KR20120102329A - Apparatus and method for network management - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A network management apparatus and method thereof are provided to dynamically control connection orders between AP(Access Point)s by dynamically allocating an SSID(Service Set Identifier) to each AP. CONSTITUTION: A monitoring unit(210) monitors the network usage rate of APs. When the data traffic concentrativeness of the AP is more than a first threshold value, a determination unit(220) determines the reallocation of an SSID. An SSID allocation unit(230) reallocates or allocates the SSID to each AP. An encryption unit(240) encrypts the allocated SSID using a specific encrypted algorithm. [Reference numerals] (210) Monitoring unit; (220) Determination unit; (230) SSID allocation unit; (240) Encryption unit

Description

Network management apparatus and method {APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR NETWORK MANAGEMENT}

A network management device, which relates to a network management device and a method, and more specifically, manages a plurality of network access points (APs), performs load balancing of data traffic between each AP, and generates a revenue model due to access priority adjustment. A network management apparatus that can be pursued is provided.

As the spread of APs for enabling network access to user terminals has been expanded, the list of APs that can be simultaneously accessed at one point is increasing.

Taking a Wi-Fi type AP as an example, among the accessible Wi-Fi APs searched simultaneously at a specific point in a city, there are a plurality of APs managed by the same network manager, for example, the same communication company.

As described above, in managing a plurality of APs that can be simultaneously connected at one point, it is not desirable for the network management entity to concentrate the network usage on a specific AP to increase the probability of failure.

However, until now, it has been difficult for a network management device that manages a plurality of APs, such as a router of a telecommunication company, to directly perform load balancing among a plurality of APs capable of simultaneous access at the same point under their management.

This difficulty is such that the user terminal can arbitrarily select which of a plurality of APs that can be accessed at the same time, and the network management apparatus managing the APs can directly control which AP the user terminal will select. No way has been presented.

For example, in the related art, when there are a plurality of APs searched by a user terminal at a single point, the user terminal selects and accesses a specific AP according to a criterion such as existing access and / or signal strength, or the user directly accesses a plurality of APs. Among them, a specific AP was selected and connected, and load balancing was not considered from the network administrator's point of view.

In the network management apparatus for managing a plurality of APs providing a wireless network, there is provided a network management apparatus that can quickly and simply adjust the connection priority between the AP under management.

Provided is a network management apparatus that can perform load balancing of data traffic or advertisement exposure among a plurality of APs under management, to prevent obstacles caused by network overload, and to pursue a separate revenue model such as billing for advertisement provision. .

According to one aspect of the present invention, a network management apparatus for managing a plurality of access points, the access priority used by the user terminal as a criterion for determining which access point to preferentially attempt to connect to the plurality of access points A network management apparatus is provided that includes an SSID allocator that dynamically allocates an SSID including level information to each of the plurality of access points.

In the present specification, the SSID (Service Set Identifier) is a unique identifier for identifying each of the plurality of access points that can be recognized by a user terminal, and should not be limited to terms limited to a specific network method.

For example, in the present specification, SSID should be understood to include identification IDs of various wireless network access points, as well as Wi-Fi schemes.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the network management apparatus further includes a monitoring unit for monitoring the network usage of each of the plurality of access points, in this case, the SSID allocating unit, each of the monitored plurality of access points The SSID including the access priority level information is dynamically assigned to each of the plurality of access points based on the network usage of the plurality of access points.

On the other hand, the network usage may be the amount of data traffic generated via each of the plurality of access points.

In this case, the SSID allocating unit, based on the amount of data traffic generated via each of the monitored plurality of access points, for each of the plurality of access points, the smaller the amount of data traffic, the higher the access priority. The SSID including the level information can be allocated.

In addition, the network usage may be an advertisement exposure amount provided to the user terminal via each of the plurality of access points.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the network management apparatus, based on the network usage of each of the monitored plurality of access points, SSID for updating at least a portion of the SSID previously assigned to each of the plurality of access points It further includes a determination unit for determining whether the reallocation process is necessary.

In this case, the determination unit, SSID reassignment process for updating the SSID assigned to at least a portion of the network usage of each of the monitored plurality of access points, the network usage exceeding a first threshold value is necessary. You can judge.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the SSID allocator, when the first access point of the at least some of the access point determined that the SSID reassignment process supports multiple SSID, existing in the first access point The previously assigned SSID can be used as it is for the connected user terminal, and only the reassigned SSID can be used for the newly accessed user terminal instead of the previously assigned SSID.

