Patent ID: 8345561

Claim:
A method for measuring network latency, the method comprising: receiving, at a monitor node, a first signal message from a first node in a computer network, the first signal message including at least one of a first message ID of a data message and a first sender ID, and wherein the first signal message is received at the monitor node in response to the first node receiving the data message from a source other than the monitor node; determining, by the monitor node, a first time associated with the first signal message based on a clock at the monitor node; receiving, at the monitor node, a second signal message from a second node in the computer network different from the first node in response to the data message being received at the second node from the first node, the second signal message including at least one of a second message ID and a second sender ID, wherein the monitor node is separate from a transmission path of the data message; determining, by the monitor node, a second time associated with the second signal message based on the clock at the monitor node; determining, by the monitor node, whether the second node corresponds to an end of the transmission path for the data message based on the second sender ID included in the second signal message received from the second node; and determining, by the monitor node, a latency between the first and second nodes by calculating a difference between the determined first time and second time, wherein determining the latency is performed in response to determining that the second node corresponds to the end of the transmission path, and wherein if the monitor node determines that the second node is not the end node of the transmission path, the monitor node receives one or more additional signal messages and determines a time associated with each of the one or more additional messages based on the clock at the monitor node.