Proactive bypass selection based on root cause analysis of traceroutes

An apparatus, comprising:

• one or more network interfaces;
• a processor coupled to the one or more network interfaces and configured to execute one or more processes;
• and
• a memory configured to store a process that is executable by the processor, the process when executed configured to:
• identify, based on traceroute information for a path in a network between an endpoint client and an online application, a particular segment of the path as most likely to cause degraded performance along the path, the particular segment being an oriented hop pair of the path inferred from the traceroute information;
• make, using a prediction model, a prediction that routing traffic for the online application via the path will result in degraded quality of experience for the online application;
• obtain, based on the prediction and prior to causing traffic for the online application to be routed along a bypass path, additional traceroute information for one or more candidate paths in the network, to identify, from among the one or more candidate paths, the bypass path between the endpoint client and the online application whose traceroute information does not include the particular segment;
• and
• cause traffic for the online application to be routed along the bypass path.

A tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing program instructions that cause a device to execute a process comprising:

• identifying, by a device and based on traceroute information for a path in a network between an endpoint client and an online application, a particular segment of the path as most likely to cause degraded performance along the path, the particular segment being an oriented hop pair of the path inferred from the traceroute information;
• making, by the device and using a prediction model, a prediction that routing traffic for the online application via the path will result in degraded quality of experience for the online application;
• obtaining, by the device and based on the prediction, and prior to causing traffic for the online application to be routed along a bypass path, additional traceroute information for one or more candidate paths in the network, to identify, from among the one or more candidate paths, the bypass path between the endpoint client and the online application whose traceroute information does not include the particular segment;
• and
• causing, by the device, traffic for the online application to be routed along the bypass path.