Patent ID: 7761562

Claim:
A method for determining path latency between at least two endpoints in a data network, the data network including a first endpoint adapted to communicate with a second endpoint using a multi-homed transport protocol, the method comprising: transmitting, at a first time T 1 , a first heartbeat message from a first source address associated with the first endpoint to a first destination address associated with the second endpoint; the first heartbeat message including a flag field, and being associated with a first sequence number, the flag field indicating that a plurality of heartbeat-ACK messages should be sent (1) from the first destination address to a plurality of addresses associated with the first source address or (2) from a plurality of addresses associated with the first destination address to the first source address; receiving the plurality of heartbeat-ACK messages in response to said first heartbeat message; and using information from said plurality of heartbeat-ACK messages to determine path latency values associated with selected paths between the first and second endpoints.