Confidence intervals for key performance indicators in communication networks

摘要

Systems and methods for calculating and presenting confidence interval(s) for key performance indicator(s) (KPIs) are described. For example, in some embodiments, a method may include identifying vectors representing network events observed by a network monitoring system, each vector including: a dimension, an indication of a sampling ratio with which a respective event was observed, and a value associated with the dimension. The method may also include calculating a KPI corresponding to the observed events for the dimension based, at least in part, upon the values. The method may further include calculating a confidence associated with the KPI, based, at least in part, upon the sampling ratios. In some cases, events may be observed with different sampling ratios. Additionally or alternatively, sampling ratios may include adaptive sampling ratios controlled by the network monitoring system in response to network or resource loading (e.g., subject varying over time), whitelist differentiated sampling ratios, etc.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
performing, using one or more computer systems, identifying vectors representing network events observed by a network monitoring system, each vector including: a dimension, an indication of a sampling ratio with which a respective network event was observed, and a value associated with the dimension; calculating a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) corresponding to the observed network events for the dimension based, at least in part, upon the values; and calculating a confidence associated with the KPI, based, at least in part, upon the sampling ratios, wherein calculating the confidence further includes:
performing, using the one or more computer systems,estimating a number of network events (KN) that would have been observed by the network monitoring system in the absence of sampling;determining a number of observed network events (Kn); andcalculating a standard deviation (Kσ) of the values.