WO2011020348A1

WO2011020348A1 - Method, device and network management server for implementing polling for network element link state

Info

Publication number: WO2011020348A1
Application number: PCT/CN2010/072833
Authority: WO
Inventors: 汪宇; 李进; 杨金彬
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2009-08-20
Filing date: 2010-05-17
Publication date: 2011-02-24
Also published as: CN101997704A

Abstract

A method, device and network management server for implementing polling for network element link state are provided, and the method includes: at the detection message sending step executed by a first work thread, sending a detection message to a plurality of network elements to be polled in traversal manner; at the response result processing step executed by a second work thread, according the obtained response result, determining the link states of the network elements to be polled corresponding to the response result; wherein, the first and second work threads are independent of each other. Using present invention can improve the timeliness of polling while greatly reducing the system thread overhead.

Description

Method, device and network management server for implementing network element link status polling

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications network management, and in particular, to a method, a device, and a network management server for implementing network element link status polling. Background technique

Polling is the basic function of the network management system. That is, the network management server detects whether the network elements can communicate normally by sending probe messages to all network elements managed by the network management server to determine whether the network elements are under management.

In most cases, the managed network element has a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent installed. The network management server sends an SNMP message to the managed network element to determine whether the network management server is The communication status between the managed network elements. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the relationship between a network management server and a managed network element in a network management system. formula. 2 is a schematic flow chart of a separate worker thread in the synchronous polling of the prior art. In the synchronous polling of the prior art, the network element information will be read in turn, and the SNMP probe message is sent according to its Internet Protocol (IP) address and then waits for a response. After completing the polling of one network element, it is the next turn. Network element. As shown in Figure 2, in the prior art synchronous polling, the following steps are included in a separate worker thread:

Step 201: The network management server takes out information about a network element to be polled.

Step 202: The network management server obtains the IP address of the network element, and sends a probe message to the network element. Step 203: The network management server waits for the network element to respond.

Step 204, it is determined whether the response of the network element is received within the specified time; if the response of the network element is not received, step 205 is performed; otherwise, the process proceeds to step 206; Step 205, determining that the state of the network element link is disconnected, that is, determining that the state of the network element is unreachable, and performing step 207;

Step 206, determining that the state of the network element link is a normal state of communication, that is, determining that the state of the network element is reachable, and performing step 207;

Step 207: Compare with the stored network element link or the old state of the network element.

Step 208, determining whether the determined state is the same as the old state of the network element link or the network element; if yes, proceeding to step 201, continuing to read the information of the next to-be-polled network element; otherwise, performing step 209;

Step 209: Modify the state of the network element in the database of the network management server, and go to step 201 to continue reading the information of the next network element to be polled.

The defect of the above-mentioned polling mode in the prior art is: When a certain network element fails, it needs to wait for a period of time to find that there is no response message to know that the polled network element is unreachable. The length of the above waiting time is configurable, usually 15 seconds. For example, suppose there is only one worker thread in the system, and there are 500 network elements in the system that need to be polled. If there are 10 network elements in the network management system, the 500th network element should be polled for at least 750 seconds. After that, it can be polled. Those skilled in the art know that the most basic requirement for polling is timeliness, that is, the network element and the network management can be discovered as soon as possible after the chain is broken. Therefore, the above-mentioned polling process of the prior art is unacceptable because the delay time is too long. Using the above method of polling to improve timeliness can only increase the number of worker threads, allowing as many threads as possible to work at the same time, but this can only partially improve the timeliness, and can not solve the problem fundamentally; Serious problem: Using too many threads increases system overhead and increases

The load on the CPU reduces the operating efficiency of the entire network management system. Summary of the invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method, a device, and a network management system thread overhead for implementing network element link status polling to implement timely polling. In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for implementing network element link status polling, where the method includes:

a probe message sending step performed by the first worker thread, sending a probe message to the plurality of to-be-called polling network elements in a traversal manner;

a response result processing step performed by the second worker thread, determining, according to the obtained response result, a link state of the to-be-polled network element corresponding to the response result;

The first worker thread and the second worker thread are independent of each other.

