Apparatus and method for realtime monitoring of network sessions in a local area network
AssigneeDigital Equipment Corporation
InventorsDah-Ming Chiu, Ram Sudama
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method is used for collecting information at the session level for a multiple node distributed processing system. A first component software program monitors all packets passing through a node and extracts packet headers having a predetermined format from all nodes. A second component software program identifies a session in which each of the extracted packet headers was transmitted and, for each session, accumulates characterizing information about that session and calculates statistical data concerning all the sessions.
Claims17
A method for collecting information from a multiple node distributed processing system containing a plurality of user nodes and supporting information exchange among the nodes, the information exchange including a plurality of types of sessions having overlapping times of transmission and each consisting of transmissions of a plurality of session level packets between at least two of the nodes, wherein some of the session level packets have a predetermined format, including a packet header, the transmitted plurality of session level packets passing through selected ones of the nodes of the distributed data processing system, including a plurality of types of information characterizing the session and a session identifier identifying the specific one of the sessions in which the packet is being transmitted, the method comprising the steps performed by a predetermined one of the nodes of:
- monitoring the session level packets passing through said predetermined node;
- extracting a packet header from each of said monitored session level packets having said predetermined format;
- identifying the session in which each of said extracted packet headers was transmitted;
- accumulating by session identifier the characterizing information contained in the extracted header;
- and
- calculating session-specific statistical data for the sessions involving transmission of packets of said predetermined format.
An apparatus for collecting information from a multiple node distributed processing system containing a plurality of user nodes and supporting information exchange among the nodes, the information exchange including a plurality of types of sessions having overlapping times of transmission and each consisting of transmissions of a plurality of session level packets between at least two of the nodes, wherein some of the session level packets have a predetermined format, including a packet header, the transmitted plurality of session level packets passing through selected ones of the nodes of the distributed data processing system, including a plurality of types of information characterizing the session and a session identifier identifying the specific one of the sessions in which the packet is being transmitted, the apparatus comprising:
- means for monitoring the session level packets passing through said predetermined node;
- means for extracting a packet header from each of said monitored session level packets having said predetermined format;
- means for identifying the session in which each of said extracted packet headers was transmitted;
- means for accumulating by session identifier the characterizing information contained in the extracted header;
- and
- means for calculating session-specific statistical data for the sessions involving transmission of packets of said predetermined format.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.