Patent ID: 7660290

Claim:
An apparatus for visualizing traffic in a network to be managed, comprising: a traffic acquiring unit that acquires traffic information regarding a traffic specified in accordance with an instruction from a user, the traffic passing through a series of one or more routers inside the network and the traffic information being collected from one or more border routers located at a border of the network; a path acquiring unit that acquires path information regarding a path from a start router, through which the traffic passes into the network, to an end router, through which the traffic passes out of the network, based on information regarding internal paths in the network, the path information identifying said series of one or more routers on the path; a controlling unit that controls at least one of specification of the traffic and determination of the end router based on information regarding external paths of the network; and an informing unit that gives information to the user based on the traffic information acquired by the traffic acquiring unit and the path information acquired by the path acquiring unit, the information associating the specified traffic with the path through which the specified traffic passes from the start router to the end router.