Preferably, the step of transmitting the probe message comprises: registering an asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, and corresponding to a network element to be polled;

The response result processing step includes: obtaining a response result of the corresponding network element from the channel object corresponding to the registered asynchronous communication channel, and determining a link state of the corresponding network element according to the response result.

Preferably, the step of processing the response result further includes: after determining the link state of the network element, canceling the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element.

Preferably, the step of processing the response result further includes: after determining a link state of the network element to be polled, determining to determine the to-be-polled network element corresponding to the next response result according to the obtained next response result. Link status.

Preferably, the step of transmitting the probe message further includes: when registering the asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, saving the unique identifier of the network element to be polled in the channel object corresponding to the registered asynchronous communication channel ;

Correspondingly, the step of processing the response result further includes: acquiring the unique target of the network element stored in the channel object when the response result of the corresponding network element is obtained from the channel object corresponding to the registered asynchronous communication channel.

Preferably, in the step of processing the response result, obtaining the response result and the network element only After the identification, it also includes:

Determining whether the response result is a successful response; if yes, determining that the link state of the network element corresponding to the unique identifier is a communication normal state; otherwise, determining that the link state of the network element corresponding to the unique identifier is a broken link The response is a successful response when the asynchronous communication channel receives the response message returned by the corresponding network element within a predetermined time.

In another aspect, an apparatus for implementing network element link status polling is provided, where the apparatus includes: a probe message sending module and a response result processing module;

a probe sending module, configured to send a probe message to the plurality of network elements to be tested in a traversal manner in the first working thread;

a response result processing module, configured to determine, according to the obtained response result, a link state of the to-be-polled network element corresponding to the response result in the second working thread;

Preferably, the probe message sending module includes: an asynchronous communication channel registration module and a sending module;

The asynchronous communication channel registration module is configured to register an asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, and each asynchronous communication channel corresponds to one network element to be polled;

The response result processing module includes: a response result obtaining module and a link state determining module; wherein

The response result obtaining module is configured to obtain a response result of the corresponding network element from the registered asynchronous communication channel;

Preferably, the response result processing module further includes: The asynchronous communication channel unregistering module is configured to: after determining the link state of the network element, cancel the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element.

In another aspect, a network management server that implements network element link status polling includes at least a device for performing network element link status polling, and the apparatus further includes: a probe message sending module and a response result processing module;

Preferably, the probe message sending module includes an asynchronous communication channel registration module and a sending module;

The response result processing module includes a response result obtaining module and a link state determining module;

Preferably, the response result processing module further includes:

The asynchronous communication channel unregistering module is configured to: after determining the link state of the network element, cancel the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element. The technical effects of the present invention are:

The present invention provides a method for implementing network element link status polling by using asynchronous communication mode. The steps of the probe message sending and the response result processing steps are respectively implemented in two mutually independent working threads, so that the network management server can be in the direction After a network element sends a probe message, it does not need to wait for the response of the network element, but immediately sends a probe message to the next network element, and the response message of each network element is uniformly processed in the second working thread, which means that it can be more The network elements are polled in the same thread in a linear manner, without having to allocate a separate thread for each network element. Since the time for sending the message is extremely short, the technical solution of the present invention can be used in a relatively short time. A large number of network elements send probe messages. Therefore, compared with the prior art synchronous polling method, the asynchronous polling method of the present invention can improve the timeliness of polling while greatly reducing system thread overhead. DRAWINGS

1 is a schematic diagram of a relationship between a network management server and a managed network element in a network management system of the prior art;

2 is a schematic flow chart of a synchronous polling method in the prior art;

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart of a sending message sending step in a method for implementing a network element link state polling according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a schematic flowchart of a process of processing a response result in a method for implementing a link state polling of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for implementing network element link status polling according to an embodiment of the present invention. detailed description

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings and specific embodiments.

In the process of implementing the present invention, it is found that the synchronous polling party of the state of the network element link state in the prior art In the polling process of the network element, after sending the probe message to the network element, the thread still waits for the thread time to wait for the response message, which is time consuming.