On the other hand, if the first access point does not support multiple SSIDs, the user terminal previously connected to the first access point waits to terminate the connection, and when the connection is terminated, the reassigned SSID to the newly connected user terminal. Can be used.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the network management apparatus, the encryption unit for encrypting the SSID including the access priority level information using a predetermined algorithm that can be decrypted by the access management program included in the user terminal It includes more.

Furthermore, the SSID assigning unit of the network management apparatus may dynamically allocate an SSID including installation location information of each of the plurality of access points together with the access priority level information to each of the plurality of access points.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, when the SSID allocator adjusts the access priority level of the first access point of the plurality of access points to perform SSID reassignment, the access priority of the first access point. The charging information corresponding to the level adjustment is generated and transmitted to the external advertisement management server.

According to another aspect of the present invention, in a network management method in which a network management apparatus managing a plurality of access points manages the plurality of access points, the user terminal recognizes and preferentially gives access to any one of the plurality of access points. A network management method is provided, including an SSID assigning step of dynamically allocating an SSID including access priority level information used as a criterion for determining whether to attempt an access to each of the plurality of access points.

A user terminal can easily and quickly dynamically adjust access priorities among a plurality of APs that can be simultaneously accessed in the same region.

By performing load balancing of data traffic or advertisement exposure among a plurality of APs under management, it is possible to prevent an obstacle due to network overload and to pursue a separate revenue model such as billing for advertisement provision.

1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration between a network management apparatus and APs under management according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a block diagram illustrating a network management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a flowchart illustrating a network management method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of selecting an AP to be accessed by a user terminal when the access priority level of APs is included in an SSID according to an apparatus for managing a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a flowchart illustrating a process in which a network management device adjusts a connection priority level of a specific AP and generates and transmits charging information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, some embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to or limited by the embodiments. Like reference symbols in the drawings denote like elements.

1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration between a network management apparatus and APs under management according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, a description will be given on the assumption that APs managed by the network management apparatus 100 are 802.11 Wi-Fi network APs. However, this is only an embodiment for better understanding of the present invention. It is not limited to the management of network APs.

Therefore, even if not mentioned below, the operation of the network management apparatus 100 may be understood as managing not only W-Fi network APs but also other network communication network APs in the same manner. Such other applications are not excluded from the scope of the present invention without departing from the spirit.

For example, when the telecommunication company configures the Wi-Fi Zone, the network management apparatus 100 may include a router managing the APs 110 and 120 or a network manager server in a higher layer thereof. higher layer).

Both the AP 110 and the AP 120 are under the management of the network management apparatus 100. In addition, the AP 130 is not under the management of the network management apparatus 100.

The user terminal 150, such as a smartphone, tablet PC, laptop, etc., is in a location accessible from the APs 110, 120, and 130 in the area 101, and the APs 110 and 120 to which they have access rights. ) Can join any network and join the network.

Each of the APs 110 to 130 has at least one SSID which is an identifier of a network configured by the APs, and the SSID may be disclosed or hidden.

The AP 110 and the AP 120 under the management of the network management apparatus 100 connect to the network management apparatus 100 through the wired or wireless connection 111 and the connection 121, respectively. Through the Wi-Fi method or the like can provide a network connection to the user terminal 150.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the network management apparatus 100 dynamically allocates SSIDs of the APs 110 and 120 managed by the network management apparatus so that network connection is concentrated on either one of the APs 110 and 120. This prevents unbalance of traffic from occurring.

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present invention, in the case of providing advertisements while providing a network connection to the user terminal 150 in the APs 110 and 120, in order to adjust the advertisement targeting or other advertisement exposure, The network management apparatus 100 may dynamically allocate SSIDs of the APs 110 and 120 managed by the network management apparatus 100.

In such embodiments, when the SSID is assigned or reassigned to each of the APs 110 and 120, the network management apparatus 100 includes the priority level of connection information in each SSID.

According to one embodiment of the invention, this access priority level is included as part of the character string constituting the SSID.

The SSID may also include another string indicating location information where the APs 110 and 120 are installed together with the access priority level, and the string relating to the location information may include the convenience of management and / or the network management apparatus 100. Alternatively, the present invention may be used for network searching of the user terminal 150.

Then, the user terminal 150 identifies the APs (110, 120, 120) of the AP (110, 120, 130) that is found to be accessible from the current location, and the APs (110, 120) respectively Recognizing each access priority level determined through the SSID, the network connection is first attempted to the higher access priority.

Since the network management apparatus 100 dynamically allocates and reassigns the SSID, at some moment, the access priority level information included in the SSID of the AP 110 is included in the SSID of the AP 120. It may correspond to a higher priority, but at the other moment it may be the other way around.

