System and method for deriving traffic demands for a packet-switched network

• US 7,796,619 B1
• Filed: 09/26/2005
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rexford, Jennifer Lynn, Feldmann, Anja, Reingold, Nicholas, True, Frederick D., Greenberg, Albert Gordon, Lund, Carsten
• Primary Examiner(s): ABELSON, RONALD B
• Application Number:
  US11/235,491
• Time in Patent Office: 1,814 Days
• Field of Search: 370252-258, 370/229, 370/235, 370/401
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/12 Shortest path evaluation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method and system for deriving traffic demands for a packet-switched network. A novel model of defining traffic demands as a volume of load originating from an ingress link and destined to a set of egress links enables support for traffic engineering and performance debugging of large operational packet-switched networks.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions for measuring traffic demand in a packet-switched network, the computer executable instructions defining a method comprising:

receiving data representing network traffic in an Internet Service Provider (ISP) backbone destined for a plurality of destination network addresses;

associating each of the destination network addresses with a set of egress links from the ISP backbone; and

computing network traffic demand by aggregating network traffic traveling between an ingress link to the ISP backbone and a set of egress links from the ISP back bone.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the data is derived from packet flow measurements in an operational network.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2 wherein the packet flow measurements are obtained at all ingress links in the packet-switched network.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2 wherein the packet flow measurements are obtained at peering links in the packet-switched network.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein a destination prefix address is associated with each set of egress links.

6. A method of measuring traffic demand in a packet-switched network comprising:

receiving data representing network traffic in an Internet Service Provider (ISP) backbone destined for a plurality of destination network addresses;

associating each of the destination network addresses with a set of egress links from the ISP backbone; and

computing network traffic demand by aggregating network traffic traveling between an ingress link to the ISP backbone and a set of egress links from the ISP backbone.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the data is derived from packet flow measurements in an operational network.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the packet flow measurements are obtained at all ingress links in the packet-switched network.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the packet flow measurements are obtained at peering links in the packet switched network.

10. The method of claim 6 wherein a destination prefix address is associated with each set of egress links.