In the process of implementing the present invention, it is also found that the asynchronous communication channel is a mechanism for asynchronous communication, and the underlying operating system has the mechanism of asynchronous communication, and various programming platforms provide corresponding system functions to support access to the underlying asynchronous communication channel. . The basic principle of the asynchronous communication channel technology is to provide a communication channel for each user. The user returns the data to be sent to the asynchronous communication channel, and the system monitors the message response on the channel for the user. In the process of implementing the present invention, it is found that the asynchronous channel technology can be applied to the polling of the network element state to provide an asynchronous polling method. In the asynchronous polling method, one for each network element is provided. The asynchronous communication channel sends a probe message to the corresponding network element through the asynchronous communication channel without waiting for the response message, that is, the response result.

The present invention provides a method for implementing network element link status polling, which is a polling method implemented by using an asynchronous communication method, the method comprising: transmitting a probe message in a first working thread, in a traversal manner Sending a probe message to the plurality of to-be-reviewed network elements; and in the response result processing step performed by the second worker thread, determining, according to the obtained response result, a link state of the to-be-polled network element corresponding to the response result; The first worker thread is independent of the second worker thread. Preferably, the step of transmitting the probe message comprises: registering, for the network element to be polled, an asynchronous communication communication channel corresponding to one to be polled network element; the processing result of the response result comprises: obtaining the corresponding network element from the registered asynchronous communication channel And responding to the result, and determining a link state of the corresponding network element according to the response result.

Exemplarily, the foregoing response result includes: a successful response and a failure response; when the asynchronous communication channel receives the response message of the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel within a predetermined time, the response The result is a successful response; otherwise, the response is a failed response. When the response is successful, the communication between the NE and the NMS server is normal. The link between the NE and the NMS server is in the normal state of communication and the NE is reachable. When the response is a failure response, the network is displayed. The communication between the NE and the network management server is abnormal. The link between the NE and the NMS server is in a broken state and the NE is unreachable.

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart of a step of transmitting a probe message in a method for implementing a link status polling of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the method for implementing the link state polling of the network element in the embodiment of the present invention, the main body executed in each step is a device for implementing the link state polling of the network element, that is, the device having the function of implementing the link state polling function of the network element, In FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the network management server in the network management system is taken as an example for description. As shown in Figure 3, the process of sending the probe message includes:

Step 301: The network management server acquires information about a network element to be polled.

Exemplarily, in this step, all the information of the network element to be polled is pre-stored in the network management server, for example, in a database set in the network management server, and the network management server takes out a polling network from the database during polling. Meta information

Illustratively, the information of the network element includes: IP address information, port, and the like of the network element to be polled; Step 302, the network management server registers an asynchronous communication channel, where the asynchronous communication channel corresponds to the network element to be polled, The two are - the corresponding relationship, and save the unique identifier of the above-mentioned network element to be polled;

Exemplarily, in this step, the network management server registers an asynchronous communication channel with the current operating system; for example, if the asynchronous communication channel of the operating system is not directly accessible, the network management server can perform various programming supported by the corresponding system function. The platform registers the asynchronous communication channel;

Exemplarily, the unique identifier of the network element is an IP address of the network element;

Illustratively, in this step, after the asynchronous communication channel is registered, the unique identifier of the to-be-polled network element is saved in the channel object corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel; Step 303: The network management server sends a probe message, that is, a polling request message, to the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel through the asynchronous communication channel, and then proceeds to step 301 to continue polling the next network element to be polled.

The probe message sending process is characterized in that: the time for waiting for the response of the network element is utilized, and after the probe message, that is, the polling request message, is sent to the network element to be polled, the network element does not need to wait for the network element to return a response message, but immediately The next polling NE sends a probe message. Since the time for sending a message is extremely short, a probe message can be sent to a large number of network elements in a short time. In the manner of sending the probe message, the network management server can poll the multiple threads in the same thread in a linear manner without assigning a separate thread to each network element, thereby saving thread overhead. The timeliness of polling is improved while the system thread overhead is greatly reduced.

