KR20150014739A - An apparatus and method to measure and manage quality of experience in network system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for measuring and managing quality of experience in a network. A system for measuring quality of experience in a network can comprise a system controller for setting conditions for measuring quality of experience between network elements, and controlling the network elements to measure quality of experience based on the conditions; a network element for transmitting a packet to one or more other network elements to measure quality of experience for the other network elements according to the control by the system controller; and the other network elements for receiving the packet from the network element, and transmitting a response packet, wherein the networks elements can include at least one among a base station, a switch, a router, and a gateway.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for measuring and managing a user's perceived quality in a network,

The present invention relates to a service providing network, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for measuring and managing a user's quality of experience (QoE) in a network in which various wired and wireless networks are mixed.

BACKGROUND ART [0002] As mobile communication services evolve from the existing 2G (2nd Generation) and 3G to 4G, a network providing mobile communication services has various mobile communication network equipments, a backhaul, a backbone network, And wired communication devices such as a switch and a router that constitute the wireless communication device have been combined. Especially, in the next generation wireless network environment, various small cell devices other than the existing macro devices have emerged, so that it is important to effectively measure and manage the user experience quality (QoE) for a large number of network devices It is a core technology area for operators operating networks.

Conventional telecommunication carriers are adopting a method of measuring and managing QoE of network equipment by installing additional equipment in the network. FIG. 1 shows a system configuration for measuring and managing QoE using equipment installed in a network according to the prior art. 1, the mobile communication network includes an element management system (EMS) 100, a plurality of base stations 120-1 to 120-N, a switch / router A tester manager 102 for measuring and managing QoE for each piece of equipment (or network elements (NEs)) included in the mobile communication network, including a gateway 108 and a gateway 108, An external tester 1 (sender) 104, and an external tester 2 (reflector) 106. That is, conventionally, in a mobile communication network, additional devices for testing are installed, and QoE is measured for each mobile communication network element using additional equipment. For example, when it is desired to measure the QoE for the base station 1 (120-1) and the gateway 108, the external tester 1 104 installed around the base station 1 (120-1) under the control of the test controller 102, And transmits the generated packet to the external tester 2 106 installed in the vicinity of the gateway 108, and then measures the QoE using a method in which the external tester 2 106 responds to the packet do.

However, such a conventional QoE measurement method has disadvantages in terms of installation cost and maintenance cost, since separate equipment such as an external tester and a test controller must be installed and operated. Moreover, since the conventional method does not directly measure the QoE at a network element for which QoE is to be measured but measures it at an external tester installed around it, it is difficult to obtain accurate measurement results for a desired network element, It is difficult to measure the problem. In addition, the conventional QoE measurement method is dependent on a measurement protocol performed by an external tester, and the measurement result is dependent on the function of the external tester.

Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method for measuring and managing Quality of Experience (QoE) in a network.

Another embodiment of the present invention is to provide an end-to-end (QoE) measurement device in a mobile communication network including various network elements or network equipment, And a method and apparatus for measuring and managing QoE.

Yet another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for each of the network elements in a mobile communication network to measure and manage QoE.

Another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for controlling and setting QoE measurement conditions of network elements and managing QoE measurement results in an EMS (Element Management System) in a mobile communication network.

Another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for measuring a QoE of a specific network element with a peer network element based on a QoE measurement condition set by an EMS in a mobile communication network and providing the measurement result to an EMS .

Yet another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for a network element in a mobile communication network to measure QoE regardless of the QoE measurement protocol.

Yet another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for measuring QoE of a network element periodically with a counterpart network element in a mobile communication network and providing statistical information on QoE for a predetermined time period to an EMS.

In another embodiment of the present invention, when a problem occurs in a mobile communication network, each network element measures QoE by controlling the EMS and provides the measurement result to the EMS to identify and manage the problematic network A method and an apparatus.

Another embodiment of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for measuring QoE in OpenFlow based Software Defined Networking (SDN).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method of a system controller for measuring a user experience quality in a network comprises the steps of: receiving a user experience quality measurement request including at least one network element a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between opponent network elements Receiving a user experience quality measurement result from the at least one network element; and providing the received user experience quality result to a system operator.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network, the method of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network comprises the steps of: The method comprising the steps of: receiving a user's perceived quality measurement request message including a perceived quality measurement condition; measuring a user's perceived quality of a section between the network elements based on the user's perceived quality measurement condition; And transmitting the measurement result to the system controller.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network comprises the steps of: receiving a packet for measuring a user experience quality from another network element; To another network element, wherein the network element and the other network element may be any one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method of a system for measuring user experience quality in a network comprises setting a user experience quality measurement condition between network elements in a system controller, Transmitting a user experience quality measurement request message to at least one peer network element based on a user experience quality measurement condition received from the system controller in a specific network element; The method comprising the steps of: transmitting a response packet to a packet received from a specific network element; generating a user experience quality measurement result using the response packet in the specific network element; Measurement result Comprising the step of transmitting to the system controller, the network elements and the counterpart network element, may refer to any one of the base stations, switches, routers, and gateways.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus of a system controller for measuring a user's perceptual quality in a network is provided, the apparatus comprising: at least one network element for setting a user perceptual quality measurement condition for an interval between opponent network elements; A measurement result management unit for receiving a user's perceptual quality measurement result from the at least one network element; a result providing unit for providing the received user perceptual quality measurement result to the system operator; And a providing unit.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus of a network element in a mobile communication network receives a user experience quality measurement request message including a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between network elements from a system controller, A first layer for transmitting measurement results to the system controller, a second layer for acquiring a user experience quality measurement result from packets received from the peer network element, and a second layer for receiving a packet according to the protocol based on the user experience quality measurement condition And a third layer for receiving and transmitting packets from the counterpart network element.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network comprises means for receiving a packet for measuring a user experience quality from another network element, Element, and the network element and the other network element may be any one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a system for measuring a user experience quality in a network includes a system for setting a user experience quality measurement condition between network elements and controlling the network elements to measure a user experience quality with the set conditions A network element for transmitting a packet to the counterpart network element for measuring a user experience quality for at least one counterpart network element under the control of the system controller; And the network elements may include at least one of a base station, a switch, a router, and a gateway.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, each network element constituting the mobile communication network measures the QoE according to the control of the EMS, so that an apparatus for measuring quality of experience (QoE) to-end QoE can be measured and managed, which can reduce facility investment and operation maintenance costs. According to the embodiment of the present invention, the end-to-end user-level service quality can be accurately measured in a network in which wired / wireless communication equipment is integrated, and an accurate diagnosis in real time can be obtained when a network problem occurs. In addition, according to the embodiment of the present invention, an active monitoring method of transmitting a packet for testing is adopted. Therefore, when a problem occurs in a network or when a network quality deterioration occurs, QoE Can be measured. In addition, a desired measurement condition can be set for each flow in the EMS, and it is possible to measure and manage a service quality that substantially responds to a network when traffic is applied to each flow under a desired test condition. In addition, by controlling and managing flows and profiles for QoE measurements in EMS, statistical monitoring of QoE can be supported on all network components under the same conditions. Further, according to an embodiment of the present invention, the QoE measurement scheme can support standard network quality measurement protocols of various standards, and can obtain various QoE metric values indicating the QoE measurement result regardless of the quality measurement protocol . In addition, when the QoE metric values violate the threshold value, the network can be managed effectively by performing an alarm notification function.

