Cross-Layer Link Failure Alerts

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018048548-A1
Application number	US-201715791824-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 24, 2017
Priority date	Aug 26, 2014
Publication date	Feb 15, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Described herein is a network device configured to determine and provide alerts of communication link failures across layers of a communication stack of the network device. The network device determines at a radio link layer of the communication stack that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed. The network device then alerts one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the determination that the communication link has failed.

First claim

1 . A method comprising:
determining, at a radio link layer of a communication stack of a network device, a failure status indicating that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed; and alerting one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the determining that the communication link has failed, wherein the one or more components include an operating system or one or more applications.

2 . (canceled)

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining and the alerting are performed independently of any link failure timers of the one or more components.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising analyzing one or more radio link layer logs to identify the one or more components.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the alerting includes alerting a transmission control protocol (TCP) layer component, analyzing a TCP layer log, identifying one or more applications from the TCP layer log, and alerting the one or more applications.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the alerting comprises exposing a status of the communication link and receiving polling from the one or more components.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the alerting comprises providing one or more reasons for the failure status of the communication link to the one or more components.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the one or more components utilize the one or more reasons to determine whether to terminate connections, wait, or reestablish connections.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein different ones of the one or more components take different actions depending on at least one of the one or more reasons or a time since the determining of the failure status of the communication link.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the alerting comprises instructing the one or more components to terminate connections, wait, or reestablish connections.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining is performed by a radio chipset of the network device.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining comprises detecting a loss of the communication link, waiting for a time period, and determining whether the communication link is reestablished before determining that the communication link has failed.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the alerting comprises broadcasting a notification of the failure status corresponding to the determining that the communication link has failed.

14 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium having programming instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a network device, cause the network device to perform operations comprising:
determining, at a radio link layer of a communication stack of the network device, a failure status indicating that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed; and alerting one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the failure status of the communication link and of a reason for the failure status of the communication link to enable the one or more components to take action based on the reason, wherein the alerting comprises providing notification of the failure status of the communication link or exposing a status of the communication link and receiving polling from the one or more components.

15 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 , wherein the one or more components include an operating system, a connection manager, or an application.

16 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 , wherein the operations further comprise analyzing one or more radio link layer logs to identify the one or more components.

17 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 , wherein the alerting includes alerting a transmission control protocol (TCP) layer component, analyzing a TCP layer log, identifying one or more applications from the TCP layer log, and alerting the one or more applications.

18 . (canceled)

19 . (canceled)

20 . (canceled)

21 . A network device comprising:
one or more processors; and one or more computer-readable media storing instructions executable by the one or more processors, wherein the instructions program the one or more processors to perform actions comprising: determining, at a radio link layer of a communication stack of a network device, a failure status indicating that a communication link between the network device and a network has failed; and alerting one or more components associated with another layer of the communication stack of the failure status, wherein the one or more components include an operating system or an application.

22 . The network device of claim 21 , wherein the determining and the alerting are performed independently of any link failure timers of the one or more components.

23 . The network device of claim 21 , wherein the alerting includes alerting a transmission control protocol (TCP) layer component, analyzing a TCP layer log, identifying one or more applications from the TCP layer log, and alerting the one or more applications.

24 . The network device of claim 21 , wherein the determining comprises detecting a loss of the communication link, waiting for a time period, and determining whether the communication link is reestablished before determining that the communication link has failed.

Assignees

• T Mobile Usa Inc

Inventors

• Hui Jie
• Jia Yunhan
• Liu Jun
• Sontineni Kranthi

Classifications

• H04W24/00

  Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements · 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

• H04W24/04

  Arrangements for maintaining operational condition · CPC title

• H04L41/0654

  using network fault recovery (ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437) · CPC title

• H04L43/0847 Primary

  Transmission error · CPC title