Patent ID: 7680922
Filing Date: 2010-03-16
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of characterizing a content traffic flow at communication nodes of a communications network for communications network Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance assessment by a network management system (NMS) connected to said communication nodes, the method comprising: at least one of said communication nodes tracking cumulative content arrivals, in real time, for the content traffic flow to derive a time variation of cumulative content arrivals; said at least one of said nodes adjusting characteristic arrival curve parameters, the arrival curve parameters comprising at least b, a degree of burst transmission, r, a sustainable content conveyance rate, M, a maximum packet size, and p, a peak content conveyance rate, in fitting an arrival curve to the variation of cumulative content arrivals for the content traffic flow; and said at least one of said nodes reporting said adjusted arrival curve parameters to said NMS to enable said NMS to carry out said SLA compliance assessment with respect to the content traffic flow, thereby reducing reporting bandwidth overhead by minimizing an amount of content arrival information communicated to said NMS.