CN108737219B

CN108737219B - Network link measurement method and device

Info

Publication number: CN108737219B
Application number: CN201810632321.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 不公告发明人
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2018-06-19
Filing date: 2018-06-19
Publication date: 2022-05-27
Anticipated expiration: 2038-06-19
Also published as: CN108737219A

Abstract

The invention provides a method and a device for measuring a network link, and relates to the technical field of communication. The measurement method of the network link is applied to a terminal device, the terminal device is in communication connection with a network device in a communication network, and the method comprises the following steps: acquiring link attribute information between two network devices in a communication network; acquiring device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, wherein the device attribute information comprises environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices and/or device attribute information of the two network devices; and carrying out weighted operation on the link attribute information and the equipment attribute information according to the measurement weighting parameters configured by the network administrator to obtain link measurement data between the two network equipment. The method and the device for measuring the network link can realize accurate measurement of the network link, so that the optimal path can be accurately found out or statistics, prediction, optimization and audit of network communication quality can be carried out by taking the link measurement data as a basis in the subsequent calculation process of the network link.

Description

Network link measurement method and device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for measuring a network link.

Background

In the conventional technology, measurement of network link attributes is mainly based on relatively static attributes, such as total bandwidth data of links, but since the use of network links is always dynamically changed and the attributes of links are continuously changed, if the network links are measured by using the static and unchanging data, the accuracy is low, and it is difficult to find an optimal path between network devices in the subsequent network link calculation process.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for measuring a network link, so as to improve the above problem.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for measuring a network link, where the method is applied to a terminal device, and the terminal device is in communication connection with a network device in a communication network, and the method includes:

acquiring link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network;

acquiring device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, wherein the device attribute information comprises environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices and/or device parameters of the two network devices;

and performing weighted operation on the link attribute information and the equipment attribute information according to a measurement weighting parameter configured by a network administrator to obtain link measurement data between the two network equipment.

Optionally, the obtaining link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network includes:

and obtaining the link attribute information between the two network devices by controlling the mode of actively sending data packets and/or intercepting the data packets.

Optionally, the method further comprises:

and sending reporting information to the network administrator, wherein the reporting information comprises the obtained link measurement data and/or the obtained abnormal information.

Optionally, the link attribute information includes at least one of delay, jitter, packet loss, UDP/TCP protocol throughput, application layer protocol throughput, link layer throughput, unicast packet throughput, multicast packet throughput, broadcast packet throughput, and data packet size distribution of the link.

Optionally, the environment parameter includes at least one of an isolation domain parameter of the two network devices, a user class of a network user related to the two network devices, a service type of a user related to the two network devices, and a tunnel type between the two network devices;

the device parameters include at least one of port mode, total bandwidth, used bandwidth, packet error rate, and CRC check error information of the two network devices.

Optionally, the terminal device is one of the network devices.

Optionally, the network device is a switch, a router, a firewall, a computer, an intrusion detection device, or a network acceleration device.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a measurement apparatus for a network link, which is applied to a terminal device, where the terminal device is in communication connection with all network devices in a communication network, and the measurement apparatus for the network link includes:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network; and

and the operation module is used for carrying out weighted operation on the link attribute information and the equipment attribute information according to the measurement weighting parameters configured by a network administrator to obtain link measurement data between the two network equipment.

Optionally, the obtaining module is configured to obtain link attribute information between the two network devices by controlling a manner of actively sending a data packet and/or monitoring the data packet.

Optionally, the measuring apparatus of the network link further includes:

and the sending module is used for sending reporting information to the network administrator, wherein the reporting information comprises the obtained link measurement data and/or the obtained abnormal information.

For the prior art, the method and the device for measuring the network link provided by the invention have the following beneficial effects:

the method and the device for measuring the network link can calculate according to the differential weighting of the link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network and the device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, thereby realizing the accurate measurement of the network link, and being convenient for accurately finding out the optimal path or carrying out statistics, prediction, optimization and audit on the network communication quality by taking the link measurement data as the basis in the subsequent calculation process of the network link.

In order to make the aforementioned and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention comprehensible, preferred embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings needed to be used in the embodiments will be briefly described below, it should be understood that the following drawings only illustrate some embodiments of the present invention and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope, and for those skilled in the art, other related drawings can be obtained according to the drawings without inventive efforts.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application environment according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a terminal device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a method for measuring network links according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a functional block diagram of a network link metric apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Icon: 100-a terminal device; 110-a metric device of the network link; 111-an acquisition module; 112-operation module; 113-a sending module; 120-a memory; 130-a memory controller; 140-a processor; 150-peripheral interface; 160-input-output unit; 170-a display unit; 200-network device.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. The components of embodiments of the present invention generally described and illustrated in the figures herein may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of different configurations. Thus, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention, presented in the figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the invention, as claimed, but is merely representative of selected embodiments of the invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments of the present invention without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

It should be noted that: like reference numbers and letters refer to like items in the following figures, and thus, once an item is defined in one figure, it need not be further defined and explained in subsequent figures. Meanwhile, in the description of the present invention, the terms "first", "second", and the like are used only for distinguishing the description, and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application environment of a network link measurement method according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, which is applied to a terminal device 100 to measure a link between two network devices in a communication network. As shown in fig. 1, the terminal device 100 is respectively connected with each network device 200 in the communication network for data interaction, and the network devices 200 are directly or indirectly connected with each other through the communication network for data interaction.

