Patent ID: 7633876
Filing Date: 2009-12-15
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for monitoring a network, the method comprising: periodically determining, at a computer system, at least one of a jitter value and a delay value of a network connection between a source switch and a destination switch of the network based on transmission characteristics of reflected artificial data packets from periodically injected artificial data packets; determining a packet delivery rate value for each network segment of a sequence of one or more network segments connecting the source switch and the destination switch, each network segment comprising two switches, wherein at least one of the two switches is connected to one of a switch of another network segment, the source switch, and the destination switch based on the transmission characteristics of the reflected artificial data packets; determining an overall packet delivery rate value based on the packet delivery rate values determined for each network segment of the sequence of one or more network segments; comparing at least one of the overall packet delivery rate value, the jitter value, and the delay value to one or more representative values to determine a performance of the network connection, wherein each of the one or more representative values is indicative of a minimum performance level associated with a particular service tier of a plurality, of service tiers; and based on the comparison, determining whether the network connection satisfies the minimum performance level associated with the particular service tier, wherein determining the overall packet delivery rate value comprises multiplying each of the packet delivery rate value for each network segment of the sequence of the one or more network segments.