System and method for aggregating and reporting network traffic data

Abstract

A method for analyzing traffic in a communications network includes sampling data packets at a plurality of network interconnection points, wherein sampling the data packets includes generating a plurality of sampled packet data in one or more standardized formats, converting the sampled packet data from the one or more standardized formats into a neutral format, and aggregating the sampled packet data in the neutral format from the plurality of network interconnection points. A system includes a communications node operable to sample data packets flowing through and generate sample packet data in a specified format, a collector node operable to convert the sampled packet data into a neutral format, the collector node further operable to map IP addresses of the sampled packet data to corresponding prefixes in a routing table; and an aggregator node operable to aggregate neutrally formatted sampled packet data from a plurality of collector nodes.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for analyzing traffic in a communications network, the method comprising:
 sampling data packets at a plurality of network interconnection points;   enriching the sampled packet data by mapping IP addresses of the sampled packet data to corresponding IP prefixes associated with a plurality of networks communicating over the communications network; and   aggregating the enriched sampled packet data to yield aggregated traffic flow measures associated with one or more of the networks.