A method for monitoring packets in a communication network, said method comprising:
- a) at an ingress point of said communication network, classifying at least one packet of a traffic received at the ingress point for determining whether packets of said traffic are to be monitored and, in the affirmative, associating them with a service of monitoring;
- b) creating, by said ingress point, a selection policy to identify a packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring, the selection policy being based on a classification policy used to classify the at least one packet in step a);
- c) sending, by said ingress point, said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring to a monitoring center;
- d) marking, by said ingress point, the packets of said packet flow to be monitored, said marking including setting a feature of each packet of the packet flow to be monitored to a given value suitable for distinguishing each packet of said packet flow to be monitored from unmarked packets of another packet flow that is not to be monitored and said marking including setting one or more bits of a given field of a header of each packet of said packet flow to be monitored to a predetermined value;
- e) checking, at one or more measuring point within the communication network, whether a received packet matches an already installed selection policy to identify a packet flow of packets to be monitored that is already installed at said one or more measuring point
- f) when the received packet fails to match the already installed selection policy to identify the packet flow of packets to be monitored that is already installed at said one or more measuring point, checking, by the one or more measuring point, whether said received packet is marked by having the given value suitable for distinguishing the received packet from the unmarked packets of the other packet flow that is not to be monitored in its header;
- g) when said received packet is marked by having the given value suitable for distinguishing the received packet from the unmarked packets of the other packet flow that is not to be monitored in its header, sending, by the one or more measuring point, a request to the monitoring center based upon attributes of the received packet to check whether said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring created by the ingress point exists;
- h receiving, by the one or more measuring point, said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring that was created by the ingress point
- i) installing, by the one or more measuring point, said selection policy to identify the packet flow of said packets to be monitored according to the service of monitoring that was created by the ingress point;
- j) at each of said one or more measuring point identifying said packet flow on the basis of said installed selection policy created by the ingress point;
- and
- k) at each of said one or more measuring point applying monitoring actions associated with said service of monitoring to said identified packet flow.