Network Analyzer Duplexer for Real-Time Packet Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
As computer networks grow, they face decreased performance due to increased complexity, making it difficult to identify and address issues such as malfunctioning devices and network traffic anomalies in real-time.
Innovation Solution
A network analyzer is integrated into the system to capture and analyze network packets, duplicating them for concurrent processing to ensure efficient analysis without storage limitations, using a duplexer, capture module, and analysis module with buffers to handle high-speed networks and manage packet processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If network analysis is performed to identify performance issues and traffic anomalies, then network performance monitoring capability is improved, but device complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The network analyzer is divided into distinct functional modules: a capture module for packet capture, a duplexer for packet duplication, and an analysis module for traffic analysis. This segmentation allows each module to specialize in specific tasks, improving overall system efficiency while maintaining manageable complexity through modular design.
Solution Approach 2:
The duplexer creates copies of captured network packets and directs them to different processing paths. By copying packets rather than analyzing every packet sequentially, the system can perform parallel analysis operations, improving measurement precision without proportionally increasing processing overhead.
2Loss of time
If real-time network analysis is performed on high-speed networks, then network performance monitoring is improved, but packet loss increases due to processing limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The duplexer module creates multiple copies of incoming network packets and distributes them to different analysis modules or processing queues. This copying mechanism ensures that no single processing bottleneck can cause packet loss, as multiple copies can be processed simultaneously through parallel paths, maintaining both real-time analysis and packet reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The capture module performs preliminary packet capture and buffering before analysis begins. By pre-capturing packets in a buffer, the system prepares data for analysis in advance, reducing the critical path delay and ensuring that packets are ready for immediate processing when analysis resources become available, thereby preventing packet loss in real-time scenarios.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive network traffic analysis is performed to identify all issues and trends, then measurement precision is improved, but processing time and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The analysis module implements selective packet analysis, examining only specific packet types, protocols, or traffic patterns that are relevant to current analysis objectives. Rather than analyzing every packet comprehensively, the system applies partial analysis to subsets of traffic, maintaining measurement precision for critical issues while reducing overall processing time through targeted rather than exhaustive analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of methods, systems and apparatus for analysis and capture of network data items are described herein. Some embodiments include a receiving module which may receive a network data item from a network and which may then duplicate the network data item into two network data items. A capture module may receive one of the network data items for storage in storage device. A statistics or analysis module may in parallel receive the other network data item and may then perform network analysis on that network data item. Other embodiments are described and claimed.