The access priority level information included in the SSID dynamically allocated and reassigned to the APs 110 and 120 managed by the network management apparatus 100 may be divided into several quantized levels (for example, levels 1 through 7). 7).

In the user terminal 150, connection manager software in the form of a client application is installed. When the user terminal 150 attempts to connect to Wi-Fi, the installed connection manager software of the APs 110 and 120 is searched. The priority information included in the SSIDs is determined, and the access is made by giving priority to the higher priority.

On the other hand, the network management device 100 in the allocation of the SSID to each of the AP (110 and 120) managed by the user, encryption that can be authenticated by the user terminal 150 having a legitimate access authority to decrypt The SSID may be assigned by encrypting the SSID using an algorithm.

Then, the SSID of the other AP 130 from the outside is configured similarly to the SSIDs assigned to the APs 110 and 120 under the management of the network management apparatus 100, so as to lure the access of the user terminal, 150 may identify and connect to APs 110 and 120 that provide a secure network to which they have subscribed.

This is a way to increase network security these days as mobile devices such as smartphones become more and more popular.

Accordingly, according to embodiments of the present invention, the network management apparatus 100 may easily and quickly perform load balancing of network traffic by accessing the user terminal 150 between the APs 110 and 120 under the management. .

In addition, when the APs 110 and 120 provide an advertisement to the user terminal 150 while providing a network connection, the advertisement exposure amount may be easily adjusted by adjusting the access priority level. Advertisers can also be charged for these priority levels, creating new revenue models.

In the above, some of the embodiments of the present invention have been schematically described, and the configuration and operation of the network management apparatus 100 will be described in more detail later with reference to FIG. 2.

2 is a block diagram illustrating a network management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The monitoring unit 210 continuously or intermittently monitors the network usage of the APs 110 and 120 of FIG. 1 under the management of the network management apparatus 100. In the case of the intermittent monitoring, the monitoring of network usage may be repeated with a certain time period, or may be performed only when there is a specific event.

On the other hand, the network usage may include the size of the total data traffic provided through the APs 110 and 120, the time of advertisement exposure or the size of the advertisement data traffic.

That is, in the present specification, the network usage is a concept including the total data traffic size exchanged between the user terminal 150 and the network management apparatus 100 through the APs 110 and 120, respectively, but simply the total data size. In addition, it may be interpreted as a concept that includes the amount of advertising data provided by at least some of the APs 110 and 120 or the orphaned exposure time according to a certain amount of data, for example, a contractual relationship with a specific advertiser. have.

The SSID allocator 230 dynamically allocates or reallocates an SSID to each of the APs 110 and 120 under management.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the SSID allocator 230 may allocate the SSID of the AP 110 to 'OOOXXXX_01'. 'OOO' is an arbitrary string for identifying a communication company that is a management entity of the network management apparatus 100, and 'XXXXX' is for identifying installation location information of the AP 110 and / or a unique number of the AP 110. '01' may be an access priority level of the AP 110.

According to this criterion, the SSID allocator 230 may allocate the SSID of the AP 120 to 'OOOXXXX_02'. In this example, the priority of the AP 120 may be determined by the user terminal 150 to be lower than the priority of the AP 110.

Then, the user terminal 150 may attempt to access the AP 110 having the highest priority among the legitimate authorized APs 110 and 120 found at the current location by driving the pre-installed access manager software. .

Once the SSIDs are assigned to each of the AP 110 and the AP 120 as in the above example, various user terminals, including the user terminal 150, are so concentrated in the AP 110 that load balancing on data traffic is achieved. The determination unit 220 determines whether it is necessary.

For example, the determination unit 220 may determine that SSID reallocation is necessary when the data traffic concentration of one of the APs 110 and 120 is greater than or equal to the first threshold.

If the determination unit 220 determines that SSID reassignment is necessary, the SSID allocator 230 adjusts the priority of the pre-allocated SSIDs to allocate the SSID of the AP 110 to 'OOO_XXXXXX_03' and / or By assigning the SSID of the AP 120 as 'OOO_XXXXXX_01', a newly connected user terminal may be induced to access the AP 120 first.

The encryption unit 240 may encrypt the SSID assigned through a specific encryption algorithm that can be decrypted and authenticated by the access manager software installed in the legitimate user terminal 150.

For example, if the SSID of the AP 110 is assigned as 'OOO_XXXXXX_02', the 'OOO_XXXXXX_02' can be decrypted by the encryption algorithm and authenticated with the SSID of the legitimate AP, but the SSID of the unauthorized AP 130 is above and above. Even though it is assigned to 'OOOOXXXXXX_01' in a similar manner to induce connection of the user terminal 150, 'OOOOXXXXXX_01' may be determined to be not the SSID of a legitimate AP when decrypted by the encryption algorithm.

