Patent ID: 8631115

Claim:
A method of conveying loss of connectivity between two points in a network, comprising: receiving, by a device attached to the network, network connectivity information pertaining to a network service, wherein the network connectivity information includes a plurality of metadata tags, each descriptive of a respective network connectivity attribute of the network service, wherein the plurality of metadata tags comprises: a first tap specifying a user-defined name of a virtual private network connection involved in the network service, a second tag specifying a type of the virtual private network connection, a third tag specifying an indication of a first physical location affected by an interruption in the network service, a fourth tag specifying an indication of a second physical location affected by the interruption in the network service, a fifth tag specifying routing information identifying a source router involved in the virtual private network connection, a sixth tag specifying routing information identifying a destination router involved in the virtual private network connection, and a seventh tag specifying VPN routing/forwarding instance (VRF) information for at least one of the source router and the destination router; writing, at the device, the received network connectivity information to a probe to monitor network traffic on the virtual private network connection involved in the network service; detecting, using the probe to which the network connectivity information was written, a change in connectivity on the virtual private network connection; in response to the detected change, populating, by the probe, a predefined data structure with the network connectivity information; and generating a notification, using the network connectivity information from the populated predefined data structure, that describes a business impact of the change in connectivity for the network service, by describing the name and type of the virtual private network connection experiencing a change in connectivity, and specifying at least the first physical location and the second physical location as affected by the change in connectivity.