Patent Application
20070226627
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 a phase graph view in which every symbol relates to a single protocol messages However, in conventional network analysis systems, in case of a network communications session with a long duration or with significant signaling activity, too many phase graphs symbols appear in the display and the phase graph view is no longer effective and obscures other displayed data. 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 a component capable of selecting one summary of data from the plurality of summaries of data corresponding to a network communication session, a component capable of selecting a plurality of events corresponding to the selected summary of data; and, an icon representing a portion of a graphical report corresponding to the plurality of selected events.
In one instance, a computer readable medium has computer readable code embodied therein that causes a computer to implement the graphical user interface of this invention. In another embodiment, the computer readable code can also cause a computer to select the one summary of data according to a predetermined criterion or according to user input.
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.
In one instance, the graphical user interface of this invention includes a component capable of a component capable of selecting one summary of data from the plurality of summaries of data corresponding to a network communication session, a component capable of selecting a plurality of events corresponding to the selected summary of data; and, an icon representing a portion of a graphical report corresponding to the plurality of selected events.
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. In another embodiment, the computer readable code can also cause a computer to select the one summary of data according to a predetermined criterion or according to user input.
“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, list 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, 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 exemplary embodiment, a list box 50 of the second component is shown in
An embodiment of the method of this invention is shown in
A schematic block diagram representation of an embodiment of the system of this invention is shown in
In one embodiment, the network interface 120 includes an acquisition component and a filtering component. The acquisition component can be similar, but is not limited to, to that found in signaling analyzers such as the “J7326A Signaling Analyzer” of AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES, Inc. The acquisition component and Filtering component receive the data from one or more transmission messages and renders the data in a form that can be provided to the one or more processors 130.
The network interface 220, the one or more processors 230, the display 235 and the computer usable medium 240 are operatively connected by means of a connection component 215 (the connection component may be, for example, a computer bus, or a carrier wave).
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.