Through this process, the user terminal can select and access the secure APs 110 and 120 to improve the security level.

The determination unit 220 determines that SSID reallocation is necessary by referring to the monitoring result of the monitoring unit 210, and the process of the SSID allocating unit 230 to reassign is described in more detail with reference to FIG. 3.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a network management method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In step 310, the monitoring unit 210 monitors network usage of the APs 110 and 120 under management.

Then, in operation 320, the determination unit 220 determines whether reallocation of SSIDs previously allocated to the APs 110 and 120 is required, that is, whether the SSID change condition is satisfied.

The SSID change condition may be variously set based on load balancing on data traffic or a revenue model based on advertisement exposure, but some exemplary embodiments are described below.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the SSID change condition may be set such that the concentration of data traffic for some APs is greater than or equal to a first threshold.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the SSID change condition may be set such that the advertisement exposure time at some AP is greater than or equal to the second threshold, or the advertisement data transmission is greater than or equal to the third threshold.

Furthermore, according to another embodiment of the present invention, the SSID change condition may be set to receive a command to increase or decrease the access priority level of a specific AP according to the request of the advertiser.

Of course, the SSID change condition according to the above embodiments may be applied together.

If the determination unit determines in step 320 that the SSID change condition is not satisfied, the network monitoring execution 310 continues, and if it is determined that the SSID change condition is satisfied, the SSID allocator 230 performs step 330. .

In operation 330, the SSID allocator 230 determines whether the AP satisfying the SSID change condition is an AP supporting multiple SSIDs.

According to a known technique, a plurality of SSIDs may be allocated to one AP.

In step 330, if the AP that meets the SSID change condition is an AP that supports multiple SSIDs, the SSID allocator 230 immediately reassigns the SSIDs of the APs to access existing user terminals. Without forcibly disconnecting, a newly allocated SSID may be provided for newly connected user terminals (step 340).

If the AP that meets the SSID change condition in step 330 does not support multiple SSIDs, the AP does not disconnect the user terminals being forcibly accessed and waits until the access of the user terminals is terminated ( Step 350), SSID reassignment (step 340) may be performed.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of selecting an AP to be accessed by a user terminal when the access priority level of APs is included in an SSID according to an apparatus for managing a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

If a network connection is required, the user terminal 150 executes a connection manager pre-installed in step 410.

In step 420, the SSID searched at the current location may be identified, and in step 430, each SSID may be decrypted to select only the authenticated SSID (step 440).

In step 450, the SSID with the highest priority among the authenticated SSIDs is selected to attempt network access.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process in which a network management device adjusts a connection priority level of a specific AP and generates and transmits charging information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, as described above, advertisements may be provided to the user terminal 150 connected to the network through the APs 110 and 120 according to the contract relationship with the advertiser.

Such an embodiment may be a new revenue model for an online advertising provider or a telecommunications network provider.

In operation 510, the network management apparatus 100 adjusts the SSID priority level of a specific AP according to an advertiser's request or according to a pre-contracted advertisement exposure policy. The adjustment of the access priority included in the SSID has been described above with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.

In operation 520, the network management apparatus 100 generates charging information in exchange for adjusting the access priority level included in the SSID.

The network management apparatus 100 transmits the generated charging information to an external advertisement server (not shown) so that the charging procedure can be executed (step 530).

The method according to an embodiment of the present invention can be implemented in the form of a program command which can be executed through various computer means and recorded in a computer-readable medium. The computer readable medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, etc. alone or in combination. The program instructions recorded on the medium may be those specially designed and constructed for the present invention or may be available to those skilled in the art of computer software. Examples of computer-readable recording media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape, optical media such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, and magnetic disks, such as floppy disks. Magneto-optical media, and hardware devices specifically configured to store and execute program instructions, such as ROM, RAM, flash memory, and the like. Examples of program instructions include not only machine code generated by a compiler, but also high-level language code that can be executed by a computer using an interpreter or the like. The hardware device described above may be configured to operate as one or more software modules to perform the operations of the present invention, and vice versa.

As described above, the present invention has been described by way of limited embodiments and drawings, but the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains various modifications and variations from such descriptions. This is possible.

Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be determined by the equivalents of the claims, as well as the claims.