In the method for polling the link state of the network element in the embodiment of the present invention, the response message returned by each network element is uniformly processed by the second working thread. The response message processing thread centrally processes the received response message, and the workflow is as follows: traversing the asynchronous communication channel registered by the first working thread before, checking whether there is a response message of the network element on the channel, obtaining a response result, and performing corresponding processing. Since there is no need for any blocking or waiting in the middle, it can be traversed quickly. Any network element can be discovered very quickly if it is disconnected from the network management system.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart of a process of processing a response result in a method for polling a link state of a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, the process of the response result processing step of the embodiment includes: Step 401: The network management server obtains a response result of a ready asynchronous communication channel and a unique identifier of the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel; wherein, the ready asynchronous communication A channel refers to an asynchronous communication channel that already has a response result;

In this step, the network management server obtains the response result of the asynchronous communication channel and the unique identifier of the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel when the network communication server checks the ready asynchronous communication channel, and the unique identifier of the network element is used to identify and respond to the response result. Corresponding network element, that is, a network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel; Illustratively, when the present invention is implemented by using a program module, all registered asynchronous communication channels are usually stored in a storage space in a corresponding channel object. In this step, a response is usually taken out from the storage space. As a result, the asynchronous communication channel obtains the corresponding response result and the unique identifier of the corresponding network element from the channel object corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel having the response result;

Step 402, the network management server determines whether the obtained response result is a successful response; if yes, step 403; otherwise, step 404;

Step 403, determining that the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel, that is, the link state of the network element corresponding to the unique identifier is a communication normal state, and the corresponding network element is reachable;

Step 404, determining that the network element corresponding to the asynchronous communication channel, that is, the link state of the network element corresponding to the unique identifier is a communication abnormal state, that is, a broken link state, and the corresponding network element is unreachable;

Step 405, cancel the asynchronous communication channel;

Step 406: The network management server compares the determined link state of the network element with the currently stored old link state of the network element, and determines whether the two are the same. If yes, the process proceeds to step 401, where the next acquisition is continued. The response result of the asynchronous communication channel of the response result; otherwise, step 407 is performed; step 407, updating the link state or the network element state of the network element currently stored in the network management server, exemplarily, by modifying the network stored in the database The link state of the element or the state of the network element, and then proceeds to step 401 to continue to obtain the response result of the next asynchronous communication channel having the response result.

Different from the synchronous polling method of the prior art, in the polling method of the embodiment, the working thread for sending the probe message, that is, the first working thread, is no longer waiting, and the network management server does not wait for the network element after issuing the probe message. The response message, but continues to send the probe message to the next polling network element, the response message of all network elements is processed in the second working thread, and the network management server processes the response result of the network element corresponding to a registered asynchronous communication channel. After that, the response result of the network element corresponding to the next registered asynchronous communication channel is processed. Send a probe message to the network management server to Asynchronous communication channel, after the asynchronous communication channel sends the probe message, the operating system monitors the response message on the asynchronous communication channel. If the link between the network element and the network management server is normal, the network element is reachable, and the asynchronous communication channel will be If the response message returned by the network element is received within the predetermined time, the asynchronous communication channel outputs a response result of the successful response; otherwise, if the link between the network element and the network management server is broken, that is, the network element is unreachable, the asynchronous communication channel will If the response message returned by the network element cannot be received within the predetermined time, the asynchronous communication channel outputs a response result of the failure response. The network management server determines whether the communication link between the network element and the network management server is normal by obtaining the response result of the asynchronous communication channel.

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for implementing network element link status polling according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, an apparatus for implementing network element link status polling includes: a probe message sending module 501 and a response result processing module 502. The probe message sending module 501 is configured to be in the first working thread. Sending a probe message to the plurality of network elements to be tested in a traversal manner; the response result processing module 502 is configured to determine, according to the obtained response result, the link of the network element to be polled corresponding to the response result in the second working thread. Status: The first worker thread and the second worker thread are independent of each other.

