Patent ID: 7496655

Claim:
A method for supporting a near-optimal overload monitoring of a network, said network comprising a plurality of nodes, in order to minimize service level agreement (SLA) violations due to a plurality of SLAs (service level agreements) by monitoring only a plurality of critical SLAs in a plurality of master nodes, wherein each critical SLA of said plurality of critical SLAs is part of said plurality of SLAs, each node of said plurality of master nodes is part of said plurality of nodes of said network, the number of SLAs in said plurality of critical SLAs is less than the number of SLAs in said plurality of SLAs, and the number of nodes in said plurality of master nodes is less than the number nodes in said plurality of nodes, the said method comprising: receiving said plurality of SLAs; computing of a plurality of SLA-specific load vectors based on said plurality of SLAs with respect to said network over a plurality of predefined time intervals; computing of a plurality of sensitive analysis time intervals (SATWs) associated with said plurality of SLAs based on said plurality of SLA-specific load vectors, wherein each of said plurality of SATWs is part of said plurality of predefined time intervals and an aggregate load based on said plurality of SLA-specific load vectors exceeds a predefined threshold; computing of a plurality of SATW-specific optimal weights associated with said plurality of SLAs with respect to an SATW of said plurality of SATWs; determining of said plurality of critical SLAs, wherein each of said plurality of critical SLAs is part of said plurality of SLAs, based on said plurality of SATW-specific optimal weights, said plurality of SATWs, and said plurality of SLAs; clustering of said plurality of network nodes based on a hop metric, wherein said hop metric with respect to a node 1 of said plurality of nodes and a node 2 of said plurality of nodes is a measure of number of hops that separates said node 1 and said node 2 in said network, into a plurality of hop based contiguous clusters; identifying a plurality of SLA-specific clusters for an SLA of said plurality of critical SLAs based on said plurality of hop based contiguous clusters; computing of a plurality of SLA-specific similar load subclusters based on said plurality of SLA-specific clusters and said SLA; computing of a plurality of level-wise clusters based on said plurality of SLA- specific similar load subclusters; identification of a plurality of SLA-specific master nodes for monitoring of said network for any violations with respect to said SLA based on said plurality of level-wise clusters; and identification of said plurality of master nodes, wherein each SLA-specific master node of said plurality of SLA-specific master nodes for each SLA of said plurality of critical SLAs is part of said plurality of master nodes.