FIG. 1 illustrates a system configuration for measuring and managing a user's perceived quality using equipment installed in a network according to the prior art; FIG.
2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a system for measuring and managing a user's perceptual quality in a network according to an embodiment of the present invention;
3 is a diagram illustrating a framework hierarchy for QoE measurement according to an embodiment of the present invention;
4 is a diagram illustrating a structure for measuring QoE for multiple network elements based on flows and profiles in an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention;
5 is a diagram illustrating an example of setting measurement conditions for a plurality of network elements in an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention;
6 is a diagram illustrating the structure of a network element operating as a transmitter for EMS and QoE measurements according to an embodiment of the present invention;
7 is a diagram illustrating an example of extracting a QoE metric from a received quality measurement packet in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;
8 is a diagram illustrating a diagnostic procedure of an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention,
9 is a diagram illustrating a diagnostic procedure of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention;
10 is a diagram illustrating statistical procedures of an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention;
11 is a diagram illustrating a statistical procedure of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig.
12 is a diagram illustrating a structure for measuring QoE in SDN based on OpenFlow according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear.

(QoE) measurement in a mobile communication network including various network elements (network elements), it is possible to provide an end-to- end QoE measurement and management techniques. Here, QoE is another term, a service level agreement (SLA) of a user level. Therefore, even if QoE and SAL are mixed in the following description, the meaning will be the same. In the following description, the network node, the network element, and the network equipment are all synonymous.

2 illustrates a configuration of a system for measuring and managing user experience quality in a network according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2, the QoE measurement and management system according to the embodiment of the present invention includes an EMS (Element Management System) 200 that is necessary for providing a service to a mobile terminal 101, a plurality of base stations 220 -1 to 120-N), a switch / router 202, and a gateway 204. That is, in the mobile communication network according to the embodiment of the present invention, a method of measuring QoE is used in each network element (network element or network equipment) without installing additional equipment for testing.

In other words, in the embodiment of the present invention, QoE is directly measured in each network element such as a base station, a base station controller, a core equipment, a switch and a router constituting a mobile communication network. In the embodiment of the present invention, each of the network elements may operate as a sender for generating and transmitting a packet for active monitoring according to the control of the EMS 200, and may also function as a sender for receiving a packet for active monitoring Or may act as a reflector that transmits packets. Also, in an embodiment of the present invention, the EMS 200 may control the QoE measurement of network elements. That is, the EMS 200 can set the test conditions for the QoE measurement of the network elements under the control of the system operator, and can set the test conditions for the network elements to statistically manage the QoE for the flow between the network elements. QoE measurements can be requested, and QoE measurements can be requested with at least one network element at a time needed to diagnose transient problems in the network. Here, the test condition is a condition used for measuring the QoE between the network elements. The test conditions include packet per second (PPS), packet size, differentiated services code point (DSCP), test duration, And the like. In addition, the EMS 200 according to the embodiment of the present invention analyzes the QoE measurement result received from the network elements, visualizes the QoE measurement result, and provides the QoE measurement result to the operator.

For example, the EMS 200 can set the test conditions for the flow of the base station 1 220-1 and the base station 2 220-2 or the flow of the base station 1 220-1 and the switch / router 202 And may request the base station 1 220-1 to perform QoE measurement on the channel with the base station 2 (220-2) or the switch / router 202. The base station 1 220-1 operates as a transmitter in response to a request from the ESM 200 and transmits a packet to the base station 2 220-2 or the switch / router 202 based on the test condition set by the EMS 200 Lt; / RTI > Then, the base station 2 (220-2) or the switch / router 202 receiving the packet operates as a reflector and transmits a response packet to the base station 1 (220-1). The base station 1 220-1 analyzes the received packet to acquire a QoE metric (or SLA metric), transmits the metric values obtained at the current time to the EMS 200, or transmits the metric values obtained periodically Can be transmitted to the EMS 200. The EMS 200 may provide the operator with the received metric values or statistical results.

As shown in FIG. 2, in the embodiment of the present invention, cost savings can be obtained by measuring QoE directly in each network element without installing additional equipment in the network, It is possible to accurately diagnose a network or an area where a problem has occurred.

