Service-centric communication network monitoring

#This invention relates generally to communications and, in particular, to communication network monitoring.

#Services for which information is distributed through a communication network are generally referred to as network services. “Web services” are an example of network services, and represent the next generation of technology being used for automatically exchanging information between different applications over the public Internet and many private networks. Web services provide a framework for building web-based distributed applications, and can provide efficient and effective automated machine-to-machine communications.

#From a technology point of view, web services are network accessible functions that can be accessed using standard Internet protocols such as HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), etc., over standard interfaces.

#Examples of embodiments of the invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication system.

#FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a service monitoring system.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication system 10, in which embodiments of the invention may be implemented. The communication system 10 includes user systems 12, 14 and service provider systems 16, 18 that access a communication network 20 through respective communication links 13, 15, 17, 19 and network gateways 22, 24, 26, 28. The communication network 20 also includes traffic switching and/or routing components generally represented at 32, a network manager 34, a service monitoring system 36, and a services portal 38.

#Although many user systems 12, 14 and service provider systems 16, 18 may be provided in a communication system, only two examples of each type of system have been shown in FIG. 1 to avoid overly complicating the drawing. A communication network could also include more or fewer network gateways than shown, many separate installations of communication equipment implementing the switching/routing components 32, and multiple service monitoring systems 36 and/or services portals 38. Explicitly showing such interconnections as those between the network manager 34 and other components of the communication network 20 would also lead to congestion in the drawing, but may exist in a communication network.

#It should therefore be appreciated that the communication system 10 of FIG. 1, as well as the contents of the other drawings, are intended solely for illustrative purposes, and that the present invention is in no way limited to the particular example embodiments explicitly shown in the drawings and described herein.