Method and apparatus for automatically determining causes of service quality degradation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9692671-B2
Application number	US-201214414649-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 4, 2012
Priority date	Jul 4, 2012
Publication date	Jun 27, 2017
Grant date	Jun 27, 2017

Abstract

Causes of service quality degradation in a communication network are determined for automated root cause analysis by identifying occurrence of degradation in service quality within a user session; identifying an underperforming resource of the communication network during occurrence of said identified degradation in service quality; in response to determining that the underperforming resource has at least one dependant resource, identifying any underperforming dependant resources during occurrence of said identified degradation in service quality; and outputting a plurality of causes of the service quality degradation including the identity of each of the identified underperforming resources.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for automatically determining causes of service quality degradation in a communication network for automated root cause analysis, the method comprising:
identifying occurrence of degradation in service quality within a user session;
identifying an underperforming resource of the communication network during occurrence of said identified degradation in service quality;
in response to determining that the underperforming resource has at least one dependent resource, identifying any underperforming dependent resources during occurrence of said identified degradation in service quality; and
outputting a plurality of causes of the service quality degradation including identity of the identified underperforming resources,
wherein the step of identifying any underperforming dependent resources comprises:
obtaining a plurality of resource key performance indicator measurements of each resource dependent from a resource identified as underperforming; and identifying deficits of any one of resource key performance indicators of each resource dependent from a resource identified as underperforming during the occurrence of service quality degradation.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of outputting a plurality of causes comprises:
adding identification information of a resource identified as underperforming and the cause of the underperformance to generate a cause object; and
outputting at least one link between each of the plurality of cause objects to output a chain of causes.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying occurrence of degradation in service quality comprises:
identifying occurrence of degradation in service quality if a service quality falls below a service quality threshold.

4. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying occurrence of degradation in service quality comprises:
identifying the point in time that the degradation in service quality occurred and the duration of occurrence of the degradation in service quality.

5. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of outputting a plurality of causes of the service quality degradation comprises:
removing resources identified as false-positives from the plurality of causes; and
outputting the remaining plurality of causes.

6. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying an underperforming resource of the communication network comprises:
receiving a plurality of measurements from a resource of a communication network, each of said plurality of measurements including an identifier associated therewith; and
determining if the at least one received measurement does not indicate a deficit of resource key performance indicator.

7. A method according to claim 6 , wherein the method further comprises:
receiving identification information for the resource associated with each received measurement; and
determining the topology of the resources from the received identification information.

8. A method according to claim 7 , wherein the step of identifying an underperforming resource comprises:
identifying an underperforming resource at the topmost level of the received topology; and
identifying any underperforming resources in the each of the next subsequent level from the previous upper level within the topology and identifying a last underperforming resource as the underperforming resource in the lowermost level.

9. An apparatus for automatically determining causes of service quality degradation in a communication network for automated root cause analysis, the apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
an interface,
wherein the processor is configured to:
identify occurrence of degradation in service quality within a user session;
identify an underperforming resource of the communication network during occurrence of said identified degradation in service quality; and
in response to determining that the underperforming resource has at least one dependent resource, identify any underperforming dependent resources; and

the interface is configured to output a plurality of causes of the service quality degradation including identity of the underperforming resources identified by the processor,
wherein identifying any underperforming dependent resources comprises:
obtaining a plurality of resource key performance indicator measurements of each resource dependent from a resource identified as underperforming; and
identifying deficits of any one of resource key performance indicators of each resource dependent from a resource identified as underperforming during the occurrence of service quality degradation.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein the apparatus further comprises:
a receiver configured to receive a plurality of measurements from each of a plurality of resources of a communication network.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the apparatus further comprises:
a modelling module configured to determine the topology of the plurality of resources from the received plurality of measurements.

12. The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the apparatus further comprises:
a storage device for storing the received measurements.

13. A communication network comprising a plurality of resources and the apparatus of claim 9 .

Assignees

• Groenendijk Jan
• Granath Johan Christer Wilhelm
• Huang Yangcheng
• ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M (publ)

Inventors

• Groenendijk Jan
• Granath Johan Christer Wilhelm
• Huang Yangcheng

Classifications

• H04L5/0092

  Indication of how the channel is divided · CPC title

• H04L1/1887

  Scheduling and prioritising arrangements · CPC title

• H04L1/1854

  Scheduling and prioritising arrangements · CPC title

• H04L41/0636

  based on a decision tree analysis · CPC title

• H04L43/0864

  Round trip delays · CPC title