Network State Management Service for Conflict Resolution

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Solution Overview

Problem

In complex electronic service networks, managing state changes across multiple applications can lead to state conflicts and policy violations, affecting network efficiency and reliability, as existing approaches require extensive coordination and communication between applications, causing development complexity and scalability issues.

Innovation Solution

A network management service that reads and writes network states, uses a state dependency graph to detect conflicts, and merges proposed changes to ensure compliance with defined policies, thereby generating a target network state that avoids conflicts and policy violations, allowing applications to operate independently.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If multiple applications simultaneously control network device state, then application functionality is enhanced, but state conflicts and policy violations occur

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveapplication functionalityVSAvoidnetwork operation reliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a network management service as an intermediary between multiple applications and the network device. This service receives state change requests from multiple applications, resolves conflicts using a state dependency graph, ensures policy compliance, and coordinates state changes to prevent conflicts. The intermediary absorbs the complexity of inter-application coordination, allowing applications to operate independently while maintaining network reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Manufacturing precision

If applications directly control network device state, then control precision is improved, but development complexity and coordination overhead increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvestate control precisionVSAvoidapplication development complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Manufacturing precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the complex conflict resolution and coordination logic from individual applications and centralizes it in the network management service. Applications only need to specify desired state changes without implementing conflict detection or coordination mechanisms. The network management service handles the complexity of managing multiple applications' requests, reducing development complexity while preserving precise state control through the state dependency graph.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

3Reliability

If network state changes are coordinated between applications, then network reliability is improved, but communication overhead and latency increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvenetwork operation reliabilityVSAvoidcoordination latency
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements preliminary action by having applications submit desired state changes to the network management service in advance, rather than attempting direct device control. The service pre-processes these requests using the state dependency graph to identify conflicts and determine the correct execution order. This preliminary coordination allows multiple state changes to be processed efficiently without runtime conflicts, reducing overall latency while maintaining reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3152866B1Network-state management service
Publication Date: 2018.05.30 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • EP3152866B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3152866B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3152866B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The techniques and/or systems described herein implement a network management service configured to read and write a state of a network for various applications (e.g., network management applications) so that the applications can operate independently. The network management service is configured to read an observed network state and provide the observed network state to the applications. Subsequently, the network management service receives proposed network states from the applications and uses a state dependency graph to determine whether state conflicts exist between the proposed network states. The network management service also determined whether defined policies are violated by the proposed network states. Finally, the network management service is configured to generate a target network state by merging non-conflicting proposed network states that comply with defined policies and to update (e.g., write) the network state based on the generated target network state.