Multi-Protocol Message Flow Correlation for Sporadic Error Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Concurrent network monitoring systems struggle to detect and correlate sporadic errors across multiple protocols in communication networks, particularly in multi-protocol message flows, leading to inefficient error resolution and adverse customer experience.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that provide a reference set of multi-protocol message flows, extract and correlate protocol-specific messages using protocol-specific decoders, and match these messages to reference flows to identify potentially faulty sequences, facilitating quick identification and correction of errors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If concurrent network monitoring systems trace packets inside a single protocol flow or within a fixed hierarchy of protocols, then the system complexity is reduced and ease of operation is improved, but the ability to detect sporadic errors in multi-protocol message flows is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring system is enhanced with multi-protocol correlation capabilities that enable it to trace and analyze message flows across multiple protocol layers simultaneously. The system maintains compatibility with existing single-protocol monitoring while adding universal multi-protocol tracing functionality, allowing it to handle both simple and complex monitoring scenarios effectively.
Solution Approach 2:
The message flow correlation process is segmented into distinct protocol-specific analysis stages. Each protocol layer is analyzed separately using protocol-specific correlation keys, and the results are then integrated to provide comprehensive multi-protocol error detection. This segmentation allows the system to maintain precision in each protocol while achieving overall multi-protocol coverage.
2Device complexity
If statistical methods are used to detect errors in message flows, then the measurement process is simplified, but sporadic errors are poorly detected
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary correlation of message flows using protocol-specific keys before error analysis. By pre-establishing the correct sequence and relationship of messages across protocol layers, the system creates a structured foundation that enables precise detection of sporadic errors without requiring complex statistical processing during the actual error detection phase.
Solution Approach 2:
Protocol-specific correlation keys serve as intermediaries between different protocol layers and the error detection mechanism. These keys enable precise matching and tracking of messages across protocol boundaries, allowing the system to identify sporadic errors with high precision while keeping the overall detection method relatively simple through the use of these intermediary correlation elements.
3Device complexity
If network monitoring systems cannot correlate errors across multiple protocols, then the device complexity is reduced, but the ability to trace errors to the same call flows is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system adds a new dimension of protocol-specific correlation key matching across multiple protocol layers. By introducing this additional dimensional layer of correlation, the system can trace errors across protocols without significantly increasing overall system complexity, as the correlation is achieved through systematic matching in this new dimensional space rather than through complex cross-protocol analysis.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method comprising: providing a reference set of multi-protocol message flows carried out in a first communication system, wherein said reference set comprises a plurality of reference message flows for various high-level message flow scenarios; obtaining a first message flow carried out in the first or a second communication system; extracting protocol-specific messages from said first message flow; identifying the protocol-specific messages of the first message flow based on protocol-specific features in said messages; correlating the protocol-specific messages of the first message flow into a first message flow sequence; matching the first message flow sequence to at least one reference message flow; and determining, in response to detecting a deviation between the first message flow sequence and said at least one reference message flow, the first message flow sequence as being potentially faulty.