Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer session/connection establishing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-11
2001-04-10
Rinehart, Mark H. (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer session/connection establishing
C709S224000, C709S228000, C714S004110, C714S016000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06216163
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer networks and more particularly to methods and apparatus for monitoring network connections in distributed networks such as the internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer networks are becoming vastly complex. The average user is frustrated with increased performance problems, and not being able to determine the cause of such performance problems leaving the user to rely on finger pointing by the various vendors and others involved in the network communication. For example, if your web browser does not respond with the web page you requested for several minutes, is the problem with your computer? your local area network? your internet service provider? the internet backbone? The server you are trying to access?
Traditionally, Internet performance has been monitored largely by those who provision the Internet—the Internet Service Providers and the operators of the Internet backbone, such as MCI. These vendors, working under extremely competitive conditions, have tools available to them which, in high detail, the activity of the equipment they control. But these tools, such as probes and sniffers, do not diagnose problems of the specific domain of the equipment owner. While they are excellent tools for monitoring the portion of the Internet under their control, they don't report on problems upstream or downstream. They are also too expensive to provide to multiple end. And, these network management tools require that the various components in the network communicate in some known, and often proprietary fashion. Further, these tools generally require each of the components which is being monitored to execute some software (such as a network management agent) to allow monitoring of the device.
Other tools, such as “ping” and “traceroute,” ii are handy but cumbersome to use and very difficult to interpret. Webmasters of the Web sites typically monitor only the health of their own servers, not that of the Internet itself.
As a result, users with complaints either get an incomplete report of the contributing sources of their problem, or worse, they get the run-around from vendor to vendor. While this level of service is unthinkable elsewhere in the consumer's experience, because the Internet is new and technical, the Internet user feels both overwhelmed and helpless, a situation he or she wants to change.
In summary, unfortunately, distributed networks—such as the internet—do not allow sufficient control of what software agents are executing on each component in the network to allow full monitoring of the network.
Thus, what is needed is an improved method and apparatus for monitoring performance on computer networks.
More particularly, in distributed networks, there is a need to provide for monitoring of performance of computer networks without requiring devices such as servers, routers, etc. within the network to execute proprietary or special purpose software.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method for monitoring network performance in a distributed network is described. The method provides a user interface allowing easy visualization of the performance together with methods and apparatus for determining the distance from a client to a server in the network, for determining a service provider domain, for determining network congestion level, for determining bottleneck throughput, for determining bottleneck location, for determining page retrieval time and for automatically restarting a page under predetermined conditions.
These and other aspects of the present invention will be described in greater detail in the detailed description and with reference to the drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5802304 (1998-09-01), Stone
patent: 5809250 (1998-09-01), Kisor
patent: 5835721 (1998-11-01), Donahue et al.
patent: 5872929 (1999-02-01), Naito
patent: 5898839 (1999-04-01), Berteau
patent: 5931913 (1999-08-01), Meriwether et al.
patent: 5941950 (1999-08-01), Hwang et al.
patent: 5991705 (1999-11-01), Klein et al.
patent: 6049892 (2000-04-01), Cassgrande et al.
Neves et al., “Fault Detection Using Hints from the Socket Layer”, IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems 10/1997, 97CB36137, pp 64-71.*
“Automatic Recovery of IBM Personal Computer Network Session”, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Mar. 1986, vol. 28, Issue 10, pp. 4482-4483.*
Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, Third Edition, 1997.
Bharali Anupam
Goetz James
Rangan Venkat
Carr & Ferrell LLP
Kang Paul
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Rinehart Mark H.
LandOfFree
Method and apparatus providing for automatically restarting... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and apparatus providing for automatically restarting..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and apparatus providing for automatically restarting... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2464416