Patent Document ID: 9847922
Application ID: 14662055
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A network element comprising: a first port to receive production network data, wherein production network data is data that is used for purposes other than testing the performance of a network; a second port to transmit the production network data; a data plane coupled to the first port and the second port, the data plane to forward the production network data to the second port, wherein the data plane couples to a timing module to generate ingress timing data for the network data received at the first port and generate egress timing data for the network data transmitted via the second port, the data plane to further add a marker to the production network data that indicates to another network element to collect timing information about the production network data, and the data plane transmits the marked production network data out the second port; and a control plane coupled to the data plane to receive the ingress timing data and the egress timing data from the data plane and to compute a network element latency for the production network data.