US 2026/0312898 A1Published application

Selection of candidate data flows for evaluating performance metrics using passive measurements

AssigneesAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P., AT&T Mobility ll LLC

InventorsEmir Halepovic, Mats Elf, Chan-Ching Hsu, Cheuk Yiu Ip

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Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, identifying a flow of data packets between first and second network addresses of a network, with each packet including respective header and payload portions. The identified flow of data packets is monitored over a number of sample periods to obtain a number of monitored results. A data-flow activity record is generated, having a number of symbols corresponding to the number of monitored results, the symbols including an active symbol value indicative of a presence of an exchange of data and an idle symbol value indicative of an absence of an exchange of data. A suitability of the identified data flow is inferred for estimating a throughput of the network according to the data-flow activity record without interpreting contents of each respective packet payload portion. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A device, comprising:

a processing system including a processor;
and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
monitoring packets on a communications network and, from packet header fields of the packets, associating packets with a unidirectional data flow defined by at least a source network address, a destination network address, a source port, a destination port, and a transport protocol;
for successive fixed-duration sample intervals over an observation window for the unidirectional data flow, generating a binary activity vector in which each bit corresponds to a respective sample interval and is set to a first value responsive to detecting, during the respective sample interval, at least one packet of the unidirectional data flow having a packet payload size exceeding a predetermined payload-size threshold, and a second value otherwise;
forming an adjusted activity vector by trimming leading bits of the binary activity vector having the second value and trimming trailing bits of the binary activity vector having the second value;
determining that the unidirectional data flow is a candidate flow for estimating a network throughput, wherein the determining is responsive to:
a ratio of bits having the second value to a total number of bits in the adjusted activity vector being less than an idle-ratio threshold, and
the adjusted activity vector satisfying an interior-idle constraint that limits a maximum number of consecutive bits having the second value between bits having the first value to be no greater than a consecutive-idle threshold;
and
responsive to determining that the unidirectional data flow is the candidate flow, estimating the network throughput for the unidirectional data flow by dividing (i) an aggregate number of bytes observed for packets of the unidirectional data flow during a time span corresponding to the adjusted activity vector by (ii) an adjusted duration defined by a time between a first bit having the first value and a last bit having the first value in the adjusted activity vector.

8 more elements

A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:

identifying a data flow to obtain an identified data flow comprising an exchange of a plurality of packets across a network between a first device associated with a first network address and a second device associated with a second network address, wherein each packet of the plurality of packets comprises a packet header portion that identifies at least the first network address and the second network address and a packet payload portion;
monitoring the identified data flow over a plurality of successive sample periods to obtain a plurality of monitored results, wherein each monitored result indicates a presence or an absence of an exchange of data of the identified data flow during a respective sample period of the plurality of successive sample periods;
generating a data-flow activity record comprising a plurality of symbols corresponding to the plurality of monitored results, wherein the plurality of symbols comprises an active symbol value indicative of the presence of the exchange of data of the identified data flow and an idle symbol value indicative of the absence of the exchange of data of the identified data flow;
and
determining a suitability of the identified data flow for determining a throughput of the network according to the data-flow activity record without interpreting contents of the packet payload portion of each packet of the plurality of packets.

2 more elements

A method, comprising:

monitoring, by a processing system including a processor, packet traffic in a communications network and associating packets of the packet traffic with an identified data flow between a first network address and a second network address;
generating, by the processing system, for the identified data flow and according to a sequence of successive sample periods, an activity record comprising a sequence of symbols, wherein each symbol of the sequence of symbols indicates whether the identified data flow exhibited data-transfer activity during a corresponding sample period of the sequence of successive sample periods;
determining, by the processing system, based on the activity record, whether the identified data flow is a candidate for estimating a throughput of the communications network by passive measurement, the determining comprising evaluating an amount of inactivity indicated by the activity record and excluding one or more idle portions of the activity record from the evaluation;
and
responsive to determining that the identified data flow is the candidate for estimating the throughput, estimating by the processing system, a throughput value based on (i) a quantity of data associated with the identified data flow and (ii) a transmission time determined from the activity record,
wherein the monitoring, the generating, the determining, and the estimating are performed without interpreting contents of packet payloads of the packets.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.