Identifying causes of service level agreement and performance violations

A system comprising:

• network devices forming a transport network for carrying packets through a virtual channel, wherein one of the network devices includes an ingress interface to receive the packets from end-point equipment coupled to the transport network, and wherein one of the network devices includes an internal interface to receive the packets from another one of the network devices forming part of the transport network;
• a transmitter to inject packets into the virtual channel to measure a performance of the virtual channel;
• a receiver to receive the injected packets from the virtual channel to measure the performance of the virtual channel;
• and
• a processor to:
• measure the performance of the virtual channel, a performance of the ingress interface, and a performance of the internal interface;
• determine whether the performance of the virtual channel meets a first criterion, whether the performance of the ingress interface meets a second criterion, and whether the performance of the internal interface meets a third criterion;
• and
• identify instances where the performance of the virtual channel has been determined not to meet the first performance criterion, and the performance of the internal interface has been determined not to meet the third criterion as performance violations caused by the transport network.

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• transporting packets through a transport network via a virtual channel, wherein the packets originate from end-point equipment not forming part of the transport network;
• measuring a performance of an ingress interface to the transport network receiving the packets during a plurality of time periods;
• measuring a performance of an internal interface to the transport network carrying the packets internal to the transport network during the plurality of time periods;
• determining whether the performance of the ingress interface meets a first performance criterion during the plurality of time periods;
• determining whether the performance of the internal interface meets a second performance criterion during the plurality of time periods;
• identifying one or more of the plurality of time periods in which the performance of the ingress interface has been determined not to meet the first performance criterion as time periods in which a virtual channel performance violation is caused by the end-point equipment;
• and
• identifying one or more of the plurality of time periods in which the internal interface has been determined not to meet the second performance criterion as time periods in which a virtual channel performance violation is caused by the transport network.