JPH0822427A - Network managing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To predict influence on network performance by predicting traffic which increases on a network owing to the introduction of application software and adding it to the existent traffic. CONSTITUTION:A network managing device 1 manages constitution information and performance information on a network 10 to be managed by a network constitution management part 2 and a network performance management part 3 respectively. A generated traffic prediction part 4 finds the traffic generated when the application software 11 is introduced in the network 10. A route prediction part 5 finds a route in the network 109 that a communication by the software is used. A traffic distribution prediction part 6 finds an increment in traffic from the found route and adds it to the existent traffic to find the traffic distribution on the network 10. A network performance prediction part 9 finds the performance of a segment and a link by comparing the traffic distribution with performance information in a data base 7 which is corrected by a correction part 8.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a network management method capable of predicting the network performance after the application software is installed, when the application software for using the network is installed in the communication device in the operating network. Is.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In network management, it is important to manage the configuration of a target network, manage the performance of the network, and maintain the quality of service provided by the network.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a network management apparatus using a conventional network management method. In FIG. 1, 21 is the entire network management device, 22 is the network configuration management unit, and 23 is the network performance management unit.
Network configuration management unit 22 of network management device 21
Is the connection relation information of the segments or links in the network 10 to be managed, the routing information of the network connecting devices connecting the segments or links, and the information of the network connecting devices such as the network connecting devices and communication devices connected to each segment. Collect and manage network configuration.

The network performance management section 23 of the network management device 21 measures the traffic flowing through each segment and each link in the network, measures the throughput and the average delay time, and manages the network performance.

A value of network performance that the network administrator considers appropriate for each segment and each link in the network 10 in order to monitor that the performance of the network maintains a certain level. Assuming that (this value is called an allowable value here), that value is set in the network performance management unit 23 of the network management device 21, and the network performance management unit 23 of the network management device 21 determines that the measured network performance is When it is detected that the value is below the allowable value, the fact is notified to the network administrator by a display or alarm sound.

[0006]

Since the conventional network management method manages the network performance based on the measured value of the network performance, at the time when it is detected that the network performance is below the allowable value. There was a problem that the network had already been affected.

[0007] Since the deterioration of the network performance leads to the deterioration of the quality of the service received by the users who use the network, it is desirable that the deterioration of the network performance does not occur. In particular, if the traffic increases drastically due to the introduction of new application software that uses the network, the impact will be great, and it is desirable to be able to predict the impact on network performance. There was a problem that it could not be detected until after.

An object of the present invention is to provide a network management method capable of predicting the influence on the network performance due to the introduction of new application software for utilizing the network in order to solve the above problems. Is.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is directed to a network composed of a plurality of segments and links connecting the respective segments, and connection relation information of the segments and links in the network, and a network connecting device connecting the segments and links. Manages the configuration information of the network including the routing information of the network, the information of network devices such as network connection devices and communication devices connected to each segment, and the traffic information and traffic of each segment and each link in the network. In a network management method that manages performance information, when newly installing application software that uses the network in a communication device in the network, the communication time associated with one use of the application software , The amount of data to be sent, and the expected usage status of the application software on the network, the traffic generated by the application software on each communication device is predicted, and the network configuration information and the application software are Predict the route in the network used by the communication by the application software from the position of the communication device to be installed, and each segment in the network by the application software from the occurrence prediction traffic and the predicted route And the increase amount of traffic on each link, and adding each increase amount to the traffic of the relevant part before the application software is installed, the relevant network after the application software is installed. Obtain the traffic in each segment and each link in the work, predict the traffic distribution of the network, and obtain the traffic-to-performance characteristic information according to the type of the segment and the link in each segment and each link in the network. The application software is corrected by using the performance information for the traffic before the application software is introduced, and from the traffic prediction distribution of each of the segments and the links, and the traffic-to-performance characteristic information obtained by the traffic-to-performance characteristic correcting means. Predict the performance of each segment and each link in the network after the introduction.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the traffic after the application software is introduced can be obtained by predicting the traffic increasing in each part of the network due to the application software introduction and adding it to each existing traffic. In addition, by using the traffic-to-performance data measured in the target network and correcting and using the characteristic information prepared in the database, it is possible to obtain characteristic information in a traffic state that cannot normally be measured. it can.

