Network Health Data Aggregation Service for Virtualized Infrastructure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Customers of virtualized computing services face challenges in diagnosing network performance issues due to limited control over virtualization hosts and network paths, leading to difficulties in distinguishing between infrastructure problems and application bugs, with existing tools providing inadequate troubleshooting capabilities.
Innovation Solution
A network health management service that aggregates metrics from various sources to provide customized and easy-to-understand network health state information, using endpoint pair categories and weighted metrics to reduce false positives and improve diagnostic efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If customers rely on providers to select virtualization hosts and network paths, then service management is simplified and automated, but customers lose control and ability to troubleshoot network performance issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a network health management service as an intermediary between customers and the virtualized computing infrastructure. This service collects metrics from multiple data sources including virtualization hosts, network devices, and customer applications, then presents aggregated network health state information to customers through programmatic interfaces. The intermediary enables automated infrastructure management while simultaneously providing customers with visibility and diagnostic capabilities they would otherwise lack.
2Measurement precision
If detailed network metrics are collected from multiple data sources, then diagnostic accuracy is improved, but system complexity and data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the network health monitoring system into distinct functional components: metric collection agents deployed at various network points (virtualization hosts, network devices), a central aggregation service that collects and processes metrics from these agents, and interface layers that present information to customers. This segmentation allows detailed monitoring across multiple data sources while distributing system complexity across manageable, independent components that can be developed and maintained separately.
3Loss of information
If comprehensive network health information is provided to customers, then troubleshooting capability is improved, but information overload and difficulty in understanding may occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing customized network health information tailored to each customer's specific resources and needs. The system identifies endpoint pair categories relevant to individual customers and provides weighted metrics that highlight the most important health indicators for their particular workload and infrastructure configuration. This allows comprehensive monitoring information to be presented in a customized, easy-to-understand format that focuses on what matters most to each customer rather than presenting uniform detailed data to all users.
Data Source
AI summary
Respective network metrics sets corresponding to one or more data sources are examined at a network health manager. Network health states corresponding to one or more endpoint pair categories are determined based on the analysis of the network metric sets. An indication of the network health state of a particular endpoint pair category is stored.