Distributed local-area-network monitoring system
First Claim
1. A system for monitoring traffic on a local-area network that includes a traffic-bearing communications bus that conducts signal packets, the system comprising:
- A. a statistics-bearing communications bus for conducting signal packets;
B. a plurality of stations, connected to the traffic-bearing communications bus, for sending and receiving signal packets;
C. a monitor unit, connected to the traffic-bearing communications bus at a point between two of the stations, for detecting predetermined characteristics of the signal packets and connected to the statistics-bearing communications bus for transmission of packets thereon, for compiling statistics from the detected characteristics, and for transmitting, over the statistics-bearing communications bus, packets representing the compiled statistics; and
D. a host unit, connected to the statistics-bearing communications bus, for receiving the packets sent by the monitor unit and generating a human-readable indication of the contents thereof.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A monitoring system for a local-area network (10) has a distributed organization, in which a monitor manager (34) on the network receives information from individual monitor units (32 and 40) connected to different buses (12 and 14) of the local-area network (10). Each monitor unit employs a plurality of counters in a packet memory (50) that are dynamically allocated to specific packet characteristics as new packet characteristics appear on the network. A look-up table (56) contains the association between counters and the characteristics with which they are associated, and a look-up engine (54) operates the look-up table (56) in such a manner as to enable it to search for the location of specific counters by employing a binary-search method. In this way, all processing for a given packet can be performed within the minimum packet time.
179 Citations
10 Claims
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1. A system for monitoring traffic on a local-area network that includes a traffic-bearing communications bus that conducts signal packets, the system comprising:
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A. a statistics-bearing communications bus for conducting signal packets; B. a plurality of stations, connected to the traffic-bearing communications bus, for sending and receiving signal packets; C. a monitor unit, connected to the traffic-bearing communications bus at a point between two of the stations, for detecting predetermined characteristics of the signal packets and connected to the statistics-bearing communications bus for transmission of packets thereon, for compiling statistics from the detected characteristics, and for transmitting, over the statistics-bearing communications bus, packets representing the compiled statistics; and D. a host unit, connected to the statistics-bearing communications bus, for receiving the packets sent by the monitor unit and generating a human-readable indication of the contents thereof. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. For monitoring the traffic on a local-area network that includes a communications bus for conducting signal packets, a monitor unit comprising:
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A. an index memory, including an ordered group of index-memory locations, each memory location including a tag segment and a pointer segment; B. a plurality of counters, each counter being associated with a different address, containing a count value, and being operable to increment its count value; C. reading means for reading the field contents of a predetermined field in the signal packet; D. search means responsive to the reading means for performing a binary search through the tag contents of the index memory to identify the index-memory location, if any, whose tag segment contains the contents of the predetermined field; E. means responsive to the search means, when the search means finds the contents of the predetermined field in the tag segment of one of the index-memory locations, to increment the contents of the counter whose address is contained in the pointer segment of the index-memory location that contains the contents of the detected contents it the tag contents; and F. means responsive to the search means, when the search means fails to find the contents of the predetermined field in the tag segment of one of the index-memory locations, to enter the contents of the predetermined field in the tag segment of an index-memory location chosen so that the contents of the tag segments of the index-memory locations are in the same order as the locations themselves and the tag contents can thereby be searched by means of a binary search, to allocate to the field contents read by the reading means a counter whose address is not contained in any of the pointer segments of the index-memory locations, and to enter the address of the allocated counter into the pointer segment of the index-memory location into whose tag location the read field location was entered.
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5. A system for monitoring packet characteristics in a local area network comprising:
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A. a plurality of addressable counters; B. means for detecting the occurrence of a predetermined packet characteristic, and for assigning the packet characteristic to one of the plurality of addressable counters; C. a look-up table having a plurality of memory locations, each memory location having contents including a tag segment and an address-pointer segment, each tag segment associated with a particular packet characteristic, and each address-pointer segment containing an address of one of the counters; D. means for dynamically configuring the contents of the look-table so as to monotonically arrange the tag segments.
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6. A system for monitoring traffic on a local-area network, the system comprising:
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A. traffic-bearing communications means for conducting signal packets; B. statistics-bearing communications means for conducting signal packets; C. monitor unit means, connected to the traffic-bearing communications means and to the statistics-bearing communications means, for detecting predetermined traffic characteristics of the signal packets conducted on the traffic-bearing means, for compiling traffic statistics from the detected characteristics, and for transmitting over the statistics-bearing communications means, packets representing compiled traffic statistics; and D. host unit means, connected to the statistics-bearing communications means, for receiving the packets sent by the monitor unit means and generating a human-readable indication of the contents thereof. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
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Specification