By applying the corrected characteristic information to the traffic after the application software is introduced, the performance of the network after the application software is introduced can be predicted before the application software is introduced.

[0012]

FIG. 2 is an example of a system configuration to which the method of the present invention is applied. The system to be applied includes a network management device 1, a network 10 and application software 11. The network 10 is composed of segments 110 to 113, links 114 to 115, routers 105 to 109 connecting the segments and links, and workstations 101 to 104 connected to each segment. This example shows a case where the application software 11 is newly installed in the workstations 101 to 104 distributed in the network 10. Also, the network 10 has a network management device 1
Are directly connected and manage the network 10.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a network management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. 3, the network management device 1 includes a network configuration management unit 2, a network performance management unit 3, a generated traffic prediction unit 4, a route prediction unit 5, a traffic distribution prediction unit 6, a performance characteristic database 7, a performance characteristic correction unit 8, and a network. It is composed of the performance prediction unit 9.

First, the network management device 1 obtains the configuration information of the managed network 10 from the network configuration management unit 2
It manages in. The configuration information required in the description of the present embodiment includes connection relation information of segments and links in the network, routing information of network connection devices connecting the segments and links, network connection devices and communication devices connected to each segment, and the like. It is the information of the network device.

The network management device 1 also obtains the performance information of the managed network 10 from the network performance management unit 3
It manages in. The performance information required in the description of this embodiment is the traffic information of each segment and each link in the network, and the performance information for the traffic.

The generated traffic prediction unit 4 obtains the traffic generated by the application software 11 when the application software 11 is introduced into the workstations 101 to 104 of the network 10. FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of the operation of the generated traffic prediction unit 4.
Here, the length of communication time associated with one use of the application software 11, the amount of data to be sent, the assumed usage status of the application software 11 on the network 10, etc. are input as parameters, and the traffic is obtained from these. From these pieces of information, the traffic generated by the application software 11 is sought so that the originating segment and the terminating segment, the originating time and the originating amount are clarified for each communication between the workstations.

The route predicting section 5 finds a route in the network 10 used for communication by the application software 11. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, a workstation 10 in which application software 11 is installed
When there are multiple routes connecting 1 to the workstation 104, it is necessary to determine which route is used for communication only by the position information of the segment to which the originating workstation 101 and the terminating workstation 104 belong. I can't. Therefore, based on the network configuration information managed by the network configuration management unit 2, the route in the network 10 from the work station 101 on the sending side to the work station 104 on the receiving side is obtained.

The procedure is as follows: first, from the routing information in the network configuration information, the workstation on the originating side
In order to reach the destination workstation 104 from 101, the next network connection device is sought, and from the segment or link to which the originating workstation 101 is connected (only the segment 110 in the case of workstation 101), The route to the network-connected device passing through is obtained. Here these are Router 105 and Segment respectively
Assume it was 110. That is, the route in the network 10 from the work station 101 on the originating side to the work station 104 on the terminating side is along route 1.

Next, the network connecting device that is obtained here is obtained from the router 105 connected to the network connecting device to reach the workstation 104 on the receiving side, and from the segments or links to which the router 105 is connected, Find the route to the network connection device. Here, it is assumed that these are the router 108 and the segment 111, respectively.

This work is performed by the workstation 104 on the receiving side.
By repeating the process until reaching, the route in the network 10 from the workstation 101 on the calling side to the workstation 104 on the called side is obtained. Find the routes between other workstations in the same way. As a result, the route in the network 10 used by the communication by the application software 11 is obtained.

The traffic distribution predicting unit 6 obtains the traffic distribution in each segment and each link in the network 10 after the application software 11 is introduced.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the operation of the traffic distribution prediction unit 6.
Shown in Here, from the traffic generated by the application software 11 determined by the generated traffic prediction unit 4 and the route used by the communication determined by the route prediction unit 5, the application software 11 is introduced to make each segment in the network 10 And the amount of traffic increase on each link. By adding them to the existing traffic of the corresponding part, the traffic distribution in each segment and each link in the network 10 after the application software 11 is introduced can be obtained.