The basic function of the network device 200 is to process and forward various types of data on different ports, and the network device 200 may be a conventional network device or an SDN network device, which may employ, but is not limited to, a switch, a router, a firewall, a computer, an intrusion detection device, a network acceleration device, and the like. For example, when the network device 200 is a switch, it can be used for various specific data processing and forwarding processes such as L2/L3/ACL/QoS/multicast/security protection.

The communication network may be a wide area network, a local area network, or many other types of networks.

The terminal device 100 is configured to obtain link attribute information between network devices in a communication network and device attribute information corresponding to the network devices, and perform weighting operation according to the obtained link attribute information and the device attribute information to obtain link metric data between the network devices. Which may be a computer, dedicated hardware, etc., or may be one of the network devices 200 in a communication network.

As shown in fig. 2, the block diagram of a terminal device 100 is a schematic diagram, where the terminal device 100 includes a measurement apparatus 110 of a network link, a memory 120, a storage controller 130, a processor 140, a peripheral interface 150, an input/output unit 160, and a display unit 170.

The memory 120, the memory controller 130, the processor 140, the peripheral interface 150, the input/output unit 160, and the display unit 170 are electrically connected to each other directly or indirectly to implement data transmission or interaction. For example, the components may be electrically connected to each other via one or more communication buses or signal lines. The measurement means 110 of the network link comprises at least one software functional module which can be stored in the memory 120 in the form of software or firmware (firmware) or fixed in an Operating System (OS) of the terminal device 100. The processor 140 is configured to execute executable modules stored in the memory 120, such as software functional modules or computer programs included in the metric device 110 of the network link.

The Memory 120 may be, but is not limited to, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM), an Erasable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), an electrically Erasable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), and the like. The memory 120 is configured to store a program, and the processor 140 executes the program after receiving the execution instruction, where the method executed by the terminal device 100 defined by the flow disclosed in any of the foregoing embodiments of the present invention may be applied to the processor 140, or implemented by the processor 140.

The processor 140 may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capabilities. The Processor 140 may be a general-purpose Processor, and includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Network Processor (NP), and the like; but may also be a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components. The various methods, steps and logic blocks disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

The peripheral interface 150 couples various input/output devices to the processor 140 as well as to the memory 120. In some embodiments, peripheral interface 150, processor 140, and memory controller 130 may be implemented in a single chip. In other examples, they may be implemented separately from the individual chips.

The input output unit 160 is used to provide user input data to enable user interaction with the metrology device 110 of the network link. The input/output unit 160 may be, but is not limited to, a mouse, a keyboard, and the like.

The display unit 170 provides an interactive interface (e.g., a user interface) between the metrology device 110 of the network link and a user or for displaying image data to a user reference. In this embodiment, the display unit 170 may be a liquid crystal display or a touch display. In the case of a touch display, the display can be a capacitive touch screen or a resistive touch screen, which supports single-point and multi-point touch operations. Supporting single-point and multi-point touch operations means that the touch display can sense touch operations from one or more locations on the touch display at the same time, and the sensed touch operations are sent to the processor 140 for calculation and processing.

Please refer to fig. 3, which is a flowchart illustrating a network link metric method applied to the network link metric apparatus 110 shown in fig. 2 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The specific flow shown in fig. 3 will be described in detail below.

Step S101, link attribute information between two network devices in a communication network is acquired.

In the embodiment of the present invention, when a link between any two network devices in a communication network needs to be measured, the terminal device 100 may first obtain link attribute information between the two network devices.

The link attribute information between the two network devices 200 may be, but is not limited to, at least one of delay, jitter, packet loss, UDP/TCP protocol throughput, application layer protocol throughput, link layer throughput, unicast packet throughput, multicast packet throughput, broadcast packet throughput, and data packet size distribution of the link between the two network devices 200.

