Automatic establishment of network performance monitoring communities using routing protocols

A network device comprising:

• a processor;
• a first data structure to store routing information that describes a topology of a network;
• a second data structure to store performance community information that identifies one or more network devices that are capable of responding to performance probes used to monitor the network;
• and
• a routing communication manager executing on the processor wherein the routing communication manager receives a routing communication that identifies at least one route within a network and a routing protocol community value that indicates that a network device that sent the routing communication is capable of responding to performance probes used to monitor the network, updates the routing information of the first data structure to include the route identified in the routing communication and updates the performance community information of the second data structure to include the network device that sent the routing communication as one of the network devices capable of responding to performance probes,
• wherein the routing protocol comprises one of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Intermediate System—Intermediate System (ISIS), and Routing Information Protocol (RIP).

A network device comprising:

• a processor;
• a routing communication manager executing on the processor that receives routing communications in accordance with a routing protocol, wherein at least a portion of the routing communications include identifiers associated with the network devices that sent the routing communications and routing protocol community values that indicate that the network devices are capable of responding to performance probes used to monitor performance of a network, wherein the routing communication manager updates performance community information to establish a performance community that includes the network devices that sent the routing communications, and wherein the routing protocol comprises one of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Intermediate System—Intermediate System (ISIS), and Routing Information Protocol (RIP);
• and
• a performance monitoring service card that manages performance sessions with the network devices associated with the identifiers by sending performance probes to the network devices to collect network performance statistics.

A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that cause a processor to:

• receive a routing communication in accordance with a routing protocol, wherein the routing communication includes a routing protocol community value associated with a network device that sent the routing communication and an indicator that indicates the network device that sent the routing communication is capable of responding to performance probes used to monitor performance of a network, wherein the routing protocol comprises one of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Intermediate System—Intermediate System (ISIS), and Routing Information Protocol (RIP);
• in response to the routing communication, incorporate the network device that sent the routing communication into a performance community of distributed network devices that are capable of responding to performance probes used to monitor performance of the network;
• and
• send a performance probe to the network device identified by the identifier to collect network performance statistics.