Method and apparatus for measuring and monitoring the performance within

Abstract

A performance measurement, communication fault detection, and fault isolation system for a ring based communication network. The present invention includes mechanisms and procedures operable within each port logic device of a communication network for counting the number of message packets lost by the network versus the number of message packets lost by the particular port or it's attached communication station. The result is a generic loss metric for that particular port. Positive counts represent packets lost by the remainder (i.e., not including the particular port) of the network while negative counts represent packets lost by the port or its attached station. The present invention also includes embodiments wherein the above capabilities are provided for a group of ports but only for messages that contain a particular targeted address as the packet's origin (i.e., targeted loss metric). A source address embodiment is provided so that an individual port responds only to messages containing the address of its attached station. If the attached device is a single station then by computing the difference between the generic loss metric and the source address loss metric for a given port, a single attached station loss metric is determined. By communicating each loss metric result to a central NMS and therein analyzing the results of the generic loss metrics, single and multiple faults within the communication network may be detected and isolated. Dual homed station thru connection errors and duplicate address error configurations may also be isolated by the present invention.