3 illustrates a framework hierarchy for QoE measurement according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The EMS 200 manages various network elements such as multiple base stations, switches / routers and gateways. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the EMS 200 may control the QoE measurement function of the network elements. More specifically, the EMS 200 can set up a mapping relationship between flows, test conditions, and flow and test conditions for QoE measurement of network elements. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the EMS 200 sets up a test condition for the flow between two network elements 300 and 302 and selects a transmitter 300), and may request a QoE measurement. Here, the test condition is a condition used for measuring the QoE between the network elements. The test conditions include packet per second (PPS), packet size, differentiated services code point (DSCP), test duration, And the like. In the embodiment of the present invention, test conditions for a flow are indexed, and indexed test conditions are referred to as profiles. In addition, the EMS 200 according to the embodiment of the present invention can receive the QoE diagnosis result and / or the statistical result from the transmitter 300, analyze the QoE diagnosis result, and provide the analyzed result to the operator in the form of visual information.

The network element that is requested to perform the QoE measurement from the EMS 200 may operate as the transmitter 300. The transmitter 300 includes an OAM (Operation, Administration and Maintenance) layer 302, a SLA (Service Level Agreement) layer 304, and a protocol layer 306 to perform QoE measurement. That is, the OAM layer 302 of the transmitter 300 records the test conditions received from the EMS in the DB, determines whether the QoE should be periodically measured for QoE statistics for a preset time, or a QoE measurement And instructs the SLA layer 304 to perform a QoE measurement that includes the test condition. The OAM layer 302 may also determine whether the QoE measurement request received from the EMS 200 is valid. The OAM layer 302 of the transmitter 300 also obtains the QoE diagnostic results for the transmitter 300 and the reflector 310 at the current time point from the network quality related metric values generated at the SLA layer 304 , And the obtained diagnosis result can be transmitted to the EMS 200. The OAM layer 302 of the transmitter 300 may also be configured to receive the transmitter 300 and the reflector 300 for a predetermined time period using the network quality- 310), and transmit the obtained statistical results to the EMS 200. The EMS 200 may be configured to receive the QoE statistical results from the EMS 200,

The SLA layer 304 of the transmitter 300 provides the QoE measurement command of the OAM layer 302 to the protocol layer 306. The SLA layer 304 of the transmitter 300 may also analyze packets received from the reflector 310 through the protocol layer 306 to generate various network quality metric values and to manage the generated metric values do. Here, the network quality-related metric values include packet count, bandwidth, loss, reordering, duplicate, delay, hop count, statistical And may include statistical jitter, real-time jitter, R-value, and MOS (Mean Opinion Score). The SLA layer 304 of the transmitter 300 may generate network quality related metric values regardless of the protocol of the received packet, which will be described in detail below in FIG.

The protocol layer 306 of the transmitter 300 may encode test packets that conform to a protocol for QoE measurement (e.g., Y.1731 PM (Performance Monitoring), TWAMP (Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol) encoding, and performs the QoE test. The protocol layer 306 of the transmitter 300 receives the packet from the reflector 310, decodes the received packet and transmits it to the SLA layer 304. Here, since TWAMP supports authentication and encryption functions, it is possible to solve problems that are vulnerable to various DoS attacks (Denial of Service Attacks) that may occur when testing with Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping.

The network element receiving the test packet from the network element operating as the transmitter 300 operates as the reflector 310 to add its own information to the received test packet and transmit the encoded information to the transmitter 300.

Figure 4 illustrates a structure for measuring QoE for multiple network elements based on flows and profiles in an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4, the EMS 200 establishes flows and profiles for network components. Here, the flow may refer to a network element section in which QoE measurement is to be performed. A network element serving as a transmitter for transmitting a packet is referred to as a source node, and a network element for receiving a packet and transmitting a response packet is referred to as a destination node , The flow can be represented by source node IP / port (TCP, UDP), destination node IP / port (UDP) information. A profile is a test condition used to measure the QoE of the flow, including a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP), a test duration, can do. The EMS 200 can index the profiles indicating various test conditions and store them in the form of a table. For example, a profile table indicating that the test condition of profile 1 is "pps: 1, size: 512, DSCP: 0", and the test condition of profile 2 is "pps: 5 size: 200, DSCP: 23" have.

The EMS 200 may set the profile based on network elements and / or flows. That is, the EMS 200 can set the same profile for a plurality of flows having a specific network element as a source node, and can set the same profile for a plurality of flows having a specific network element as a destination node. In addition, the EMS 200 may set different profiles for a plurality of flows having the same source node and different destination nodes. For example, the EMS 200 may set the profile for the two flows (the flow for the gateway, the flow for the router) with the base station 4 (220-4) as the source node to the profile 2 as well. As another example, the EMS 200 may set 401 the profile for the five flows with the gateway 204 as the destination node as profile 2. For another example, if the base station 5 (220-5) is the source node and the gateway 204 is the destination node, the profile for each of the three different flows is set differently (profile 405) to profile 2, profile 3, You may.

In addition, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the EMS 200 can collectively change the test conditions of all the network elements using the profile by changing the test conditions included in the specific profile.

A plurality of base stations 220-1 to 220-N, a switch / router 202 and a gateway 204 are network elements that directly perform QoE measurement with a peer network element under the control of the EMS 200. [ Each of the plurality of base stations 220-1 to 220-N, the switch / router 202 and the gateway 204 receives a flow indicating a QoE measurement object from the EMS 200 and a test condition to be used for QoE measurement for each flow Is received. That is, each of the network elements may receive flow-specific profile information indicating a mapping relationship between flows and profiles, and may perform a QoE measurement on the destination node indicated by each received flow-specific profile information. Each of the network elements stores the received profile information of each flow in the form of a table and periodically performs QoE measurement on the corresponding node.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of setting measurement conditions for a plurality of network elements in an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5, the EMS 200 may set and store a profile table 521 indexing a profile indicating various test conditions. At this time, the EMS 200 transmits the profile table 521 to the first base station 220-1 and the second base station 220-2 so that the two base stations can store the same profile table. Also, the EMS 200 sets up the flow tables 511 and 513 indexing the flow information for each base station, and can transmit the flow tables 511 and 513 to the respective base stations. The EMS 200 maps the flows and the profiles and then sets the statistical tables 501 and 503 indicating the profiles mapped to the flows of the base stations and sets the statistical tables 501 and 503 to the respective base stations Lt; / RTI >