The obtaining may be performed by the terminal device 100 sending a control command to the two network devices 200, and actively controlling the two network devices 200 to perform packet sending between each other to obtain the link attribute information between the two network devices 200. Alternatively, the link attribute information between the two network devices 200 may be obtained by passively listening to a data packet transmitted between the two network devices 200. The embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the measurement of the link between the network devices in the communication network may be initiated by the terminal device 100 actively, for example, the measurement of the link between any two network devices in the communication network is performed automatically at each certain time interval. The terminal device 100 may also respond to a trigger event, for example, a network administrator accesses the terminal device 100 and sends a control instruction for measuring a link between network devices to the terminal device 100, and the terminal device 100 reads and calculates all information about the link of all devices on the link between network devices according to the control instruction to measure the link. The embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited.

In the embodiment of the present invention, links between network devices in a communication network are measured, and the terminal device 100 actively controls two network devices 200 to transmit data packets to obtain link attributes between the two network devices 200, before transmitting a data packet, one or more data packets dedicated to link measurement need to be constructed according to measurement requirements, and records, according to the measurement requirements, before transmitting a data packet: 1. the byte number of the information of the physical layer, the UDP/TCP protocol layer, the application layer and the link layer of the data packet; 2. recording the precise time of sending or directly embedding a timestamp into the data packet; 3. setting appropriate source and destination addresses for the data packet so that the data packet reaches the destination network device 200 along the measured link; 4. the measurement-specific data packet is caused to arrive at the destination network device 200 along the measured link by the effect on the control plane information of all network devices 200 on the measured link. The terminal device 100 that receives the measurement dedicated packet needs, after receiving the packet: 1. acquiring the number of bytes of information of a physical layer, a UDP/TCP protocol layer, an application layer and a link layer of a received data packet; 2. calculating the delay and jitter of the packet according to the time of receiving the data packet or the timestamp information in the data packet; 3. and calculating packet loss, UDP/TCP protocol throughput, application layer protocol throughput and link layer throughput according to the two pieces of information. It should be noted that the terminal device 100 from which the measurement-dedicated data packet is sent and the terminal device 100 from which the measurement-dedicated data packet is received may not be the same terminal device, and the two terminal devices need to perform appropriate communication to check and synchronize the above information; the terminal device 100 needs to have a sufficiently accurate time synchronization capability, such as NTP, IEEE1588, etc., and the time accuracy requirement needs to be determined according to the accuracy of the measurement.

In this embodiment of the present invention, there may be a plurality of pieces of link attribute information between two network devices 200. For example, if there are 3 links between network device a and network device B, 3 pieces of link attribute information corresponding to the 3 links can be obtained.

Step S102, acquiring device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices.

Meanwhile, the terminal device 100 further obtains device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, where the device attribute information includes environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices 200 and/or device parameters of the two network devices 200.

The environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices 200 include, but are not limited to, at least one of an isolation domain parameter of the two network devices 200, a user class of a network user associated with the two network devices 200, a service type of a user associated with the two network devices 200, and a tunnel type between the two network devices 200.

The isolation domain parameters of the two network devices 200 refer to whether the two network devices 200 and ports of the two devices are in the same isolation domain. The user classes of the two network devices 200 refer to network usage class permissions of users of the user devices connected to the two network devices 200. The service type may be, but is not limited to, internet, video, voice, file transfer, etc.

The isolation domain parameter, the user class, the service type and the tunnel type may be parameters pre-configured by a network administrator through a user terminal, or may be parameters automatically generated by other functions.

The device parameters of the two network devices 200 include, but are not limited to, at least one of port mode, total bandwidth, used bandwidth, packet error rate, and CRC check error information of the two network devices.

It should be noted that the order of step S101 and step S102 is not limited in the embodiment of the present invention.

Step S103, carrying out weighting operation on the link attribute information and the equipment attribute information according to the measurement weighting parameters configured by the network administrator to obtain link measurement data between two network equipment.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a network administrator accesses the terminal device 100 through a user terminal in advance, and configures a metric weighting parameter (weight) of link attribute information and device attribute information (or each attribute of the link attribute information and the device attribute information). After the terminal device 100 obtains the link attribute information and the corresponding device attribute information between the two network devices 200, the terminal device 100 quantizes the obtained link attribute information (corresponding to each link) and the corresponding device attribute information, and performs a weighting operation on the quantized link attribute information and the corresponding device attribute information according to a preset weight to obtain link metric data between the two network devices 200 (when a plurality of links exist between the two network devices, a plurality of connection metric data between the two network devices 200 are also corresponding). It should be noted that the link metric data finally calculated may be a data structure containing multiple sets of information, or may be a single data obtained by performing weighted calculation on the data structure. The link metric data is used to characterize the quality of the link between the two network devices 200. Therefore, the optimal path can be accurately found out by taking the link metric data as a basis in the subsequent network link calculation process.

Further, the terminal device 100 may further send reporting information to the user terminal, where the reporting information may include calculated link metric data between the two network devices 200. The report information may also include some abnormal information, such as abnormal port configuration of the network device 200.

