Methods, systems and computer program products for tracking network device performance

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products for tracking network device performance are provided which, in various embodiments, may track device performance by acquiring and storing routing information for communication connections over the network on a scheduled basis during normal operations and responsive to exception events. Network performance measurements may be obtained on a repeated basis, for example, pursuant to a test schedule. The performance measurements may be obtained from either active or passive testing. A traceroute may be initiated for a plurality of connections (for example, client to server) on a repeated basis, for example, a periodic basis, and the performance measurements for each connection for the same time period may be associated with the detected routing information to provide baseline information relating to the performance of one or more routes which support each connection. In addition, the network performance measurement system may detect exception events based on the performance measurements and initiate traceroutes responsive to detected exception events and associate the exception events with the detected routing information as well. Accordingly, IT staffs may be provided the opportunity to compare different routings to detect relatively poor performing routings and identify the network devices included in poor performance routings.