The base station 1 220-1, which has received the statistics table 501, the flow table 511 and the profile table 521 from the EMS 200, performs the QoE measurement for the flow 2 and the flow 3 through the statistical table 501 QoE measurement is performed using profile 1 for flow 2, and QoE measurement is performed using profile 3 for flow 3. The base station 1 220-1 confirms that the flow 2 indicates "source node IP: Port = BS # 1: 11001, destination node IP: port = Router: 2000" and profile 1 mapped to flow 2 is "PPS = 1, Size = 512, DSCP = 0 ", and based on this, a test for QoE measurement with the target router 202 can be performed. Further, the base station 2 (220-2) confirms that the flow 1 indicates "source node IP: Port = BS # 2: 11000, destination node IP: port = Router: 1000" It is confirmed that "PPS = 1, Size = 512, DSCP = 0", and based on this, a test for QoE measurement with the target router 202 can be performed. Here, the EMS 200 changes the information of the profile 1 in the profile table 521 and transmits the changed profile table 521 to the first base station 220-1 and the second base station 220-2, The test condition for the flow 2 of the base station 2 (220-1) and the test condition for the flow 1 of the base station 2 (220-2) can be simultaneously changed.

Each of the base station 1 220-1 and the base station 2 220-2 includes statistical tables 501 and 503 received from the EMS 200, flow tables 511 and 513, and profiles Periodic QoE measurement based on the table 521 can be performed to obtain statistical information on the QoE for a predetermined time period. According to yet another embodiment, each of base station 1 220-1 and base station 2 220-2 includes statistical tables 501, < RTI ID = 0.0 > 501, < / RTI & 503, flow tables 511, 513 and profile table 521 can be utilized.

6 illustrates the structure of a network element operating as a transmitter for EMS and QoE measurements according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 6, the EMS 200 manages various network elements such as a plurality of base stations, a switch / router and a gateway. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the EMS 200 includes a test condition setting unit 601, a diagnosis and statistic result management unit 603, and a result visualization unit 605, thereby controlling the QoE measurement function of network elements can do.

The test condition setting unit 601 of the EMS 200 sets the test conditions for the QoE measurement. In particular, the test condition setting unit 601 can set and change the flow for each network element, the profile representing the test condition, and the mapping relationship between the flow and the profile under the control of the system operator.

The test condition setting unit 601 may periodically measure the QoE for a predetermined time interval with each network element and request that the statistical result be transmitted. The test condition setting unit 601 sets a table indicating a mapping relationship of a flow, a profile, and a flow and a profile in advance in order to obtain a QoE statistic result for each network element, Lt; / RTI >

In addition, the test condition setting unit 601 may set at least one network element to at least one network element in order to determine a section in which a problem occurs, or to determine the cause of a section in which a problem occurs, It is possible to measure the QoE of the current point of view of the flow and request that the diagnostic result be transmitted. The test condition setting unit 601 can directly receive the flow and profile information indicating the network section in which the QoE measurement is to be performed according to the operator control in order to obtain the QoE diagnosis result of the desired network section, To the corresponding network elements. In another embodiment, the test condition setting unit 601 may perform QoE diagnosis using profile information set in advance for QoE statistics according to the control of the system operator.

The diagnostic and statistical result management unit 603 receives and stores the QoE measurement result from the network element operating as the transmitter 300. The diagnosis and statistical result management unit 603 can store and manage the QoE measurement result by dividing the QoE statistical result obtained for a predetermined time period and the QoE diagnosis result obtained at a specific time point. Here, the specific time may be a time point requested by the system operator or a predetermined event occurrence time.

The result visualization unit 605 processes the QoE measurement result as visual information and provides the processed result to the system operator. The result visualization unit 605 can provide the QoE measurement result by dividing the QoE statistical result and the QoE diagnosis result.

Through the above-described method, the system operator can efficiently manage and operate the network based on the accurate QoE for each network element.

Next, the transmitter 300 is a network element such as a base station controller, a core equipment, a switch, and a router constituting a mobile communication network, and generates and transmits a packet for active monitoring according to the control of the EMS Can be performed. Herein, since the active monitoring method is used in the embodiment of the present invention, the embodiments of the present invention are applicable without performing time synchronization between network equipment.

The transmitter 300 may include an OAM layer 302, an SLA layer 304, a protocol layer 306, a QoE DB 650, and a log storage unit 640. In particular, the OAM layer 302 may include a configuration management unit 611, a diagnosis management unit 613, a statistics management unit 615, and a log management unit 615. The SLA layer 304 may include a test management unit 621, And an SLA calculation unit 623. The protocol layer 306 may include the TWAMP 631 or Y.1731 PM 633 protocol and the QoE DB 650 may include a flow DB 651, a profile DB 653, an SLA threshold DB 655 And a statistical DB 657,

The configuration management unit 611 of the OAM layer 302 records and updates the flow, profile, and statistics table related information received from the EMS 200 in each DB included in the QoE DB 650, Flow information and profile information for each flow.

 The diagnostic management unit 613 of the OAM layer 302 may determine whether the QoE diagnostic command received from the EMS 200 is valid. For example, the diagnosis management unit 613 checks whether the parameters set by the system operator directly from the EMS 200 have valid values. For example, the diagnostic command compares the processing capacity set by the system operator with the actual processing capacity of the system to determine whether the diagnostic command is valid. If the processing capacity set by the system operator is larger than the actual processing capacity of the system, the diagnosis management unit 613 can determine that the QoE diagnosis command is invalid. The diagnostic management unit 613 may send a diagnostic failure message to the ESM 200 if the diagnostic command is not valid. On the other hand, when the diagnosis command is valid, the diagnosis management unit 613 receives the QoE diagnosis result from the SLA layer 304 and transmits the received QoE diagnosis result to the EMS 300. [

The statistical management unit 615 of the OAM layer 302 analyzes the periodic QoE measurement results generated while the QoE statistical function is performed to obtain the QoE statistical results for a predetermined time and outputs the obtained QoE statistical results to the statistical DB 657 And transmits it to the EMS 300.

