System and method for heuristic control of network traffic management

1. A method for heuristic control of traffic management on a computer network, the method comprising:

setting a predetermined benchmark against which a quality of experience (QoE) metric can be measured; and

periodically performing a heuristic control loop on a time scale t 2 comprising:

performing a traffic management control loop to determine a plurality of sample values of the QoE metric, via a QoE measuring module, on the network based on a traffic flow, wherein the traffic management control loop is performed on a time scale wherein t 1 is less than t 2 ;

determining whether the plurality of sample values reaches a minimum sample threshold;

determining at least one traffic management action based on the plurality of sample values of the QoE metric;

aggregating the plurality of sample values of the QoE metric obtained from the traffic management control loop;

determining a new benchmark based on the aggregation of the QoE metric, via a heuristic control module;

sending the new benchmark to the QoE measuring module to become a new predetermined benchmark;

updating the at least one traffic management action to improve the QoE based in part on the new predetermined benchmark; and

determining whether any access location requires an upgrade.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining the new benchmark comprises:

aggregating a subset of the plurality of sample values to determine a plurality of interim benchmark values;

selecting a predetermined number of the plurality of interim benchmark values; and

calculating a new benchmark based on the plurality of interim benchmark values.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the traffic management control loop comprises:

monitoring traffic on the network to retrieve values related to the QoE metric;

analyzing the retrieved values related to the QoE metric with the predetermined benchmark; and

determining a traffic management action based on the analysis.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the aggregating of the sample values comprises generating a histogram of the sample values.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the QoE metric is selected from the group comprising: access Round Trip Time (aRTT), Mean opinion score (MOS), HTTP mean time to page load, HTTP mean time to page render, TCP retransmits, DNS response time, ping response time, video QoE, video jitter, gaming jitter, gaming latency, speed test or 3rd party QoE measurement.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining the new benchmark based on the aggregation of the QoE metric further comprises:

calculating a change between the predetermined benchmark and the new benchmark;

determining whether the change meets a predetermined tolerance range;

if the change meets the predetermined tolerance range, setting the new benchmark to be the same as the predetermined benchmark.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the heuristic control loop is performed on a 24 hour interval.

8. A system for heuristic control of traffic management on a computer network, the system comprising:

at least one processor connected to a memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to implement:

a heuristic calibration module configured to set a predetermined benchmark for traffic;

a quality of experience (QoE) measuring module configured to determine a plurality of sample values of a QoE metric, on the network based on a traffic flow, via a traffic management control loop performed on a time scale of t 1 , determine whether the plurality of sample values reaches a minimum sample threshold, and determine at least one traffic management action based on the plurality of sample values of the QoE metric;

an analysis module configured to aggregate the plurality of sample values of the QoE metric obtained from the QoE measuring module;

the heuristic calibration module further configured to determine a new benchmark based on the aggregation of the QoE metric via a heuristic control loop on a time scale t 2 , wherein t 1 is less than t 2 ; and send the new benchmark to the QoE measuring module to become a new predetermined benchmark; and

a traffic management module configured to update the traffic management actions to improve the QoE based in part on the new predetermined benchmark and determine whether any access location requires an upgrade.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the analysis module is further configured to aggregate a subset of the plurality of sample values to determine a plurality of interim benchmark values; and

the heuristic calibration module is configured to select a predetermined number of the plurality of interim benchmark values, and calculate a new benchmark based on the plurality of interim benchmark values.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the QoE measurement module is configured to monitor traffic on the network to retrieve the plurality of sample values related to the QoE metric; and the system further comprises:

a control system module configured to analyze the retrieved values related to the QoE metric with the predetermined benchmark; and

a traffic management module configured to determine a traffic management action based on the analysis.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein t 1 is in an order of seconds and t 2 is in an order of hours.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the QoE metric is measured from a plurality of access networks and a predetermined benchmark varies per access network.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising repeating the heuristic control loop to further refine the at least one traffic management action.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

updating at least one piece of network equipment;

performing the heuristic control loop after the at least one piece of network equipment has been updated, to update the predetermined benchmark and the at least one traffic management action.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the traffic management control loop requires a minimum number of sample values to be considered a valid input to the heuristic control loop.