In summary, the method for measuring a network link according to the embodiments of the present invention can perform operations according to the weighting of the link attribute information between two network devices in a communication network and the differentiation of the device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, to obtain link measurement data between the two network devices 200, thereby implementing accurate measurement of the network link, setting the weights of the link attribute information and the device attribute information to better meet the requirements of service objects thereof, and accurately finding an optimal path or performing statistics, prediction, optimization and audit of network communication quality in the subsequent network link calculation process based on the link measurement data.

Please refer to fig. 4, which is a block diagram illustrating a function block diagram of the metric apparatus 110 of the network link of fig. 2 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The network link measurement device 110 includes an acquisition module 111, an operation module 112, and a transmission module 113.

The obtaining module 111 is configured to obtain link attribute information between two network devices 200 in a communication network.

In the embodiment of the present invention, when a link between any two network devices in a communication network needs to be measured, the terminal device 100 may obtain link attribute information between the two network devices through the obtaining module 111.

It is understood that the obtaining module 111 may be configured to perform the step S101.

The obtaining module 111 is further configured to obtain device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices 200.

Meanwhile, the terminal device 100 further obtains device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices through the obtaining module 111, where the device attribute information includes environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices 200 and/or device parameters of the two network devices 200.

It is understood that the obtaining module 111 can also be used to execute the step S102.

The operation module 112 is configured to perform a weighting operation on the link attribute information and the device attribute information according to a metric weighting parameter configured by a network administrator, so as to obtain link metric data between the two network devices.

The network administrator accesses the terminal device 100 through the user terminal in advance, and is configured with the link attribute information and the weight of the device attribute information. After the terminal device 100 obtains the link attribute information and the corresponding device attribute information between the two network devices 200 through the obtaining module 111, the terminal device 100 quantizes the obtained link attribute information and the corresponding device attribute information through the operation module 112, and performs a weighting operation on the quantized link attribute information and the corresponding device attribute information according to a preset weight to obtain link metric data between the two network devices 200.

It is understood that the operation module 112 can be used to execute the step S103.

The sending module 113 is configured to send reporting information to the user terminal, where the reporting information may include calculated link metric data between the two network devices 200, and may also include some abnormal information.

To sum up, the measurement apparatus 110 of the network link provided in the embodiment of the present invention can perform operation after weighting the link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network and the device attribute information difference corresponding to the two network devices, so as to obtain link measurement data between the two network devices 200, thereby implementing accurate measurement of the network link, and setting the weights of the link attribute information and the device attribute information to better meet the requirements of the service object thereof, and in the subsequent calculation process of the network link, the link measurement data can be used as a basis to accurately find out an optimal path or perform statistics, prediction, optimization and audit of the network communication quality.

In the embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method can be implemented in other ways. The apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, and for example, the flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of apparatus, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems which perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

In addition, the functional modules in the embodiments of the present invention may be integrated together to form an independent part, or each module may exist separately, or two or more modules may be integrated to form an independent part.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional modules and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present invention may be embodied in the form of a software product, which is stored in a storage medium and includes instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present invention. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and other various media capable of storing program codes. It is noted that, herein, relational terms such as first and second, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. Also, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other identical elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention. It should be noted that: like reference numbers and letters refer to like items in the following figures, and thus, once an item is defined in one figure, it need not be further defined and explained in subsequent figures.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily think of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present invention, and shall cover the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for measuring a network link, applied to a terminal device, the terminal device being in communication connection with a network device in a communication network, the method comprising:

acquiring device attribute information corresponding to the two network devices, wherein the device attribute information comprises environment parameters corresponding to the two network devices and device parameters of the two network devices;

the environment parameter comprises at least one of an isolation domain parameter of the two network devices, a user level of a network user related to the two network devices, a service type of a user related to the two network devices and a tunnel type between the two network devices;

the device parameters comprise at least one of port modes, total bandwidth, used bandwidth, packet error rate and CRC check error information of the two network devices;

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the obtaining link attribute information between two network devices in the communication network comprises:

3. The method of measuring network links of claim 1, further comprising:

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the link attribute information comprises at least one of a delay, jitter, packet loss, UDP/TCP protocol throughput, application layer protocol throughput, link layer throughput, unicast packet throughput, multicast packet throughput, broadcast packet throughput, and data packet size distribution of the link.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the terminal device is one of the network devices.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the network device is a switch, a router, a firewall, a computer, an intrusion detection device, or a network acceleration device.

7. A network link metric apparatus, applied to a terminal device, the terminal device being in communication connection with all network devices in a communication network, the apparatus comprising:

8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the obtaining module is configured to obtain the link attribute information between the two network devices by controlling a manner of actively sending and/or listening for data packets.

9. The apparatus for measuring network link according to claim 7, further comprising: