Network capacity planning based on buffers occupancy monitoring

摘要

Disclosed herein is a method and a system of network capacity planning for use in a high speed packet switching network. The network comprises a plurality of switching nodes interconnected through a plurality of communication links, each of the switching nodes comprises means for switching packets from at least one input link to at least one output link. Each of the output links is coupled to at least one buffer in the switching node for queuing packets before they are transmitted over the output link. The network capacity planning method of the invention comprises the following steps:In each of the switching nodes and for each of the output links, a time distribution of the occupancy of each buffer during a predetermined monitoring time period is measured, and stored in a centralized memory location. Then, the buffer occupancy time distribution data are retrieved from the centralized memory location in all the switching nodes, gathered and stored in a network dedicated server. These buffer occupancy time distribution data for all the nodes are transmitted from the dedicated network server to a network monitoring center. In the network monitoring center, the buffer occupancy time distribution data are integrated on a larger time scale, and stored. Finally, the integrated buffer occupancy time distribution data are used to apply network capacity planning actions to the network resources.