Systems and methods for non-intrusive network performance monitoring

A method, comprising:

• receiving, by a first network device, packets as part of a traffic flow of an internet protocol (IP) session;
• selecting, by the first network device, a packet that is part of the traffic flow;
• generating, by the first network device, a packet replica of the packet that has been selected;
• adding, by the first network device and to the packet replica, routing information that is capable of being used to generate network performance indicators associated with the IP session;
• modifying, by the first network device, the packet replica, to create a modified packet that is different from the packet replica, to include, in addition to the routing information, one or more values that will cause the modified packet to fail to reach a destination device associated with the IP session;
• and
• providing, by the first network device and as part of the traffic flow of the IP session, the modified packet to one or more other network devices to cause a second network device, of the one or more other network devices, to remove the modified packet from the traffic flow of the IP session based on the modified packet including the one or more values that have been modified, and to perform one or more actions that cause the network performance indicators to be generated and provided to another device.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:

• one or more instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a network device, cause the one or more processors to:
• receive, from another network device, a modified packet as part of a traffic flow of an internet protocol (IP) session, wherein the modified packet has been generated by the other network device based on a packet replica of a packet selected from part of the traffic flow based on a rule;
• wherein routing information capable of being used to generate network performance indicators associated with the IP session has been added to the packet replica by the other network device;
• and
• wherein the modified packet has been generated, by the other network device, by modifying the packet replica to include, in addition to the routing information, one or more values that will cause the modified packet to fail to reach a destination device associated with the IP session;
• perform a validation procedure by processing the modified packet,
• wherein the modified packet is to fail the validation procedure based on the one or more values included in the modified packet;
• identify the routing information included in the modified packet based on the modified packet failing the validation procedure;
• generate the network performance indicators using the modified packet or a group of modified packets that have been modified and received over time;
• and
• provide the network performance indicators to a particular device.