Detection of Network Problems Using Mobile Network

Votes: 31
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NETWORK PERFORMANCE MONITORING DEVICE
This prototype is to enable seamless router/switch management through mobile base stations.

The set up consists of a beacon module (USB enabled), network devices in a given location, a base station tower, and beacon/keep-alive sending modules in the routers or switches.
All base stations in a specific region (city/area) are provided with a specific set of 10 digit IDs. These 10 digit IDs are similar to 10 digit mobile numbers. Each location has an area code for the first 5 digits and  router ID for next 5 digits.

As soon as a ISP or company registers their routers to the base station, the mounted device starts monitoring the health of the router similar to a user running health commands and sends a beacon to the nearest base station at the time of outage. The notification such as switch/router performance, heavy traffic, failure of cables can be sent to a mobile base station.

Monitoring servers are generally located in a WAN and in worse case sometimes the monitoring server might as well get effected in the whole process , thus causing a heartburn to the network admin. Given the real time support network admin provides, this small latency of communication can prove fatal. Hence when a beacon is sent to the base station, from the router the information is immediately passed down to the registered monitoring servers and/or registered mobile users' numbers for this service. The beacon reception is more of a subscription format where only users who have subscribed to alerts receive one.

Take the example of Switch CPU utilization going up and spanning tree loop is the root cause. The beacon device which has its own built in processor and little memory triggers an alert in the form of a beacon. As such, these beacons need to be sent a fixed number of times for a specific period to prevent any false alerts or alarams. This beacon is now sent down to the BS in format as below.

The cause ID is a set parameter in the router specifying the cause of the outage. For example 1 might represent a spanning tree loop.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Vijaya Durga C
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Network Engineer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    never
  • Vijaya Durga's favorite design and analysis tools:
    GNS3
  • Vijaya Durga's hobbies and activities:
    Book Reading
  • Vijaya Durga belongs to these online communities:
    crazyengineers; cisco learning community
  • Patent status:
    none