Patent ID: 8576731

Claim:
A method for a network diagnostic component that is placed in-line between first and second nodes in a network to compress network traffic, the method comprising: an act of receiving a network data stream for communication between the first and second nodes, wherein the network data stream comprises: a first primitive data unit that does not include destination information, at least one or more random data units that each represent an instance of a first primitive data unit, wherein the random data units are not individually identifiable, and a sequence breaking primitive that indicates an end of the at least one or more random data units; an act of associating at least one of the random data units with an identifier that specifies the first primitive data unit, wherein the identifier for the first primitive data unit is specific to that primitive data unit and is different from identifiers for other primitive data units; an act of recording the identifier in a memory; and an act of recording in the memory a representation indicative of a first count of a total number of the at least one or more random data units, wherein the first count is the number of random data units that occur after the first primitive data unit and before the sequence breaking primitive in the network data stream.