Patent ID: 7421510

Claim:
A method for determining which of a plurality of links of a computer network are lossy, the network comprising a plurality of clients that communicate with a server over one or more of the plurality of links, the method comprising: establishing a system of equations that describes the relationship between the packet loss rates at the links and the packet loss rates at the clients; setting up constraints on the possible solutions to the system of equations; linearizing the constraints; deriving an objective function that represents both an aggregation of the packet loss rates for the plurality of links and an aggregate slack in the constraints, wherein the objective function comprises Σ i L i +Σ j |S J |, wherein L i =log(1/(1−l i )) and l i is the loss rate of link i of the plurality of links and wherein S j is a slack variable representing the extent to which the constraint can be violated; calculating loss rates that solve the system of equations and give a minimum possible value for the function; and storing the calculated loss rates in a memory.