Network monitoring method and system
View Patent ↗A method of monitoring a network, in particular a data or telecommunication network, where the network includes a number of units to be monitored, and where relevant states of these units are controlled with respect to functionality, efficiency and/or security by means of provided information elements called managed objects at the monitored units, that reflect states and/or parameters to be monitored, and that are read and/or written by a network management system using network management protocols, is characterized in that at the managed units an additional management object—the health check object—is being implemented, such that almost all relevant states of the respective monitored unit are aggregated into a single value, that can be read by the network management system.
1. A method of monitoring a network, the network including:
a plurality of units to be monitored, each of which holds managed objects reflecting states to be monitored; and
a network management system which is allowed to access a managed object of each of the plurality of monitored units through a predetermined network management protocol,
the method comprising:
implementing an additional managed object representing the states of a plurality of managed objects of a monitored unit in each of the plurality of monitored units, the additional managed object implemented by aggregating all the states of the plurality of managed objects into a single value; and
storing the single value as a value of the additional managed object so as to be readable by the network management system.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein, for the relevant states of the monitored unit, individual limits and/or regular state values are set.
3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the value of the additional managed object indicates one of cases where all relevant states at the monitored unit are within corresponding set limits and where at least one status thereof exceeds a corresponding set limit.
4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a set of managed objects is selected, which are used when the additional managed object is computed.
5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein, for calculating the value of the additional managed object, only comparison operations with the set limits and/or regular state values are performed and all comparison results are aggregated into the value of the additional managed object.
6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein multiple additional managed objects are implemented at a monitored unit.
7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein different additional managed objects implemented at a monitored unit serve different aspects of network monitoring.
8. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the additional managed objects implemented at a monitored unit are hierarchically structured into higher level and lower level additional managed objects.
9. The method according to claim 8 , wherein, for computing the value of a higher level additional managed object, the values of its lower level health check objects are used.
10. The method according to claim 8 , wherein additional managed objects are structured into more than two levels of hierarchy.
11. The method according to claim 5 , wherein weights are assigned to the comparison operations that are performed when computing the value of the additional managed object.
12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the value of the additional managed object is computed as the maximum of the weights of all comparison operations for which the value of a managed object exceeds a corresponding limit that has been set.
13. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the value of the additional managed object is computed as the sum of the weights of all compare operations for which the value of a managed object exceeds a corresponding limit that has been set.
14. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the value of the additional managed object is computed in selectable regular intervals at the monitored unit.
15. The method according to claim 14 , wherein, in case the computed value of an additional managed object indicates that at least one of the states exceeds its limit, the monitored unit sends a corresponding message to the network management system.
16. The method according to claim 15 , wherein the message sent to the network management system contains an indication of the cause of fault.
17. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the indication of the cause of fault is a list of managed objects for which the value exceeds its limits.
18. The method according to claim 17 , wherein the monitored units with faulty managed objects are reconfigured by the network management system.
19. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a scope of an additional managed object is extended to multiple monitored units by considering the values of managed objects at multiple monitored units when computing the value of the additional managed object.
20. The method according to claim 1 , wherein limits are selected for resources to be used for computing the value of the additional managed object.
21. The method according to claim 5 , wherein a maximum number of permitted comparison operations is restricted to a predetermined number.
22. A system for monitoring a network, comprising:
a plurality of units to be monitored, each of which holds managed objects reflecting states to be monitored; and
a network management system which is allowed to access a managed object of each of the plurality of monitored units through a predetermined network management protocol,
wherein each of the plurality of monitored units stores a single value obtained representing the states of all the managed objects of the monitored unit, wherein the single value is accessible by the network management system.
23. A network element to be monitored by a network management system, comprising:
a first storage for storing a plurality of managed objects reflecting states to be monitored;
a second storage for storing at least one health check object represented by a single value obtained by aggregating the states of all the managed objects of the monitored unit; and
a management agent for managing the plurality of managed objects and the at least one health check object, wherein the single value is accessible by the network management system.
24. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with a computer program stored thereon for instructing a computer to allow a network element to be monitored by a network management system, comprising:
storing a plurality of managed objects reflecting states to be monitored;
storing at least one health check object represented by a single value obtained by aggregating the states of all the managed objects of the monitored unit; and
managing the plurality of managed objects and the at least one health check object so as to be accessible by the network management system.
25. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the additional managed object in each of the plurality of monitored units, represents the aggregation of all the other managed objects of each of the plurality of monitored units.