Patent Document ID: 7606165
Application ID: 10880960
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer readable storage media encoded with computer executable instructions, executed by a processor to perform operations comprising: selecting one or more of a plurality of fault types for inclusion in a fault set; providing the fault set and network settings obtained from a real network as inputs to a first iterative network simulation, wherein the network setting include data that is selected from the group consisting of: network topology; traffic statistics; physical medium; network operation; target end-to-end demands of one or more nodes of the real network; and at least one routing protocol that is utilized in the real network; acquiring an estimation of network performance from the first iterative network simulation; determining a difference between the estimation of network performance and an actual observation of network performance of the real network; determining whether the difference between the estimation of network performance and the actual observation of network performance of the real network is greater than a corresponding threshold during an initial fault diagnosis; in an event the difference between the estimation of network performance and the actual observation of network performance of the real network is not greater than the corresponding threshold: reporting to a manager module, the fault set indicating that the real network is operating normally; in an event the difference between the estimation of network performance and the actual observation of network performance of the real network is greater than the corresponding threshold: determining, for an individual one of the plurality of fault types, a differential between the estimation of network performance and the actual observation of network performance of the real network; translating the differential of the individual fault type into a fault magnitude by utilizing a function to map the impact of the individual fault type into the fault magnitude; updating the fault magnitude; determining whether the fault magnitude explains an observed discrepancy between an expected network performance and the actual observation of network performance of the real network; removing the individual fault type when the fault magnitude is below a predetermined threshold; determining whether expected performance of the network approximates real performance of the network; in an event the expected performance of the network approximates real performance of the network: reporting to the manager module, the fault set indicating that the expected performance of the network using the fault set is converging with real performance of the network; and in an event the expected performance of the network does not approximate real performance of the network: adding a new fault candidate to the fault set to be input to a second iterative network simulation; wherein, the second iterative network simulation utilizes the new fault candidate added to the fault set to determine whether the expected performance of the network is converging with the real performance of the network.