APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR EVALUATING PACKET TRANSIT TIME AND PACKET DELAY VARIATION
A system has a monitoring point to collect timing information characterizing transit time over a network for a packet from a first network connected device to a second network connected device. The timing information for packets is aggregated into a time segment. Packet performance measures for the time segment are generated. The packet performance measures are transmitted over the network to a management station.
1 . A system, comprising:
a monitoring point to
collect timing information characterizing transit time over a network for a packet from a first network connected device to a second network connected device;
aggregate the timing information for a plurality of packets into a time segment;
generate packet performance measures for the time segment; and
transmit the packet performance measures over the network to a management station.
2 . The system of claim 1 wherein the monitoring point comprises a network monitoring device to append to each packet a packet arrival time stamp, a network monitoring device identification and a network monitoring device port identification.
3 . The system of claim 2 wherein the monitoring point further comprises a forensic network device connected to the network monitoring device via the network, the forensic network device configured to generate the packet performance measures.
4 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a minimum packet latency transit time measure during the time segment.
5 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include an average packet latency transit time measure for the plurality of packets during the time segment.
6 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a maximum packet latency transit time measure during the time segment.
7 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a standard deviation of packet latency measurements during the time segment.
8 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a packet delay variation of packet latency measurements during the time segment.
9 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a minimum packet sequence number observed during the time segment.
10 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a maximum packet sequence number observed during the time segment.
11 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a number of packets observed during the time segment.
12 . The system of claim 3 wherein the packet performance measures include a number of packets with latency exceeding a specified threshold.
13 . The system of claim 3 wherein the forensic network device stores the plurality of packets processed during the time segment and packets processed during subsequent time segments.
14 . The system of claim 13 wherein the management station communicates with the forensic network device via the network to obtain timing information for an individual packet.
15 . The system of claim 1 wherein the management station supplies visualizations of packet performance measures.