network management apparatus, comprising:
at least one memory configured to store program code; and
electric circuitry including at least one processor, the at least one processor being configured to read and operate according to the program code, the electronic circuitry configured to:
store correlating information, about a failure that occurs in a network, that correlates a notification notified when the failure occurs to a workaround for the failure;
acquire, when the failure occurs in the network, a plurality of notifications that are notified in relation to a plurality of components related to a device in which the failure has occurred, respectively;
determine whether the failure is a known failure in which the notification is correlated to a workaround or an unknown failure in which the notification is not correlated to a workaround, by referring to the correlating information based on the plurality of notifications; and
determine, when the failure is determined to be the known failure, the workaround that is correlated to a notification determined according to a predetermined ordering of the components, from among the plurality of notifications, as the workaround to be applied,
wherein, when the plurality of notifications belong to a notification related to a server constituting a virtualized environment, the electronic circuitry is further configured to determine the workaround to be applied according to a sequential ordering starting from a lowermost layer of a hierarchical structure in sequential order in which hardware, an operating system (OS), a virtualization layer, and an application that constitute the server are in turn stacked forming the hierarchical structure.

2. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
determining the workaround sequentially refers to, for the plurality of notifications, the correlating information according to the ordering, determines whether or not the workaround correlated to the notification exists, and determines the workaround corresponding to a notification that is first determined to have a correlated workaround, as the workaround to be applied.

3. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein,
when the plurality of notifications belong to a notification related to a network device, determining the workaround determines the workaround to be applied according to the ordering that is set in order starting from a lowermost layer of a hierarchical structure that corresponds to a transport layer and its lower layers of a network reference model realizing a communication function by the network device.

4. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein,
when at least one of the plurality of notifications has a correlated workaround in the correlating information from among the plurality of notifications, determining the failure determines the failure to be the known failure.

5. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the notification includes device information related to a device in which the failure has occurred and failure information related to a content of the failure.

6. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
the notification includes a device type indicating a type of a device in which the failure has occurred and time information indicating time of the failure, and,
when the plurality of notifications include notifications notified at the same time from a plurality of types of devices, determining the workaround determines that a complex failure has occurred in the plurality of types of devices, and determines the workaround to be applied for the complex failure based on the notifications notified at the same time from the plurality of types of devices.

7. The network management apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein
determining the failure determines, when the plurality of notifications include notifications notified at the same time from a plurality of types of devices, whether the failure is the known failure or the unknown failure for each of the devices, and
determining the workaround determines, when the plurality of notifications include notifications notified at the same time from the plurality of types of devices, the workaround correlated to the notification that is determined according to the ordering from among the plurality of notifications related to the device of which failure is determined to be the known failure, as the workaround to be applied to the complex failure.

8. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , the electric circuitry further configured to:
execute the workaround determined.

9. The network management apparatus according to claim 1 , the electric circuitry further configured to:
inform of, when the failure is determined to be the unknown failure, information related to the failure.

10. The network management apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein
informing informs of the information related to the failure to a management department of a component corresponding to a single notification determined according to the ordering from among the plurality of notifications.

11. A network management method performed by a network management apparatus, comprising steps of:
storing correlating information, about a failure that occurs in a network, that correlates a notification notified when the failure occurs to a workaround for the failure;
acquiring, when the failure occurs in the network, a plurality of notifications that are notified in relation to a plurality of components related to a device in which the failure has occurred, respectively;
determining whether the failure is a known failure in which the notification is correlated to a workaround or an unknown failure in which the notification is not correlated to a workaround, by referring to the correlating information based on the plurality of notifications;
and determining, when the failure is determined to be the known failure, the workaround that is correlated to a notification determined according to a predetermined ordering of the components, from among the plurality of notifications, as the workaround to be applied,
wherein, when the plurality of notifications belong to a notification related to a server constituting a virtualized environment, the determining the workaround comprises determining the workaround to be applied according to a sequential ordering starting from a lowermost layer of a hierarchical structure in sequential order in which hardware, an operating system (OS), a virtualization layer, and an application that constitute the server are in turn stacked forming the hierarchical structure.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a network management computer program product executable by a computer for causing the computer to execute network management processing, the computer program product causing the computer to execute processing comprising:
a correlating information storage process for storing correlating information, about a failure that occurs in a network, that correlates a notification notified when the failure occurs to a workaround for the failure;
a notification acquisition process for acquiring, when the failure occurs in the network, a plurality of notifications that are notified in relation to a plurality of components related to a device in which the failure has occurred, respectively;
a failure determination process for determining whether the failure is a known failure in which the notification is correlated to a workaround or an unknown failure in which the notification is not correlated to a workarou

Assignees

• Rakuten Mobile Inc

Inventors

• Okada Jun
• OH Jayoung
• Kosugi Masaaki

Classifications

• H04L41/40

  using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities · CPC title

• H04L41/0686

  Additional information in the notification, e.g. enhancement of specific meta-data · CPC title

• H04L41/069

  using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications · CPC title

• H04L41/0631

  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 title

• H04L41/06

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