Patent ID: 8615682

Claim:
A network failure detecting system comprising: measurement agents that are placed on a network and measure qualities of services provided by provision servers or analyze measurement results, the measured qualities of services; and a surveillance server that specifies a failure location of the network based on analysis results by a measurement agent, wherein a measurement agent includes a processor, the processor executing a first process comprising: forming a link, by configuring a group together with other measurement agents that receive a service from a same provision server and creating a tree structure with a predetermined measurement agent in the group at a top, and calculating a group identifier based on an identifier of the provision server; measuring the qualities of services and transmitting the measured qualities of services as measurement results to one of the other measurement agents included in the group; first receiving measurement results from a measurement agent included in the group; detecting a candidate of the failure location based on the measurement results received at the first receiving; second receiving a candidate of the failure location from a measurement agent included in the group, the candidate being detected therein; narrowing down the detected candidate and the candidate received at the second receiving to a candidate of the failure location; and first transmitting the detected candidate of the failure location or the narrowed down candidate of the failure location to either the surveillance server or one of the other measurement agents, wherein the processor executes either the measuring or the first transmitting according to a position in the tree structure of a group indicated by the group identifier, and the surveillance server includes a processor, the processor executing a second process comprising: third receiving the candidate of the failure location transmitted at the first transmitting; and specifying the failure location based on the candidate of the failure location received at the third receiving.