Preferably, in the apparatus of the embodiment, the probe message sending module includes: an asynchronous communication channel registration module, configured to register an asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, each asynchronous communication channel corresponding to one to be polled network element; And a module, configured to send a probe message to the to-be-polled network element by using the asynchronous communication channel. The response result processing module includes: a response result obtaining module, configured to obtain a response result of the corresponding network element from the registered asynchronous communication channel; and a link state determining module, and preferably, in the apparatus of the embodiment, the response result The processing module further includes: an asynchronous communication channel deregistration module, configured to: after determining the link state of the network element, cancel the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element.

Exemplarily, in the specific implementation, the foregoing apparatus for implementing network element link status polling may be implemented. It is a functional module or a physical device. When the device is implemented as a function module, it can be set in a device that needs to implement a polling function.

The present invention also provides a network management server including the above apparatus for implementing network element link status polling.

Illustratively, the embodiment of the present invention describes a case where polling is performed using an SNMP message. The key difference is that there is no need to wait for the return of the probe message, which means that multiple network elements can be polled in the same thread in a linear fashion without having to assign a separate thread to each network element. With the asynchronous polling mode, compared with the traditional synchronous polling method, it takes only two working threads: a thread that sends a polling message and a thread that receives a polling response message; this not only saves a lot System overhead, and because of the small number of threads, both worker threads can run at full speed, and the polling speed is greatly improved.

For example, an enterprise network with a network element size of about 1000 is used as an example. With the synchronous polling method of the prior art, more than 40 working threads need to be started, and the average time of network element broken links is 5-10 minutes. And because polling is too resource intensive, the performance of other functions of the network management system is seriously affected. After the asynchronous polling process of the present invention, only one probe message sending thread and one response message processing thread are needed for the enterprise network of the same size, and the average time of the network element broken link discovery is within 10 seconds; and the asynchronous method of the present invention The polling process has no effect on other functions of the network management software.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and it should be noted that those skilled in the art can also make several improvements and retouchings without departing from the principles of the present invention. It is considered as the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

Claim

A method for implementing a network element link status polling, the method comprising: transmitting, in a traversal manner, a probe message to a plurality of to-be-polled network elements in a probe message sending step performed by the first working thread;

2. The method of claim 1 wherein

The sending of the probe message includes: registering an asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, and corresponding to a network element to be polled;

The method according to claim 2, wherein the step of processing the response result further comprises: after determining the link state of the network element, canceling the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element.

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that

The step of the response result processing further includes: after determining a link state of the network element to be polled, determining to determine, according to the obtained next response result, the link of the to-be-polled network element corresponding to the next response result. status.

5. A method according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that

The step of transmitting the probe message further includes: when registering the asynchronous communication channel for the network element to be polled, storing the unique identifier of the network element to be polled in the channel object corresponding to the registered asynchronous communication channel; Correspondingly, the step of processing the response result further includes: acquiring the unique target of the network element stored in the channel object when the response result of the corresponding network element is obtained from the channel object corresponding to the registered asynchronous communication channel.

The method according to claim 5, wherein, in the step of processing the response result, after obtaining the response result and the unique identifier of the network element, the method further includes:

A device for implementing a network element link status polling, the device comprising: a probe message sending module and a response result processing module;

The device according to claim 7, wherein the probe message sending module comprises: an asynchronous communication channel registration module and a sending module;

a response result obtaining module, configured to obtain a response of the corresponding network element from the registered asynchronous communication channel Result; status.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the response result processing module further comprises:

The asynchronous communication channel unregistering module is configured to, after determining the link state of the network element, log off the asynchronous communication channel corresponding to the network element.

A network management server that implements network element link status polling, and is characterized in that it includes at least a device for implementing network element link status polling, and the apparatus further includes: a probe message sending module and a response result processing module;

The gateway server according to claim 10, wherein the probe message sending module comprises an asynchronous communication channel registration module and a sending module;

a response result obtaining module, configured to obtain a response result of the corresponding network element from the registered asynchronous communication channel; status.

The gateway server according to claim 11, wherein the response result processing module further comprises: