Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for discovering network topology

US5886643A · kind A · utility

94Cited by
7References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 17, 1996
Grant dateMar 23, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 17, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L41/12
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method of processing data from a plurality of probes which monitor traffic over a network, which includes a plurality of segments to which are connected a plurality of nodes, the method including the steps of polling the probes for monitoring data; receiving polled data from the plurality of probes; storing the polled data in a plurality of records, each of the records identifying at least a probe, a source node, a destination node, and a measure of traffic between the identified source node and destination node in that record; for a selected source-destination node pair, determining which of the plurality of probes produced a most complete report of traffic associated with that selected source-destination node pair; identifying those records among the plurality of records that designate both the probe which produced the most complete report of traffic and the selected source-destination node pair; and distinguishing within the plurality of records the identified records from the other records.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.