US 11,240,119 B2Granted

Network operation

AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company

InventorsAlexander Healing, Michael Turner

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Abstract

A method of operating a communications network is disclosed. Modern communications networks produce vast amounts of network operational data which have the potential to provide a useful summary of the operational state of the network. Whilst processes such as clustering are known for arranging the vast amount of data into groups, the clusters themselves do not provide data which might be easily interpreted by network elements or administrators. Network operational data often comprises a plurality of data items, each of which gives a value for each of a set of attributes. By processing a cluster to identify attributes in the cluster whose values vary less in the cluster then they vary outside of the cluster, and then generating a cluster description which is based on a measure of the central tendency of the values of those attribute in the cluster, an easily interpretable general description of the data items in the cluster is provided. The easily interpretable general description of the cluster can then be used to relatively identify data items similar to those present in the cluster (e.g. from a larger database of data items), and elements in the network can then act autonomously on the basis of the cluster description to control the operation of the communications network.

Claims29

Dependent claims

A method of operating a communications network comprising:

accessing a plurality of network operational data items arranged into groups, each of said groups comprising a plurality of network operational data items, each of said network operational data items having a value for each of a plurality of attributes, at least one attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is nominal and at least one another attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is quantitative, and
for each group:
i) for each of said attributes whose values are indicated to be of a nominal statistical data type:
a) calculating a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the nominal statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the nominal statistical data type;
ii) for each of said attributes whose values are indicated to be of a quantitative statistical data type:
a) calculating a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the quantitative statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the quantitative statistical data type;
iii) identifying one or more attributes having values with a variability lower than a predetermined threshold;
iv) generating a description of the group based on the measure of central tendency found for the one or more identified attributes;
and
v) controlling an operation of the communications network using the generated description of the group.

11 more elements

A computer-implemented method of automatically generating a description of the state of a communications network, said method comprising:

accessing a plurality of network operational data items arranged into groups, each of said groups comprising a plurality of network operational data items, each of said network operational data items having a value for each of a plurality of attributes, at least one attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is nominal and at least one another attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is quantitative, and
for each group:
i) for each of said attributes indicated to be of a nominal statistical data type:
a) calculating a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the nominal statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the nominal statistical data type;
ii) for each of said attributes whose values are indicated to be of a quantitative statistical data type:
a) calculating a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the quantitative statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the quantitative statistical data type;
iii) identifying one or more attributes having values with a variability lower than a predetermined threshold;
and
iv) generating a description of the group based on the measure of central tendency found for the one or more identified attributes.

10 more elements

Network control apparatus comprising:

a receiver arranged in operation to receive a plurality of network operational data items arranged into groups, each of said groups comprising a plurality of network operational data items, each of said network operational data items having a value for each of a plurality of attributes, at least one attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is nominal and at least one another attribute having an associated statistical data type indication indicating the statistical data type of data values provided for attribute is quantitative;
a processor arranged in operation to
for each group:
i) for each of said attributes indicated to be of a nominal statistical data type:
a) calculate a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the nominal statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the nominal statistical data type;
ii) for each of said attributes indicated to be of a quantitative statistical data type:
a) calculating a measure of central tendency of the values of said attribute that are indicated to be of the quantitative statistical data type;
and
b) calculating a measure of the variability of the values of said attribute by performing a nominal attribute variability measure calculation specialized for attributes whose data are of the quantitative statistical data type;
iii) identify one or more attributes having values with a variability lower than a predetermined threshold;
iv) generate a description of the group based on the measure of central tendency found for the one or more identified attributes;
and
v) control an operation of a communications network using the generated description of the group.

12 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/749,151Filed 28 Jul 2016
Priority: EP 1517943731 Jul 2015
Published: US 2018/0227190 A19 Aug 2018
Granted: 1 Feb 2022
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

H04L 41/142
Network analysis or design: using statistical or mathematical methods
G06F 16/285
Relational databases: clustering or classification
G06F 16/355
Clustering; Classification: creation or modification of classes or clusters
H04L 63/1425
By monitoring network traffic: traffic logging, e.g. anomaly detection