The log management unit 615 of the OAM layer 302 generates a log file indicating the QoE quality measurement process and the result, and transmits the log file to the EMS 200. The log file may be generated based on various events (e.g., warning / error) information recorded in the log storage unit 640, raw data, periodic analysis results, and temporary analysis results. In the embodiment of the present invention, the log file is stored in order to analyze in detail the cause of the problem section or the cause of the drop in stock based on the log file. For this purpose, the log file is stored in various forms such as txt and csv format Lt; / RTI >

The test management unit 621 of the SLA layer 304 receives the QoE diagnostic command or the QoE statistic command requesting the QoE measurement from the OAM layer 302 and reconstructs the received command and provides the command to the protocol layer 306. The test management unit 621 determines whether the received command is valid or not and, if not, notifies the EMS 200 of the validity of the QoE measurement command through the OAM layer 302. That is, the test management unit 621 can check whether the protocol-related parameters are valid before performing the encoding according to the protocol. For example, it is possible to check whether the IP, Port and profile information of the source node and the destination node included in the QoE measurement command are valid values. The test management unit 621 controls and processes the function for notifying the QoE measurement failure and cause when the specific parameter value is determined to be invalid. Also, the test management unit 621 analyzes the QoE measurement command to check the number of tests, and controls and processes the QoE test so that the QoE test is performed as many times as the number of times. When the QoE measurement result is received from the protocol layer 306, the test management unit 621 transmits the measurement result to the diagnosis management unit 613 or the statistic management unit 615. [

The SLA calculator 623 of the transmitter 300 analyzes packets received from the reflector 310 through the protocol layer 306 to generate various network quality metric values and manages the generated metric values . Here, the network quality-related metric values include packet count, bandwidth, loss, reordering, duplicate, delay, hop count, statistical And may include statistical jitter, real-time jitter, R-value, and MOS (Mean Opinion Score). The SLA calculator 623 of the transmitter 300 can generate the network quality-related metric values regardless of the protocol of the received packet, which will be described in detail below with reference to FIG.

The protocol layer 306 performs a QoE test by encoding and transmitting a test packet based on the TWAMP 631 or Y.1731 PM 633 protocol based on the test condition provided from the test management unit 621. The protocol layer 306 also receives the packet from the reflector 310, decodes the received packet and sends it to the SLA layer 304.

The flow DB 651 of the QoE DB 650 can store network section information to be a QoE measurement target, that is, an IP and a port number of a source node, and an IP and a port number of a destination node. The flow DB 651 includes different information for each network element.

The profile DB 653 of the QoE DB 650 indexes and stores test conditions for QoE measurement. The test condition may include at least one of a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, and a traffic amount. The profile DB 653 includes the same profile information for a profile having the same index even though it is stored in different network elements.

 In the QoE quality diagnosis, the SLA threshold DB 655 has a threshold value for each metric value to generate a real-time alarm. That is, when the measured metric value exceeds the threshold value, it is notified to the EMS 200 so that the system operator can recognize that the metric value between the corresponding network elements exceeds the threshold value.

The statistical DB 657 includes flow-specific profile mapping information previously received from the EMS 200 to obtain a QoE statistical result.

The log storage unit 640 stores various events (e.g., warning / error) information, raw data, periodic analysis results, and temporary analysis results generated for QoE diagnosis or statistics execution.

The network element receiving the test packet from the network element operating as the transmitter 300 operates as the reflector 310 to add its own information to the received test packet and transmit the encoded information to the transmitter 300.

Finally, the reflector 310 is a network element, such as a base station controller, a core equipment, a switch, and a router, which constitute a mobile communication network. The reflector 310 performs an operation of receiving a packet for active monitoring and transmitting a response packet .

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of extracting a QoE metric from a received quality measurement packet according to an embodiment of the present invention.

7, the SLA calculation unit 623 calculates the QoE and SLA metrics from the received packet regardless of the protocol of the received packet by using the raw data of the received packet, according to the embodiment of the present invention. Information can be extracted and / or calculated.

A method of extracting the QoE metric from the packet received by the SLA calculation unit 623 can be divided into three steps. That is, the SLA calculation unit 623 includes a primary analysis unit 710, a secondary analysis unit 720, And a tertiary analysis unit 730.

The primary analyzer 710 obtains the number and size of received packets from one raw data, and obtains COUNT 701 and BW (BandWidth) 702 based on the number and size of received packets. Also, the primary analyzer 710 can obtain the loss 703, reordering / duplicate 704 information using the sequence number of the received packet. In addition, the primary analyzer 710 can acquire the delay 706 information using the time stamp of the received packet and acquire Availability / Connectivity 705 using the sequence number and the time stamp . In addition, the primary analyzer 710 can acquire Hop Count 707 information using a TTL (Time To Live) in the case of an IP packet.

The secondary analysis unit 720 can obtain the current jitter information based on the delay calculated by the previous received packet, the previous jitter, and the delay information calculated by the current received packet. At this time, the jitter information may include Statistical Jitter (721) and Reatime Jitter (722).

The tertiary analysis unit 730 analyzes the average latency (or average delay) obtained from the delay information 706 obtained using each received packet and the packet loss ratio obtained from the loss 703 information Value 732 by using the statistical jitter 721 and the MOS (Mean Opinion Score) 731 from the obtained R-value (Rating-value 732).

FIG. 8 shows a diagnostic procedure of an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention. Here, the EMS can perform a diagnostic procedure for at least one network element when a temporary failure situation is detected in the network. In addition, the EMS can perform diagnostic procedures for at least one network element at the request of the system operator.

