Patent ID: 7336613
Filing Date: 2008-02-26
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of optimizing traffic in an internetwork, the method comprising: selecting a subset of flows in the internetwork for monitoring, wherein the subset of flows includes one of one flow, some flows, and all flows; measuring performance characteristics of the subset of flows in at least a portion of the internetwork, the performance characteristics including one or more of: a plurality of one or more round trip measurements for each of the subset of flows and a plurality of one or more one-way measurements for each of the subset of flows, the measuring performance characteristics including: launching a first plurality of one or more packets, and measuring the first plurality of one or more packets; measuring a second plurality of one or more packets in the internetwork, wherein the second plurality of one or more packets were already launched; monitoring a first plurality of one or more flows in the internetwork, duplicating one or more packets from the plurality of one or more flows, and measuring the one or more duplicated packets; serving as a proxy hop for a second plurality of one or more flows, and measuring the second plurality of one or more flows; and encoding material within a third plurality of one or more flows, causing a fourth plurality of one or more flows to be generated, wherein the third plurality of one or more flows traverses a first path of the internetwork, and the fourth plurality of one or more flows traverses a second path of the internetwork, wherein at least a portion of the first path of the internetwork and at least a portion of the second path of the internetwork are equal, and measuring a subset of the fourth plurality of one or more flows; calculating at least one performance metric for the subset of flows in the at least a portion of the internetwork, the at least one performance metric at least partly determined from the measured performance characteristics; and in response to calculating the at least one performance metric, rearchitecting the internetwork to optimize one or more of the least one performance metric using peer-to-peer communications, rearchitecting the internetwork including at least one of: altering a plurality of one or more routing tables in the internetwork, wherein the plurality of one or more routing tables include at least one of: network-layer routing tables, layer affecting forwarding decisions of the subset of flows, by imposing one or more of: NAT, GRE, and tunneling techniques other than GRE.