Patent ID: 8144602

Claim:
A method for testing a network with a network load tester that is coupled to at least one analyzer which is further coupled to a switch, the method comprising: receiving, at a first N_Port, a plurality of frames from the switch, at least a portion of the frames belonging to a first stream object characterized by a unique identifier, each frame characterized by a unique sequence count; analyzing the received frames in real-time to identify the occurrence of one or more errors; recording the occurrence of the one or more errors according to error type, the error types including out-of-order frame errors, dropped frame errors, and misdirected frame errors; and upon identifying the occurrence of an error, triggering the at least one analyzer to capture data to assist in debugging a problem in the network associated with the error, wherein the switch implements a load-balancing hash algorithm to route frames through the network based on the unique identifier and wherein characterization of each traffic stream object with the unique identifier is sufficient to cause the frames of each traffic stream to be routed along the same physical path of the network and experience similar latencies when the load-balancing hash algorithm is implemented properly.