METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR NETWORK PACKET CAPTURE DISTRIBUTED STORAGE SYSTEM
First Claim
1. A method of capturing data packets comprising of:
- connecting a capture device to a data communications path;
capturing data packets communicated along the data communications path;
persistently storing the captured data packets in a predetermined combination of volatile and non-volatile storage media;
aggregating the persistently stored data packets into a slot of predetermined size;
annotating the aggregated data packets with persistent storage information;
storing the annotated data packets using an infinitely journaled, write-once, hierarchical file system;
reconstructing any corrupted data to ensure data accuracy of the persistently stored data;
retrieving a predetermined portion of captured data and persistently stored annotations from the slot;
creating the slot of predetermined size to have a buffer of a predetermined size; and
managing the slot based on a least recently used cache to map the data in the slot to a non-volatile storage thereby creating a cache image of the captured date.
7 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
This is invention comprises a method and apparatus for Infinite Network Packet Capture System (INPCS). The INPCS is a high performance data capture recorder capable of capturing and archiving all network traffic present on a single network or multiple networks. This device can be attached to Ethernet networks via copper or SX fiber via either a SPAN port (101) router configuration or via an optical splitter (102). By this method, multiple sources or network traffic including gigabit Ethernet switches (102) may provide parallelized data feeds to the capture appliance (104), effectively increasing collective data capture capacity. Multiple captured streams are merged into a consolidated time indexed capture stream to support asymmetrically routed network traffic as well as other merged streams for external consumption.
-
Citations
5 Claims
-
1. A method of capturing data packets comprising of:
-
connecting a capture device to a data communications path; capturing data packets communicated along the data communications path; persistently storing the captured data packets in a predetermined combination of volatile and non-volatile storage media; aggregating the persistently stored data packets into a slot of predetermined size; annotating the aggregated data packets with persistent storage information; storing the annotated data packets using an infinitely journaled, write-once, hierarchical file system; reconstructing any corrupted data to ensure data accuracy of the persistently stored data; retrieving a predetermined portion of captured data and persistently stored annotations from the slot; creating the slot of predetermined size to have a buffer of a predetermined size; and managing the slot based on a least recently used cache to map the data in the slot to a non-volatile storage thereby creating a cache image of the captured date.
-
-
2. A method of capturing data packets comprising of:
-
connecting a capture appliance to a data communications path; capturing data packets communicated along the data communications path; replicating and persistently annotating the captured data packets in a predetermined combination of volatile and nonvolatile storage; aggregating the captured data packets and persistent annotations in the volatile and non-volatile storage into a slot; and storing the data packets in a non-volatile storage using an infinity journaled, write-once, hierarchical file system. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5)
-
Specification