Patent Application
20070252835
As the use of networks increases, especially in telecommunications, network system providers face conflicting demands from the customer, who demands increase network reliability and performance, and from the business environment, which is sensitive to the cost of operating and maintaining the higher level of service. In order to satisfy or balance those demands, network analysis systems have been developed to facilitate the planning, troubleshooting, installing, and maintaining present-day networks.
Many network analysis systems have a graphical user interface that displays data in the network grouped by data session or by independent network events. A number of these groups can be displayed along with characteristics of the data. The display enables the identification of errors. In conventional network analysis systems, it is possible to the display information corresponding to communication events in a network communications session. In conventional network analysis systems, it is also possible to display graphically measures of performance of the communications session as a function of the time events. However, conventional network analysis systems, there is no indication of the communication event corresponding to a value of the measures of performance in the graphical display. Therefore, there is a need for improved graphical user interfaces.
In one instance, the graphical user interface of this invention includes a component capable of selecting criteria from a structured collection of data, the structured collection of data including criteria for selecting properties of acquired information, and, a portion (such as, in one embodiment, but not limited to, a list) of the acquired information, the portion displayed on a display device and satisfying criteria selected by use of the component.
In one embodiment, the acquired information includes signaling messages and the criteria include filters for analyzing the signaling messages.
In another instance, a computer readable medium has computer readable code embodied therein that causes a computer to implement the graphical user interface of this invention.
Methods and systems for implementing the present invention are also disclosed.
For a better understanding of the present invention, together with other and further objects thereof, reference is made to the accompanying drawings and detailed description and its scope will be pointed out in the appended claims.
a, 1b are graphical depictions of a user interface in a conventional network analysis system;
Graphical user interfaces, methods and systems that enable the display of a communication event in a network communications session corresponding to a datum in a line graph are disclosed herein below.
In one instance, the graphical user interface of this invention includes at least one line graph depicting data corresponding to a network communication session, the data being depicted as a function of an independent variable, a component capable of selecting a communication event corresponding to a datum from the data, and, a component capable of displaying information identifying the corresponding communication event.
In another instance, a computer readable medium has computer readable code embodied therein that causes a computer to implement the graphical user interface of this invention.
“Component” as used herein refers to means for accomplishing a desired function. Typically, such means as implemented in software. In one instance, such means are means for displaying data in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) such as text boxes or means for selecting options in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) such as, but not limited to, menus, pull down menus, drag and drop between dialog boxes, and other selecting means (see, for example, C. Petzold, Programming Windows, ISBN 1-57231-995-X, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11, pp. 357-566, which are incorporated by reference herein).
In order to elucidate the description of the user interface of this invention, a description of a user interface of a conventional signal (network) analysis system, wherein the acquired information includes communication events (signaling messages) from a network communications session, is presented below. A user interface of a conventional signal analysis system is shown in
In an embodiment of the user interface of this invention, shown in
An embodiment of the method of this invention is shown in
In a further embodiment of the method of this invention, shown in
A schematic block diagram representation of an embodiment of the system of this invention is shown in
In one embodiment, the computer readable code can also cause the one or more processors 320 to update the structured collection of data and, to update the component capable of selecting criteria from the structured collection of data, where the updated component is capable of selecting criteria from the updated structured collection of data.
In another embodiment, the computer readable code can also cause the one or more processors 320 to update the component capable of selecting criteria from the structured collection of data. For example, the present invention not being limited to only this example, in the embodiment in which the acquired information comprises signaling messages and structured collection of data includes filters for selecting properties of the acquired signaling messages, one or more of filters could be deselected from the component (for example, a drop-down menu). As stated above, the user can deselect filters by means of, for example, a checkbox next to the filter name in the component (for example, a drop-down menu) or by “right clicking” on the filter name and obtaining a control menu allowing deselecting of the filter or any other method provided by the API for selecting or deselecting a choice (criterion) in a component. After the component has been updated, if desired, the structured collection of data can be also updated.
The embodiment of the system of this invention shown in
It should be noted that the one or more computer usable media 330 and the one or more all her computer usable media 350 can be the same computer usable media. That is, the computer readable code and the structured collection of data may be stored in the same physical memory (computer usable medium).
The techniques described above may be implemented in one or more computer programs executing on a programmable computer including a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including, for example, volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), and, in some embodiments, also including at least one input device, and/or at least one output device. Program code may be applied to data entered using the input device (or user interface) to perform the functions described and to generate output information. The output information may be applied to one or more output devices.
Elements and components described herein may be further divided into additional components or joined together to form fewer components for performing the same functions.
Each computer program may be implemented in any programming language, such as assembly language, machine language, a high-level procedural programming language, an object-oriented programming language, or a combination thereof. The programming language may be a compiled or interpreted programming language.
Each computer program may be implemented in a computer program product tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage device for execution by a computer processor. Method steps of the invention may be performed by a computer processor executing a program tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium to perform functions of the invention by operating on input and generating output.
Common forms of computer-readable (computer usable) media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, a CDROM, any other optical medium, punched cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes or other patterns, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave, such as electromagnetic radiation or electrical signals, or any other medium from which a computer can read.
Although the invention has been described with respect to various embodiments, it should be realized this invention is also capable of a wide variety of further and other embodiments within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
