Patent ID: 6061331
Filing Date: 2000-05-09
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A method for estimating source-destination traffic for a packet-switched communications network, wherein the network includes a plurality of nodes, including a plurality of source nodes and a plurality of destination nodes, the nodes interconnected by a plurality of links, and wherein the network includes a plurality of traffic routes, each route originating at a source node and terminating at a destination node and including at least one link, the method comprising the steps of:providing a source traffic rate measurement for traffic coming into the network at each source node during each of a plurality of time periods and a link traffic rate measurement for traffic on each of the plurality of links belonging to routes originating at the source nodes during each time period;determining, for each of the plurality of links belonging to routes originating at the source nodes, an estimate of a proportion of the link traffic rate corresponding to traffic originating from the source nodes over the plurality of time periods based on the link traffic rate measurement and the source traffic rate measurement during each time period;determining an estimate of a traffic rate proportion for traffic originating from each source node corresponding to traffic terminating at each destination node over the plurality of time periods based on the proportion of the link traffic rate corresponding to traffic originating from the source nodes for each of the plurality of links belonging to routes originating from the source nodes; andcomputing a rate of traffic from each source node to each destination node based on the source traffic rate measurement during each of the plurality of time periods and the traffic rate proportion for traffic originating from each source node corresponding to traffic terminating at each destination node over the plurality of time periods.