100: network management device
110-130: access point
150: user terminal
210: monitoring unit
220:
230: SSID allocation unit
240: encryption unit

Claims (21)

In the network management apparatus for managing a plurality of access points,
Dynamically allocating an SSID including access priority level information recognized by a user terminal and used as a criterion for determining which access point of the plurality of access points is to be preferentially attempted to access. And an SSID allocator. The method of claim 1,
A monitoring unit for monitoring network usage of each of the plurality of access points
Further comprising:
The SSID allocator dynamically allocates an SSID including the access priority level information to each of the plurality of access points based on the network usage of each of the monitored access points. Network management device. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the network usage is an amount of data traffic generated via each of the plurality of access points. The method of claim 3,
The SSID allocator may generate relatively high access priority level information for each of the plurality of access points based on the amount of data traffic generated through each of the monitored access points. The network management apparatus which assigns the SSID containing. The method of claim 2,
The network usage amount is an advertisement exposure amount provided to the user terminal via each of the plurality of access points. The method of claim 2,
A determination unit for determining whether an SSID reallocation process for updating at least a portion of SSIDs previously assigned to each of the plurality of access points is required based on the network usage of each of the monitored access points;
The network management device further comprising. The method of claim 6,
The determination unit,
And determining that an SSID reassignment process of updating an SSID assigned to at least some access points having a network usage exceeding a first threshold among the network usage of each of the monitored plurality of access points is required. The method of claim 6,
The SSID allocator, when the first access point supports multiple SSIDs among at least some of the access points determined to require the SSID reassignment process, is assigned to a user terminal previously connected to the first access point. A network management device that allows the SSID to be used as it is and to allow only a reassigned SSID to be used for a newly connected user terminal instead of the previously assigned SSID. The method of claim 8,
If the first access point does not support multiple SSIDs, the user terminal previously connected to the first access point waits to terminate the connection, and when the connection is terminated, the reassigned SSID is assigned to the newly connected user terminal. Network management device to make available. According to claim 1
Encryption unit for encrypting the SSID including the access priority level information by using a predetermined algorithm that can be decrypted by the access management program included in the user terminal
The network management device further comprising. The method of claim 1,
And the SSID allocating unit dynamically allocates an SSID including installation location information of each of the plurality of access points together with the connection priority level information to each of the plurality of access points. The method of claim 1,
When the SSID allocator adjusts the access priority level of the first access point to perform SSID reassignment, charging information corresponding to the adjustment of the access priority level of the first access point is obtained. A network management device that generates and transmits to an external advertisement management server. A network management method for managing a plurality of access points by a network management apparatus managing a plurality of access points,
Dynamically allocating an SSID including access priority level information recognized by a user terminal and used as a criterion for determining which access point of the plurality of access points is to be preferentially attempted to access. And SSID assignment step. The method of claim 13,
A monitoring step of monitoring network usage of each of the plurality of access points
Further comprising:
The SSID assigning step may include dynamically assigning SSIDs including the access priority level information to each of the plurality of access points based on the network usage of each of the monitored access points. Network management method. 15. The method of claim 14,
The network usage is an amount of data traffic generated via each of the plurality of access points,
The SSID assignment step,
On the basis of the amount of data traffic generated through each of the monitored plurality of access points, an SSID including relatively high access priority level information is allocated to each of the plurality of access points as the amount of data traffic is smaller. Network management method. 15. The method of claim 14,
The network usage is the amount of advertisement exposure provided to the user terminal via each of the plurality of access points. 15. The method of claim 14,
A determination step of determining whether an SSID reallocation process for updating at least a part of SSIDs previously assigned to each of the plurality of access points is required based on the network usage of each of the monitored plurality of access points;
Further comprising:
Wherein,
And determining that an SSID reassignment process of updating an SSID assigned to at least some access points having a network usage exceeding a first threshold among the network usage of each of the monitored plurality of access points is required. 18. The method of claim 17,
The SSID assignment step,
In the case where the first access point supports the multiple SSIDs among at least some of the access points determined to require the SSID reassignment process, the SSID previously allocated to the first access point may be used as it is. In addition, the newly connected user terminal can use only the reassigned SSID instead of the previously assigned SSID.
If the first access point does not support multiple SSIDs, the user terminal previously connected to the first access point waits to terminate the connection, and when the connection is terminated, the reassigned SSID is assigned to the newly connected user terminal. Network management method to be able to use. According to claim 13
Encrypting the SSID including the access priority level information by using a predetermined algorithm that can be decrypted by the access management program included in the user terminal;
Further comprising, the network management method. The method of claim 13,
When the SSID reallocation is performed by adjusting the access priority level of the first access point among the plurality of access points, the charging information corresponding to the adjustment of the access priority level of the first access point is generated and Billing information sending step sent to the ad management server
Further comprising, the network management method. A computer-readable recording medium containing a program for performing the network management method of any one of claims 13 to 20.

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