Method and apparatus for providing measurement, and utilization of, network latency in transaction-based protocols

A subscription-based remote monitoring service comprising:

• initiating a monitoring subscription over the Internet, including obtaining at least one network address to be monitored;
• remotely monitoring, over said network, transactions involving said network address;
• and
• deriving network latency and device latency in response to said monitoring.

A remote network monitor comprising:

• a receiver coupled to a network, said receiver receiving requests and responses from at least one node located remotely from said receiver on the network;
• a protocol analyzer coupled to said receiver, said protocol analyzer isolating features of received requests and responses and logging times associated with each;
• and
• a latency calculator that calculates, in response to said logging, latency associated with said network and latency associated with said node.

A method of determining communications protocol latency including:

• monitoring HTTP traffic flowing between a web server and a web client;
• and
• using the web server's initial HTTP reply packet as the logical dividing line for the web client to web server HTTP packet exchange,
• wherein said logical dividing line is used to distinguish initial web server reply time from network transport time.

A method of calculating communication latency by monitoring a communications protocol over a network comprising:

• monitoring protocol traffic between a client and a server over the network;
• continually calculating network retransmission time;
• and
• taking said calculated network retransmission time into account when computing web server processing time and TCP connect time and the number of packets lost.