Patent Document ID: 9929915
Application ID: 14813841
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: collecting state information from a plurality of network devices in a network, wherein the state information is collected by taking a snapshot of a topology of the plurality of network devices, wherein the state information includes forwarding states; parsing, by a plurality of network device-specific parsers, the state information to create parsed state information; generating a network model based on the parsed state information, wherein the network model is based at least in part on a series of forwarding tables which describe how data is processed by the network; and computing one or more flow paths based at least in part on symbolic packets pushed through the network model, wherein the symbolic packets include one or more wild card bits and identify a packet or class of packets as the packet or the class of packets travel through the network, wherein a modification to the packet or the class of packets along the one or more flow paths is computed by pushing the symbolic packets through the network model.