NMS Data Stitching With Third-Party APM for First- and Last-Mile QoS
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional network management systems (NMS) lack insight into the 'first mile' of user application experience at the client device and the 'last mile' of user application experience past the WAN, limiting their ability to perform comprehensive quality of service (QoS) monitoring and troubleshooting.
Innovation Solution
The NMS integrates with third-party application performance monitoring (APM) vendors to obtain data from client devices and application servers, stitching this data with network telemetry data to identify user experience issues and determine root causes, enabling troubleshooting beyond the network's managed boundaries.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the NMS monitors only network data within its managed boundaries, then the system complexity is kept low, but the ability to perform comprehensive QoS monitoring and troubleshooting is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces third-party APM vendors as intermediary entities that collect performance data from client devices and application servers outside the NMS boundaries. The NMS queries these intermediaries via APIs to obtain user experience metrics without directly managing the external devices, thus extending monitoring capability while avoiding direct control complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The NMS is enhanced to perform multiple functions: traditional network monitoring plus integration with third-party APM vendors for external service monitoring. The system universally handles both internal network data and external application performance data through a unified architecture, enabling comprehensive QoS monitoring across the entire user experience path.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the NMS integrates with third-party APM vendors to monitor external services, then the QoS monitoring coverage is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Third-party APM vendors serve as intermediaries that already have infrastructure in place to collect performance data from diverse client devices and application servers. The NMS leverages these existing intermediaries through standardized API queries, avoiding the complexity of building custom monitoring infrastructure while expanding monitoring coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The system establishes feedback loops where the NMS queries third-party APM vendors for performance metrics, analyzes the returned data to identify user experience issues, and can trigger remediation actions. This feedback mechanism enables the NMS to adapt to external service conditions and respond appropriately without requiring direct integration with every external device.
3Productivity
If the NMS collects and analyzes third-party data to identify user experience issues, then the troubleshooting capability is improved, but the processing time and resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
Third-party APM vendors continuously collect and pre-process performance data from client devices and application servers in advance. This preliminary data preparation means that when the NMS queries for specific metrics, the data is already aggregated and ready for analysis, reducing the processing time required to identify user experience issues compared to collecting raw data in real-time.
Solution Approach 2:
The NMS extracts only the specific performance metrics and user experience indicators needed for troubleshooting from the third-party APM vendor data, rather than processing all available data. This selective extraction approach minimizes processing resources and time while maintaining the ability to identify and resolve user experience issues effectively.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed for a network management system (NMS) that performs quality of service (QoS) monitoring and troubleshooting of user experience issues occurring outside of a network managed by the NMS using data obtained from third-party sources. For example, an NMS obtains third-party data of a third-party application server or third-party service provider server from a third-party monitoring vendor. The NMS identifies a user experience issue indicated by the third-party data and stitches the third-party data to network data received from network devices. The NMS determines a root cause or a remedial action of the user experience issue based at least on the network data received from the one or more network devices. The NMS generates a notification for presentation to an administrator device which identifies the root cause or the remedial action of the user experience issue.