Patent ID: 7808915

Claim:
A method for identifying problems in a network environment by a network analyzer operatively connected to a network, the method comprising the steps of: a. determining, by said network analyzer, during more than one interval, the level of one or more impairments, wherein determining the level of said one or more impairments includes: i. applying a local timestamp to a packet corresponding to the actual arrival time of said packet; ii. extracting a sending timestamp from said packet; iii. extracting a sending sequence number from said packet; iv. estimating an expected arrival time for said packet; and v. subtracting the actual arrival time of said packet from the expected arrival time of said packet; b. grouping, by said network analyzer, said levels of one or more impairments into one or more event groups; c. comparing, by said network analyzer, said one or more event groups with a plurality of problem signatures; and d. categorizing, by said network analyzer, at least one of said one or more event groups as being associated with a network problem having one of said plurality of problem signatures; wherein said plurality of problem signatures includes: a. a high value of short term delay variation without an increase in delay; b. an increase in delay accompanied by an increase in short term delay variation followed by a decrease in delay; or c. an increase or decrease in delay accompanied by a substantially constant level of short term delay variation; wherein said one or more impairments is selected from the group consisting of delay, packet loss, jitter, distortion, absolute packet delay variation, relative packet to packet delay variation, short term delay variation, short term average delay, timing drift, and proportion of out-of-sequence packets; and wherein said network problem is selected from the group consisting of local area network congestion, access link congestion, route change, access link failure, route flapping, and route diversity.