System and method for accurately displaying communications traffic information

Abstract

A system and method uses path information to project traffic information from flow- or IPFix-type messages onto one or more paths that may have been taken by packets corresponding to such messages. Traffic information from a message is projected from the router interface from which the message was received, along the path or paths the packets corresponding to the message may have taken, but only to the next router interface that provides such messages.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority to patent application Ser. No. 12 / 661,769 filed Mar. 22, 2010, which claims priority to patent application Ser. No. 11 / 906,424 filed Oct. 1, 2007, which claims priority to patent application Ser. No. 10 / 374,882 filed Feb. 26, 2003, which claims the benefit of Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 364,895 filed Mar. 13, 2002, Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 384,590 filed May 30, 2002, and Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 380,077 filed May 6, 2002.[0002]All of the above mentioned patent applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention is related to computer software and more specifically to computer software for reporting communications traffic.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]It can be desirable to accurately display information about communications traffic, such as that which flows through routers in a communications network....

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]If the user requests a report for a period of time, the projections corresponding to that period are used to build the report. If the user requests information as part of the report for which linking of the same flow information from one device that reported flow information to the next is desirable, the flow information may be linked together so that the various projections of the same flow are treated as a single projection, and the report allows utilization of all of the information so linked.

[0009]The projections may be made without a centralized flow message repository for all the routers that reported flow information. In one embodiment, only the identifiers (e.g. IP addresses of the router interface or IP address of the router and interface index) of the router interfaces reporting such flow messages are routinely distributed to make the projections. The flow messages themselves may be received and stored by multiple, distributed devices and need not be centralized in order to allow the projections to be made. Even when different flow messages are linked as described above, the linking and processing of the flow messages may also be performed using a distributed architecture. Such an architecture can reduce the traffic impact of the flow messages that would otherwise occur if the flow messages were centrally stored.

Problems solved by technology

However, if another device in a path also reported flow information, the projection of the flow may only be made to the first such other device in the path.

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