The performance characteristic correction unit 8 corrects the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7. The performance characteristic database 7 stores characteristic information of traffic versus performance according to types of segments and links with respect to network performance such as throughput and average delay time.
However, since these pieces of characteristic information are for general performance characteristics, they do not accurately represent the performance characteristics of the target segment or link.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7 is calculated by using the actually measured traffic pair performance information 32 before the introduction of the application software 11.
31 is corrected to obtain more accurate characteristic information 33. By using the corrected characteristic information, it is possible to know the performance according to the traffic for each segment and each link in the network. The traffic performance characteristic information before the application software 11 is introduced is measured and managed by the network performance management unit 3.

A flowchart of the operation of the performance characteristic correction unit 8 is shown in FIG. The correction method corrects the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7 so that the characteristic information of traffic versus performance in the characteristic database 7 and the characteristic information actually measured match as much as possible. As an example of automatic correction, it is necessary to correct the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7 so as to minimize the sum of squares of the difference between the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7 and the measured characteristic information. However, it may be manually corrected by a person.

The network performance prediction unit 9 obtains the performance of each segment and each link in the network 10 after the application software 11 is introduced. Here, the traffic distribution in each segment and each link in the network 10 after the application software 11 is introduced, which is obtained by the traffic distribution prediction unit 6, and the characteristic information in the performance characteristic database 7 corrected by the performance characteristic correction unit 8 are displayed. By comparison, the performance of each segment and each link in the network 10 after the application software 11 is introduced is required.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the mechanism of predicting the performance after the application is introduced, using throughput as an example.
The performance data thus obtained is presented to the network administrator, and whether the network administrator falls below the permissible value set for the network performance management unit 3 of the network management apparatus 1 of FIG. If it is less than that, the degree of performance deterioration with respect to the allowable value is also presented.

In this embodiment, the network management device 1 is directly connected to the network 10 to be managed, and the configuration information and the performance information are directly obtained from the network 10. However, these information can be obtained by other methods. You can also get it.

[0028]

As described above, according to the present invention, when new application software is introduced into a network, it is possible to predict the influence on the network performance due to the introduction of the new application software. In this way, the network administrator can prevent the network performance and the quality of service provided to the user from being degraded by changing the network configuration such as adding links or changing the application installation mode according to the impact. it can.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a network management device using a conventional network management method.

FIG. 2 is an example of a system configuration diagram to which the method of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a network management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the operation of the generated traffic prediction unit 4.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining that there can be a plurality of routes from a calling communication device to a receiving communication device.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the operation of the traffic distribution prediction unit 6.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a mechanism for correcting characteristic information.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the operation of the performance characteristic correction unit 8.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a mechanism for predicting performance after application software is installed.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 network management device (method of the present invention) 2,22 network configuration management unit 3,23 network performance management unit 4 generated traffic prediction unit 5 route prediction unit 6 traffic distribution prediction unit 7 performance characteristic database 8 performance characteristic correction unit 9 network performance Prediction unit 10 Network 11 Application software 21 Network management device (conventional method) 31 Characteristic information in performance characteristic database 7 32 Traffic information before introduction of application software 11 Performance information 33 Corrected characteristic information 101-014 Workstations 105-109 Router 110-113 segments

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A network comprising a plurality of segments and links connecting the respective segments, the connection relation information of the segments and links in the network,
It manages the network configuration information including the routing information of the network connection equipment connecting the segments and links, and the network equipment information such as the network connection equipment and communication equipment connected to each segment, and manages each segment in the network. In the network management method that manages the traffic information of each link and the performance information for the traffic, when the application software that uses the network is newly introduced to the communication device in the network, it is necessary to use the application software once. The traffic generated by the application software on each communication device is predicted based on the length of communication time, the amount of data to be sent, and the expected usage status of the application software on the network. From the network configuration information and the position of the communication device in which the application software is installed, the route in the network used for communication by the application software is predicted, and the occurrence prediction traffic obtained by the above, and the From the forecasted route calculated by the above, the increase amount of traffic in each segment and each link in the network by the application software is calculated, and each increase amount is added to the traffic of the relevant part before the application software is installed, After the software is installed, the traffic in each segment and each link in the network is obtained, and the traffic distribution of the network is predicted, and the traffic pair corresponding to the type of segment and link is calculated. Noh characteristic information is corrected using the performance information for the traffic before the application software is introduced in each segment and each link in the network, and the traffic prediction distribution of each segment and each link obtained by the above, and A network management method characterized by predicting the performance of each segment and each link in the network after the application software is installed, from the obtained traffic versus performance characteristic information.