Referring to FIG. 8, in step 801, the EMS 200 sets up a test condition for network diagnosis. At this time, the EMS 200 may set test conditions for all the network elements that it controls for network diagnosis, select only specific network elements that are estimated to have a problem, test conditions for the selected network elements . Here, the test condition is a condition used for measuring the QoE between desired network elements, and includes a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, And the like. The EMS 200 can directly input test conditions for network diagnosis from the system operator. In another embodiment, the EMS 200 may receive profile information indicating a specific test condition preset for network statistics from the system operator. Also, the ESM 200 can select a layer protocol used for the QoE measurement according to a preset method or under the control of the system operator. For example, you can choose which protocol to use for Y.1731 PM and TWAMP to perform QoE measurements.

When the test condition is set, the EMS 200 transmits a diagnostic command including a test condition to a network node (or a network element) corresponding to the test condition set in step 803. [ At this time, the diagnostic command may include protocol information to be used for the QoE measurement. In addition, the diagnostic command may include a flow condition and a flow-specific test condition in which the corresponding network element performs the QoE measurement.

Thereafter, the EMS 200 receives the diagnosis result from the corresponding network node in step 805, and proceeds to step 807 to provide the received diagnosis result to the system operator. Thereafter, the EMS 200 terminates the diagnostic procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention.

9 shows a diagnostic procedure of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 9, the network element receives the network diagnostic command from the EMS 200 in step 901, and confirms the test condition from the diagnostic command received in step 903. FIG. In addition, the network element can confirm the protocol information to be used for the QoE measurement from the diagnostic command and the flow condition and the flow-specific test condition to perform the QoE measurement.

The network element checks in step 905 whether the diagnostic command is valid. For example, the network element checks whether the upper network information that can be set by the user among the information included in the diagnostic command has a valid value. For example, the diagnostic command may include system packet handling capability information, wherein the network element may determine whether the packet handling capability information has a valid value.

If it is determined that the diagnostic command is not valid, the network element transmits a result message indicating failure of diagnosis to the EMS in step 917, and ends the diagnostic procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention. At this time, the result message indicating the diagnosis failure may indicate the cause of diagnosis failure by including the upper network information determined to be invalid.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the diagnostic command is valid, the network element proceeds to step 907 and reconfigures the test condition and the command according to the protocol to be used for the QoE measurement. In step 909, the network element determines validity of the test condition and the source / destination port. That is, the network element checks whether the protocol-related parameters have valid values before performing the encoding according to the protocol. If at least one of the test condition and the source / destination port is determined to be invalid, the network element transmits a result message indicating failure of diagnosis to the EMS in step 917, and ends the diagnostic procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention . At this time, the result message indicating the diagnosis failure may indicate the cause of the diagnosis failure by including information on the protocol-related parameter judged to be invalid.

On the other hand, if it is determined that the test condition and the source / destination port are valid, the network element performs a test for QoE measurement using the corresponding protocol in step 911. That is, the network element generates a packet using the protocol, transmits the generated packet to the reflector, and receives the packet from the reflector.

The network element then analyzes the packet received as a test result in step 913 to calculate at least one metric value representing QoE. At this time, the network element can calculate at least one metric value in the manner as shown in Fig. 7 described above.

Thereafter, the network element generates a diagnostic result message including the metric value calculated in step 915, transmits the generated diagnostic result message to the EMS 200, and ends the diagnostic procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 10 shows the statistical procedure of an EMS according to an embodiment of the present invention. Here, the EMS may perform a statistical procedure on at least one network element when it is desired to determine the network status for a predetermined time period. In addition, the EMS can perform statistical procedures on at least one network element at the request of the system operator.

Referring to FIG. 10, in step 1001, the EMS 200 sets up a flow table for each network node for network statistics, and in step 1003, a profile table to be commonly used by the network elements is set. That is, the EMS 200 sets up a flow and a profile for network components. Here, the flow may refer to a network element section in which QoE measurement is to be performed. A network element serving as a transmitter for transmitting a packet is referred to as a source node, and a network element for receiving a packet and transmitting a response packet is referred to as a destination node The flow table may include the source node IP / port (TCP, UDP) and the destination node IP / port (UDP) information. A profile is a test condition used to measure the QoE of the flow, including a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP), a test duration, can do. The EMS 200 can index the profiles indicating various test conditions and store them in the form of a table. For example, the test condition of profile 1 is "pps: 1, size: 512, DSCP: 0", the test condition of profile 2 is "pps: 5, size: 200, DSCP: 23" A profile table indicating that the condition is "pps: 10, size: 100, DSCP: 46 ".

In step 1005, the EMS 200 may set a statistical table indicating the mapping relationship between the flow and the profile. That is, the EMS 200 sets a table indicating a profile to be used in the QoE measurement for each flow. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, when three flows to be subjected to the QoE measurement in the first base station 220-1 are referred to as "EMS, Gateway, Router", respectively, The profile to be used for the QoE measurement between the first base station 220-1 and the EMS 200 is 1 and the profile to be used for the QoE measurement between the base station 1 220-1 and the gateway 204 is 2, A table indicating that the profile to be used for the QoE measurement between Router 202 is 3 can be set.

In step 1007, the EMS 200 generates statistical test information including information on the profile table, the flow table, and the statistical table. In step 1009, the EMS 200 transmits the statistical test information to each of the network nodes. At this time, the statistical test information may include information on a QoE measurement period and / or a QoE statistical time interval. In addition, the statistical test information may include protocol information to be used for QoE measurement for each network node, or may include protocol information to be used for QoE measurement for each flow of each network node.

In step 1011, the EMS 200 periodically receives the QoE metric value and / or the statistical result for a predetermined time from each of the network nodes. For example, the EMS 200 may receive a QoE metric value measured at a predetermined point in a predetermined QoE measurement period, and may calculate a statistical result for a QoE metric value measured every QoE measurement period during a predetermined QoE statistical time interval . Thereafter, the EMS 200 analyzes the metric value and the statistical result received in step 1013 and provides the analyzed result to the system operator. According to the embodiment of the present invention, since the EMS 200 provides statistical values for the QoE between network elements, it is possible to achieve the effect of performing the network optimization work in the medium to long term from the business side.

