Network monitoring and management system
First Claim
1. A network monitoring and management system for a computer network array, the array including computing elements, switching elements, and data transfer elements, each of which elements has at least one associated network address, and interconnecting components, said elements and components being connected into discretely identifiable groupings, each grouping which may be considered to be a Local Area Network (LAN), the system comprising:
- independent probe units logically connected at locations within at least some of said LANs, each said probe unit being adapted to capture continuous packets of data having a plurality of layers of information, including application-specific information, and being transferred for a period of time over said interconnecting components within said associated LAN, to build at least one predefined probe object which includes data from a session layer of said captured data packets, and to forward the probe object; and
a database unit for receiving the forwarded probe objects and for compiling multiple ones of the probe objects into a database.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A network monitoring and management system (10) is provided for use in conjunction with a computer network array (12) including a plurality of identifiable branch arrays known as LANS (14). The system (10) includes a sampling assembly (38) including a plurality of probe computers (42) situated along selected ones of the LANS (14) for "capturing" data packets (22) and building probe objects (52) corresponding thereto. The system (10) further includes an analysis assembly (40) including a database computer (98) for receiving a plurality of probe objects (52) and manipulating them with a database builder routine (96) into database objects (100), which are stored in a database (99). The database (99) is then subject to analysis routines in a database management system (138) which extract and display information relating to the operational parameters of the computer network array (12), including a network map (144), a plurality of conversation path maps (150) and performance specifications. The overall system (10) is utilized by network managers to analyze, optimize and "tune" the network application performance.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A network monitoring and management system for a computer network array, the array including computing elements, switching elements, and data transfer elements, each of which elements has at least one associated network address, and interconnecting components, said elements and components being connected into discretely identifiable groupings, each grouping which may be considered to be a Local Area Network (LAN), the system comprising:
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independent probe units logically connected at locations within at least some of said LANs, each said probe unit being adapted to capture continuous packets of data having a plurality of layers of information, including application-specific information, and being transferred for a period of time over said interconnecting components within said associated LAN, to build at least one predefined probe object which includes data from a session layer of said captured data packets, and to forward the probe object; and a database unit for receiving the forwarded probe objects and for compiling multiple ones of the probe objects into a database. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. The network monitoring and management system of clam 1, wherein at least some of said probe units are personal computers.
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7. Apparatus for extracting, sifting and compiling information relating to a complex computer network array from continuous packets having a plurality of layers of data and traveling along segments within the computer network array for a period of time, said apparatus comprising:
probe means logically associated with at least one segment, wherein said probe means includes; a computing apparatus with software adapted to operate therewith to extract, sift, and compile the network array information; and a buffer means for receiving and storing the information compiled by said software, said software including; a capture routine to nondestructively capture at least session layer information from the continuous packets and to create therefrom a captured packet having at least session layer data; and a probe builder routine, including at least a decode function associated with the session layer information of said captured packet, said decode function creating one or more objects corresponding to said session layer, said one or more objects used to create a discrete probe object corresponding to at least the session layer information of said captured packet. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A network analysis method for use with a large network array including a plurality of discrete local area network (LAN) portions, information passing over the network array in the form of packets having a plurality of layers of data, at least some of the LAN portions including computing units adaptable as probe units and the network array including at least one computing unit adaptable as a database unit, said network analysis method comprising:
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a sampling method performed by each of the probe units, with each probe unit being connected to a segment of the associated LAN, said sampling method including; a capture packets routine for creating a plurality of captured packets corresponding to a plurality of continuous data packets passing along the segment associated with the probe unit for a period of time, at least one of said captured packets corresponding to session layer data of one of said continuous data packets; and a probe builder routine for operating upon each captured packet to create a corresponding probe object including application-specific information relating to the network array; and a database method associated with said database unit, said database unit being adapted to receive said probe objects from said probe units, said database method including; a grab probe object routine for selecting a one of said probe objects and creating a raw object associated therewith; a plurality of object modification routines sequentially operating upon the current object, being the raw object in the case of the first such object modification routines and an intermediate object created by the previous one of such object modification routines, to ultimately create and store a stored database object associated with the one of said probe objects; and one or more network analysis routines for operating upon an accumulated plurality of said stored database objects to correlate and output information relating to the network array. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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Specification