Patent ID: 7908130

Claim:
A method of modelling network traffic behaviour comprising: (a) transmitting network traffic that simulates an aggregate of transport layer flows or sessions rather than simulating individual transport layer flows or sessions through a communications network at a transmission rate, said network traffic including packets of data, each packet comprising a header and a payload, said transmitting of said packet depending on said header of that packet and not on said payload of that packet; (b) receiving at a traffic receiver the network traffic from the communications network; (c) deriving feedback data from the payload of the network traffic data packets received by the traffic receiver; (d ) transmitting the feedback data to a computer processor; (e) generating, using the feedback data, instructions for altering the network traffic transmission rate; and (f) transmitting network traffic through the network at the altered transmission rate according to the instructions, wherein the feedback data includes packet loss information regarding the network traffic and wherein generating instructions for altering the network traffic transmission rate includes generating instructions for altering the transmission rate based on a rate of packet loss.