Then, in step 1015, the EMS 200 determines whether a profile information change event is generated. Here, the profile information change event may be generated according to a request of the system operator, and may be generated when a predetermined condition is satisfied by the system operator.

If the profile information change event is not generated, the EMS 200 returns to step 1011 and executes the following steps again.

On the other hand, when a profile information change event is generated, the EMS 200 updates the profile table and the statistical table according to the control of the system operator in step 1017, and proceeds to step 1019, send. That is, since the profile information is commonly used by all the network nodes, when the profile information is changed, the EMS 200 transmits the changed information to all the network nodes it controls.

Thereafter, the EMS 200 checks in step 1021 whether or not a statistical test suspension event is generated. Here, the statistical test suspension event may be generated according to a request of the system operator, or may be generated when a predetermined condition is satisfied. If the statistical test suspension event is not generated, the EMS 200 returns to step 1011 and re-executes the following steps.

On the other hand, when the statistical test suspension event occurs, the statistical procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention ends.

11 shows the statistical procedure of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 11, the network element receives statistical test information from the EMS 200 in step 1101, and based on the information received from the EMS, calculates a statistical table indicating a mapping relationship between the profile table, the flow table, Setting and updating. 5, the base station 1 (220-1) can set the statistical table 501, the flow table 511, and the profile table 521 based on the information received from the EMS 200 have.

Thereafter, the network element checks in step 1105 whether or not it becomes a statistical test period. Here, the statistical test period can be confirmed from the statistical test information received from the EMS 200.

In step 1107, the network element constructs a command word according to the protocol of each layer based on the flow and the profile set in the statistical table, and based on the command configured in step 1109, . At this time, the network element can confirm the protocol to be used in the QoE measurement for each flow from the statistical test information. The network element generates the packet using the identified protocol, transmits the generated packet to the reflector, and receives the packet from the reflector.

The network element then analyzes the packet received as a test result in step 1111 to calculate at least one metric value representing QoE. At this time, the network element can calculate at least one metric value in the manner as shown in Fig. 7 described above.

In step 1113, the network element transmits the statistical results of the periodically calculated metric value and / or the periodic calculated metric value to the EMS during a predetermined period of time.

In step 1115, the network element checks whether all the flows and profiles set in the statistical table stored in advance are tested. If the test for all the flows and profiles set in the statistical table stored in advance is not completed, the network element returns to step 1107 and tests for flows and profiles that have not yet been tested.

On the other hand, when the test for all flows and profiles set in the pre-stored statistical table is completed, the network element checks whether a statistical test stop command is received from the EMS in step 1117. [ If the statistical test stop command is not received, the network element returns to step 1105 to check whether it is a statistical test period and re-executes the following steps.

On the other hand, when the statistical test stop command is received, the network element ends the statistical test procedure according to the embodiment of the present invention. Additionally, although not shown in FIG. 11, when information is received from the EMS 200 indicating that the profile has been changed, the network element may update the profile table according to the received information.

As described above, the embodiment of the present invention describes a framework for measuring end-to-end quality of service in a network in which elements of various IP networks are composed in a complex manner. The underlying protocol for measuring end-to-end quality of service is TWEN (Two-way Active Measurement Protocol), which is defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an Internet standardization organization. The method of measuring service quality based on TWAMP allows a plurality of operators to support the TWAMP measurement method in a switch and a router to ensure versatility, and the protocol itself has high scalability so that the network can be tested with various test conditions.

In addition, the scheme described in the present invention, that is, the structure for controlling all network elements in EMS, can be easily applied to SDN (Software Defined Networking) structure as shown in FIG.

FIG. 12 illustrates a structure for measuring QoE in OpenFlow-based SDN according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 12, a controller 1200 manages each of network elements such as a switch or a router. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the controller 1200 may control the QoE measurement of network elements using an application that controls the QoE measurement function. Here, the QoE measurement function will be the same as the function of controlling the QoE measurement of each network element in the EMS 200 described above. The QoE measurement function control application of the controller 1200 can set test conditions for QoE diagnosis or statistics through a user interface and encapsulate the set test conditions in an OpenFlow message, (1210). The controller 1200 analyzes the OpenFlow message received from the switch 1210 and provides a result of the QoE measurement to the user.

The switch 1210 requested to perform the QoE measurement from the controller 1200 includes an OAM layer 302, an SLA layer 304 and a protocol layer 306, Can be performed. The switch 1210 analyzes the OpenFlow message received from the controller 1200 and transmits and receives a packet to and from the reflector 1220 in the same manner as the transmitter 300 described above to perform QoE measurement and outputs the QoE measurement result as an OpenFlow message Encapsulates it and transfers it to the controller 1200.

While the present invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the illustrated embodiments, but should be determined by the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof.

Claims (26)

