System and methods for identifying network path performance

A data communications device having a diagnostic processor for analyzing network routing paths comprising:

• an attribute sniffer operable to gather network routing information indicative of performance characteristics between network nodes;
• a characteristic aggregator operable to aggregate the identified routing information according to at least one performance characteristic;
• and
• a path scheduler operable to apply the aggregated routing information to routing decisions for network paths between the network nodes by identifying the network paths corresponding to favorable performance characteristics, the network paths defined by a plurality of the network nodes.

A computer program product having a computer readable medium operable to store computer program logic embodied in computer program code encoded thereon for identifying network routing paths comprising:

• computer program code for gathering network routing information indicative of performance characteristics between network nodes;
• computer program code for identifying particular paths operable to transport significant message traffic;
• computer program code for examining, on the identified particular paths, messages having the attributes indicative of performance characteristics;
• computer program code for scanning the examined messages to retrieve the attributes;
• computer program code for aggregating the identified routing information according to at least one performance characteristic;
• and
• computer program code for applying the aggregated routing information to routing decisions for the identified particular paths between the network nodes by identifying the network paths corresponding to favorable performance characteristics, the network paths defined by a plurality of the network nodes.

A data communications device having a diagnostic processor for analyzing network routing paths comprising:

• means for gathering network routing information indicative of performance characteristics between network nodes;
• means for aggregating the identified routing information according to at least one performance characteristic;
• means for computing, from the gathered routing information, for each of the candidate paths, an aggregate performance indicative of message traffic performance between the source and destination for each of the candidate paths;
• means for denoting a particular candidate path as an optimal path based on the computed aggregate performance;
• and
• means for applying the aggregated routing information to routing decisions for network paths between the network nodes by identifying the network paths corresponding to favorable performance characteristics, the network paths defined by a plurality of the network nodes.