Patent ID: 9733973
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L,Y02D

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: in a virtualized computing system in which a plurality of software sensors are deployed and in which there are one or more traffic flows, receiving captured network data from the plurality of sensors, the captured network data from a given sensor of the plurality of sensors including a sensor identity of the given sensor and flow identifiers indicating one or more traffic flows detected by the given sensor; analyzing the received captured network data to identify a first group of sensors, a second group of sensors, and a third group of sensors, wherein all traffic flows observed by the first group of sensors are also observed by the second group of sensors, but only a subset of traffic flows observed by the second group of sensors are also observed by the first group of sensors, and wherein all traffic flows observed by the second group of sensors are also observed by the third group of sensors, but only a subset of the traffic flows observed by the third group of sensors are also observed by the second group of sensors; and determining, for each respective sensor, a location of the respective sensor relative to one or more other sensors within the virtualized computing system based upon which group of sensors, among the first group of sensors, the second group of sensors, or the third group of sensors, the respective sensor belongs, wherein if the respective sensor belongs to the first group of sensors, determining that the respective sensor is within a virtual machine, wherein if the respective sensor belongs to the second group of sensors, determining that the respective sensor is within a hypervisor, and wherein if the respective sensor belongs to the third group of sensors, determining that the respective sensor is within a network device.