Patent ID: 7844696

Claim:
A method for monitoring control signal traffic over a computer network comprising a plurality of routers by a monitoring computer system, the method comprising acts of: maintaining, by the monitoring computer, at least one peering session with at least one of the plurality of routers, wherein the act of maintaining includes an act of sending messages by the monitoring computer system to the at least one of the plurality of routers; configuring the at least one of the plurality of routers to direct control signals relating to control of a routing protocol via the at least one peering session maintained to the monitoring computer system, wherein the monitoring computer system is separate from a router network including the plurality of routers; receiving, by the computer system from the at least one of the plurality of routers via the at least one peering session, at least one control signal communicated to one or more other routers; storing the at least one control signal in a database of monitoring the computer system; identifying, by the monitoring computer system based on the at least one control signal, at least one change to a network topology; generating an alert message identifying the at least one change to the network topology; sending the alert message to a computer system of a network administrator; determining, by the computer system of the network administrator based on the alert message received, an anomaly in the computer network; and displaying, to the network administrator in a display of the computer system of the network administrator, an indication of the anomaly in the computer network.