Distributed Network Performance Monitoring with Threshold Alerts
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Solution Overview
Problem
In dynamic enterprise networks, static policy configurations fail to adapt to changing traffic conditions, leading to performance degradation and the need for real-time monitoring and corrective action to maintain user experience and application service level agreements (SLAs).
Innovation Solution
A scalable and distributed method for monitoring network performance across multiple sites, where network devices at receiving sites detect performance threshold violations, transmit alerts and traffic information to sending sites, enabling informed decision-making for rerouting traffic through alternate paths.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If real-time performance monitoring and alert transmission are implemented across multiple sites, then network performance and user experience are improved, but device complexity and communication overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring system is segmented into distributed network devices at multiple sites, each independently monitoring local performance metrics. This segmentation allows the system to scale without centralizing complexity, as each device operates autonomously to detect threshold violations and transmit alerts, thereby improving reliability while managing device complexity through modular design
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where performance metrics are continuously monitored, compared against thresholds, and alerts are transmitted back to sending sites when violations occur. This closed-loop feedback enables automatic corrective actions such as traffic rerouting, improving network performance while the feedback structure itself manages complexity by providing clear decision-making signals
2Loss of information
If comprehensive traffic information is transmitted for all paths upon threshold violation, then informed decision-making for traffic rerouting is improved, but communication overhead and data transmission load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and transmits only the essential performance information needed for decision-making when threshold violations occur, rather than continuously transmitting all available data. By extracting only relevant metrics (such as path performance data and threshold violation details) at the moment of need, the system maintains information completeness for rerouting decisions while significantly reducing communication overhead
Solution Approach 2:
Performance thresholds and monitoring parameters are pre-configured at network devices, allowing the system to immediately transmit relevant information when violations occur without needing to process or filter data in real-time. This preliminary configuration reduces the communication overhead during actual events while ensuring that complete performance information is available when needed for traffic rerouting decisions
Data Source
AI summary
In one embodiment, a method includes monitoring traffic at a network device at a receiving network site to determine if a performance threshold is violated, transmitting an alert to a sending network site if the performance threshold is violated at a path at the network device, and transmitting traffic information for the path from the network device to the sending network site. The receiving network site comprises a plurality of paths for receiving traffic from the sending network site and traffic information is transmitted to the sending network site for each of the paths if the performance threshold is violated. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed herein.