Patent ID: 8238254

Claim:
A method comprising: determining one or more changes in one or more test packets sent between a plurality of source nodes and destination nodes, wherein each source node is a destination node, wherein each test packet comprises an additional field subject to modification as the one or more test packets traverses one or more network nodes; determining if the additional field in the one or more test packets has have been changed by one or more network nodes; and generating a display matrix that identifies the one or more changes by the one or more network nodes, wherein the display matrix includes column and rows forming two axes, wherein the source nodes are provided along a first axis of the display matrix and the destination nodes are provided along a second axis, wherein a plurality of elements form the matrix, wherein each element is located at an intersection between a source node on the first axis and a destination node on the second axis and represents a communication path between the source node and the destination node, and wherein a failure in a network node is represented in an element.