A method of a system controller for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
Transmitting a user experience quality measurement request message including a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between the peer network elements with at least one network element;
Receiving a user experience quality measurement result from the at least one network element;
And providing the received user experience quality result to a system operator.
The method according to claim 1,
The method of claim 1,
And requesting a statistical result of a current user experience quality measurement result or a periodic user experience quality of an interval between the at least one network element and a relative network element.
The method according to claim 1,
And generating a condition table indexing the user's perceptual quality measurement condition,
The indexed bodily sensation quality measurement condition table is commonly used in all network elements,
Wherein the user experience quality measurement condition includes at least one of a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, and a traffic amount.
The method of claim 3,
A step of setting a network element section for measuring a user's perceptual quality,
Further comprising the step of selecting a user perceived quality measurement condition for the set network element section in the condition table.
A method of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
Receiving a user experience quality measurement request message including a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between network elements from a system controller;
Measuring a user's perceptual quality with respect to a section between the network elements based on the user's perceptual quality measurement condition;
And transmitting the user's perceived quality measurement result to the system controller.
6. The method of claim 5,
Wherein the network elements comprise at least one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.
6. The method of claim 5,
Determining whether the interval between the network elements and the user's perceptual quality measurement condition have valid values;
Further comprising the step of informing the system controller of the failure of the user's perceptual quality measurement if the valid value is not the valid value,
Wherein the interval between the network elements comprises at least one of IP and port information of a network element acting as a transmitter and IP and port information of a network element acting as a reflector,
Wherein the user experience quality measurement condition includes at least one of a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, and a traffic amount.
6. The method of claim 5,
And transmitting the user's perceived quality measurement result to the system controller,
And transmitting a statistical result of a current user experience quality measurement result or a periodically measured user experience quality of a section between the network elements.
6. The method of claim 5,
Further comprising the step of receiving a condition table indexing the user perceived quality measurement condition,
Wherein the step of measuring a user's perceptual quality with respect to a section between the network elements based on the user perceptual quality measurement condition comprises:
And checking a user's perceptual quality measurement condition in the condition table based on a condition index included in the user perceptual quality measurement request message.
6. The method of claim 5,
Wherein the step of measuring a user's perceptual quality with respect to a section between the network elements based on the user perceptual quality measurement condition comprises:
Generating a test packet according to a protocol based on the user's perceptual quality measurement condition;
Transmitting the generated packet to a corresponding network element,
And receiving a packet from the corresponding network element.
11. The method of claim 10,
Acquiring at least one of a sequence number, a time stamp, a number of received packets, and a size TTL (Time To Live) information using raw data of the received packet;
Further comprising calculating at least one metric indicating a user experience quality using the obtained at least one information,
Wherein the metric comprises at least one of bandwidth, packet loss, reordering, redundancy, validity, connectivity, packet delay, statistical jitter, real-time jitter, R-value, Mean Opinion Score.
A method of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
Receiving a packet for measuring a user's perceived quality from another network element;
And transmitting a response packet for the received packet to the other network element,
Wherein the network element and the other network element are any one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.
A method of a system for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
Setting a user experience quality measurement condition between network elements in a system controller and transmitting a user experience quality measurement request message including the set conditions to the network elements;
Transmitting a packet to at least one peer network element based on a user perceived quality measurement condition received from the system controller at a specific network element;
Transmitting a response packet for a packet received from the specific network element in the counterpart network element;
Generating a user experience quality measurement result using the response packet in the specific network element;
And transmitting the generated user perceived quality measurement result to the system controller in the specific network element,
Wherein the network elements comprise at least one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.
An apparatus of a system controller for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
A test request unit for setting a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between the peer network elements with at least one network element and transmitting a user experience quality measurement request message including the set conditions,
A measurement result management unit for receiving a user experience quality measurement result from the at least one network element;
And a result providing unit for providing the received user perceived quality result to the system operator.
15. The method of claim 14,
Wherein the test requesting unit requests a statistical result of a current user perception quality measurement result or a periodic user perceived quality level of a section between the peer network elements with the at least one network element.
15. The method of claim 14,
The test request unit generates a condition table indexing a user's perceived quality measurement condition,
The indexed bodily sensation quality measurement condition table is commonly used in all network elements,
Wherein the user experience quality measurement condition includes at least one of a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, and a traffic volume.
17. The method of claim 16,
Wherein the test request unit sets a network element section for measuring user experience quality and selects a user experience quality measurement condition for the set network element section in the condition table.
An apparatus of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
A first layer for receiving a user experience quality measurement request message including a user experience quality measurement condition for an interval between network elements from a system controller and transmitting a user experience quality measurement result to the system controller,
A second layer for obtaining a measurement result of a user's perceived quality from packets received from a peer network element,
And a third layer for generating and transmitting a packet according to the protocol based on the user's perceptual quality measurement condition and receiving a packet from the counterpart network element.
19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the network elements comprise at least one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.
19. The method of claim 18,
The second layer may include a function for determining whether the interval between the network elements and the user's perceptual quality measurement condition has a valid value and notifying the failure of the user perceptual quality measurement to the system controller Lt; / RTI &
Wherein the interval between the network elements comprises at least one of IP and port information of a network element acting as a transmitter and IP and port information of a network element acting as a reflector,
Wherein the user experience quality measurement condition includes at least one of a packet per second (PPS), a packet size, a differentiated services code point (DSCP), a test duration, and a traffic volume.
19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the first layer transmits a statistical result of a current user experience quality measurement result or a periodically measured user experience quality segment to an interval between the network elements.
19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the first layer receives a condition table indexing a user's perceptual quality measurement condition and confirms a user perceptual quality measurement condition in the condition table based on a condition index included in the user perceptual quality measurement request message.
19. The method of claim 18,
Wherein the third layer generates a test packet according to a protocol based on the user experience quality measurement condition, transmits the generated packet to the corresponding network element, and receives the packet from the corresponding network element.
24. The method of claim 23,
The second layer obtains at least one of a sequence number, a time stamp, a received packet number, and a size TTL (Time To Live) information using raw data of a packet received through the third layer, Calculating at least one metric indicative of a user experience quality using the obtained at least one information,
Wherein the metric comprises at least one of bandwidth, packet loss, reordering, redundancy, validity, connectivity, packet delay, statistical jitter, real-time jitter, R-value, Mean Opinion Score.
An apparatus of a network element for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
A layer for receiving a packet for user experience quality measurement from another network element and transmitting a response packet for the received packet to the other network element,
Wherein the network element and the other network element are any one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.
A system for measuring a user experience quality in a network,
A system controller for setting a user experience quality measurement condition between the network elements and controlling the network elements to measure the user experience experience quality with the set conditions;
A network element for transmitting a packet to the counterpart network element for measuring a user experience quality for at least one counterpart network element under the control of the system controller;
A peer network element for receiving a packet from the network element and for transmitting a response packet,
Wherein the network elements comprise at least one of a base station, a switch, a router and a gateway.

Images