Method, computer program product, and apparatus for collecting service level agreement statistics in a communication network
AssigneeMCI WorldCom, Inc.
InventorsJedrick J. Weldon, Joshua Osborne
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A probing router is used at a source site of a virtual private network. In-band probing operations are performed by components within the probing router, using processing resources available from a router engine portion of the probing router. In this way, changes in the network and service level agreement statistic collection processes may be quickly and easily accommodated within the probing router. Furthermore, the probing router communicates the probe message through an in-band communication channel so as to provide a direct measurement of service level data for the channel used for communicating information between the source site and a destination site.
Claims23
A probing router comprising:
- a bus;
- a routing engine coupled to the bus and configured to forward packets to a communications network;
- a communication network port coupled to the bus and configured to connect to a communication network and transmit a probe message and the packets therethrough;
- and
- a probe mechanism configured to generate and send the probe message through said communication network port to the communication network at a time T1, said probe mechanism sending the probe message over an in-band communication channel.
A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for sending a probe message, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:
- (a) preparing a probe message;
- and
- (b) sending said probe message over an in-band communication channel.
A communication system for gathering traffic statistics, comprising:
- a probing router configured to prepare performance statistics information;
- a probe poller processor configured to receive performance statistics information collected by a probing router that sends a probe message through an in-band channel;
- and
- a reporting mechanism coupled to said probe poller processor and configured to present a compilation of said performance statistics information for comparison against performance thresholds of a service level agreement.
A probing router comprising:
- means for routing data packets within a virtual private network;
- means for preparing and sending a probe message through an in-band channel of the virtual private network;
- and
- an enclosure that houses said means for routing and said means for preparing and sending.
A method for collecting network performance statistics, comprising the steps of:
- (a) preparing a probe message with a probing router;
- (b) sending said probe message over an in-band communication channel;
- and
- (c) measuring a propagation time for said probe message to reach a predetermined location.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.