Patent ID: 11902118
Assignee: TELECOM ITALIA S.P.A.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 11:
12. A communication network comprising:
a first node configured to:
classify at least one packet of a traffic received for determining whether packets of said traffic are to be monitored and, in the affirmative, associate them with a service of monitoring;
create a selection policy to identify a packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring, the selection policy being based on a classification policy used to classify the at least one packet
send said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring to a monitoring center; and
mark the packets of said packet flow to be monitored, said marking including setting a feature of each packet of the packet flow to be monitored to a given value suitable for distinguishing each packet of said packet flow to be monitored from unmarked packets of another packet flow that is not to be monitored and said marking including setting one or more bits of a given field of a header of each packet of said packet flow to be monitored to a predetermined value; and

a second node configured to:
check whether a received packet matches an already installed selection policy to identify a packet flow of packets to be monitored that is already installed at said second node;
when the received packet fails to match the already installed selection policy to identify the packet flow of packets to be monitored that is already installed at said second node, check whether said received packet is marked by having the given value suitable for distinguishing the received packet from the unmarked packets of the other packet flow that is not to be monitored in its header;
when said received packet is marked by having the given value suitable for distinguishing the received packet from the unmarked packets of the other packet flow that is not to be monitored in its header, send a request to the monitoring center based upon attributes of the received packet to check whether said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring created by the first node exists;
receive said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring that was created by the first node;
install said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring that was created by the first node;
identify said packet flow on the basis of said installed selection policy created by the first node; and
apply monitoring actions associated with said service of monitoring to said identified packet flow.