Network monitoring system and method including software agents

Abstract

Network monitoring system (100) comprising: a communication network (NT) comprising a plurality of nodes (N1-NN) and a plurality of node connections (E1-EP); wherein each node comprises an asset (AS1-ASF) configured to receive/transmit packets; a plurality of software agents (AG1-AGN) each installed in at least part of said plurality of nodes; each software agent being configured to redirect packets from a respective asset; at least one monitoring computer (CS) provided with software resources configured to: receive the packets sent by each software agent (AG1-AGN); extract from said packets source addresses and destination addresses; identify the plurality of nodes (N1-NN) and the plurality of node connections (E1-EP) from said source and destination addresses and associate each node to a corresponding node identifier; constructing an abstract model (200) representing said communication network (NT), wherein each node is represented by the corresponding node identifier and each node connection is represented by a corresponding link between respective nodes.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.