System and method for subscriber aware network monitoring

1. A method for subscriber aware network monitoring for a network having at least one subscriber with a non-unique IP (Internet Protocol) address during a session comprising:

determining non-unique subscriber data and session data from network traffic, at a network probe;

retrieving subscriber identifying data from a packet, at a traffic probe;

mapping the determined non-unique subscriber and session data to the subscriber identifying data to determine a subscriber associated with the non-unique subscriber and session data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying data comprises a combination of an IP address and port data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying data comprises a combination of an IP address and a network identifier.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

determining whether the identifying data from the packet indicates that the packet is from a public IP address; and

associating the packet with the subscriber having the public IP address.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising producing network capacity planning reports based on an aggregated total of the mapped data.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining billing based on the mapped data.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

storing the identifying data and subscriber associated with the packet; and

retrieving historical records indicating a relation between the subscriber and the non-unique IP address.

8. A system for subscriber aware network monitoring for a network having at least one subscriber with a non-unique IP (Internet Protocol) address during a session comprising:

at least one network probe configured to determine non-unique subscriber data and session data from network traffic;

at least one traffic probe configured to retrieve subscriber identifying data from a packet; and

a processor module configured to map the non-unique subscriber and session data to the subscriber identifying data to determine a subscriber associated with the non-unique subscriber data and session data.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the identifying data comprises a combination of an IP address and port data.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the identifying data comprises a combination of an IP address and a network identifier.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the processor module is further configured to:

determine whether the identifying data from the packet indicates that the packet is from a public IP address; and

associate the packet with the subscriber having the public IP address.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the processor module is further configured to produce network capacity planning reports based on an aggregated total of the mapped data.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the processor module is further configured to determine billing based on the mapped data.

14. The system of claim 8 further comprising:

a memory module configured to store the identifying data and subscriber associated with the packet; and

the processor module further configured to retrieve historical records indicating a relation between the subscriber and the non-unique IP address.

15. The system of claim 8 wherein the network probe is a Network Address Translation (NAT) probe and the traffic probe is a NAT traffic probe.

16. The system of claim 8 wherein the network probe is an Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) probe and the traffic probe is a private traffic probe.

17. The system of claim 8 wherein the system comprises:

at least two network probes, a Network Address Translation (NAT) probe and an Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) probe; and

at least two traffic probes, a NAT traffic probe and a private traffic probe.

18. The system of claim 8 further comprising:

a database configured to store data related to subscribers and IP sessions; and

a network interface configured to allow access to query the database.