Passive monitoring and measurement of network round trip time delay

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10218596-B2
Application number	US-201715430255-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 10, 2017
Priority date	Feb 10, 2017
Publication date	Feb 26, 2019
Grant date	Feb 26, 2019

Abstract

A method is described and in one embodiment includes receiving at a first network element of a communications network a first packet corresponding to a first traffic flow from a first end user device to a second end user device at a time T1; receiving at the first network element a second packet corresponding to a second traffic flow from the second end user device to the first end user device at a time T2; calculating by the first network element a difference α1 between the time T1 and the time T2; creating at the first network element a first record including the calculated difference Δ1; and providing the first record to a network collector device, wherein the network collector device compares the first record with a second record received from a second network element to determine a Round Trip Time (“RTT”) delay for the communications network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
at a first network element of a communications network:
receiving a first packet corresponding to a first traffic flow from a first end user device to a second end user device at a time T 1 ;
receiving a second packet corresponding to a second traffic flow from the second end user device to the first end user device at a time T 2 ;
calculating by the first network element a difference Δ1 between the time T 1 and the time T 2 ;
creating a first record including the calculated difference Δ1; and
providing the first record to a network collector device,

at a second network element of the communications network different from the first network element:
receiving the first packet at a time T 3 ;
receiving the second packet at a time T 4 ;
calculating by the second network element a difference Δ2 between the time T 3 and the time T 4 ;
creating a second record including the calculated difference Δ2; and
providing the second record to the network collector device,

wherein the network collector device compares the first record with the second record to determine a round trip time delay for the communications network, wherein the round trip time delay is utilized to improve network performance of the communications network.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first record includes information identifying the first and second packets.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first record includes a sequence number for each of the first and second packets.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first record includes a flow tuple for each of the first and second flows.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network collector device correlates the first and second records using at least one of a flow tuple or a sequence number included in the first and second records.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second network elements comprise Wide Area Network border routers.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network collector device comprises a server.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network collector device comprises one of the first network element or the second network element.

9. One or more non-transitory tangible media that includes code for execution and when executed by a first processor of a first network element of a communications network configures the first processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving a first packet corresponding to a first traffic flow from a first end user device to a second end user device at a time T 1 ;
receiving a second packet corresponding to a second traffic flow from the second end user device to the first end user device at a time T 2 ;
calculating by the first network element a difference Δ1 between the time T 1 and the time T 2 ;
creating a first record including the calculated difference Δ1; and
providing the first record to a network collector device,
wherein the code when executed by a second processor of a second network element of the communications network different from the first network element configures the second processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving the first packet at a time T 3 ;
receiving the second packet at a time T 4 ;
calculating by the second network element a difference Δ2 between the time T 3 and the time T 4 ;
creating a second record including the calculated difference Δ2; and
providing the second record to the network collector device, and
wherein the code causes the network collector device to compare the first record with the second record to determine a round trip time delay for the communications network, wherein the round trip time delay is utilized to improve network performance of the communications network.

10. The media of claim 9 , wherein the first record includes information identifying the first and second packets.

11. The media of claim 9 , wherein the first record includes a sequence number for each of the first and second packets.

12. The media of claim 9 , wherein the first record includes a flow tuple for each of the first and second flows.

13. The media of claim 9 , wherein the network collector device correlates the first and second records using at least one of a flow tuple or a sequence number included in the first and second records.

14. The media of claim 9 , wherein the network collector device comprises at least one of a server, the first network element, or the second network element.

15. A system comprising a first network element and a second network element of a communications network, each of the first network element and the second network element including:
a memory element configured to store data; and
a processor operable to execute instructions associated with the data;
the processor of the first network element configured for:
receiving a first packet corresponding to a first traffic flow from a first end user device to a second end user device at a time T 1 ;
receiving a second packet corresponding to a second traffic flow from the second end user device to the first end user device at a time T 2 ;
calculating a difference Δ1 between the time T 1 and the time T 2 ;
creating a first record including the calculated difference 1; and
providing the first record to a network collector device,

the processor of the second network element configured for:
receiving the first packet at a time T 3 ;
receiving the second packet at a time T 4 ;
calculating by the second network element a difference Δ2 between the time T 3 and the time T 4 ;
creating a second record including the calculated difference Δ2; and
providing the second record to the network collector device,

wherein the network collector device compares the first record with the second record to determine a round trip time delay for the communications network, wherein the round trip time delay is utilized to improve network performance of the communications network.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the network collector device correlates the first and second records using at least one of a flow tuple or a sequence number included in the first and second records.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the first and second network elements comprise Wide Area Network (“WAN”) border routers.

18. The system of claim 15 , wherein the network collector device comprises at least one of a server, the first network element, or the second network element.

19. The system of claim 15 , wherein the first record includes information identifying the first and second packets.

20. The system of claim 15 , wherein the first record includes a sequence number for each of the first and second packets.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Ben-Dvora Nir
• Katzri Lior

Classifications

• H04L43/0864 Primary

  Round trip delays · CPC title

• H04L43/087

  Jitter · CPC title

• H04L43/062

  related to network traffic · CPC title