Patent ID: 6807156
Filing Date: 2004-10-19
Classification: H04L,Y02D

Abstract:
A method of monitoring quality of service (QoS) for an identified subscriber in a packet data network, the method comprising the steps of:installing a monitor in the network, the monitor being in communication with inbound and outbound packets; selecting a subset of all subscribers in the network to be currently monitored, said subset being representative of the identified subscriber; accepting a plurality of data packets, at the monitor, each of said data packets having a header that identifies source and destination subscriber addresses, identifies a communication protocol, and identifies and application; preprocessing the accepted packets to identify packets from the subset of currently monitored subscribers, strip off header information from the identified packets, and store the header information in a shared memory; utilizing a hashing function to create a microflow record that includes QoS statistics for a plurality of data packet streams, each stream of data packets being associated with a different application being utilized by subscribers in the network; creating a userflow record that includes aggregate QoS statistics for all applications being utilized by the identified subscriber; providing the preprocessed header information from each identified data packet to an application-dependent statistical calculation function corresponding to the application identified in each header; calculating QoS statistics for the identified application utilizing the corresponding application-dependent statistical calculation function; updating the QoS statistics in the microflow record for the identified application; and updating the aggregate QoS statistics in the userflow record for the identified subscriber.