Amazon.com, Inc.
Estimating end-to-end network packet loss

Abstract:

The numbers of packets transmitted and packets lost for network devices in a computer network are used to estimate a probability of end-to-end packet loss for traffic between a source-destination pair in the network. Metrics of packet transmission and loss at each network device interface are passively collected and transmitted to a network monitoring unit, which uses the metrics to calculate probability of successful packet transmission at each hop. For a particular end-to-end path between the source-destination pair, the network monitoring unit combines the probabilities of successful packet transmission for the hops along the path to yield a probability of successful end-to-end packet transmission. Probability of packet loss along the end-to-end path is determined based on the probability of successful end-to-end packet transmission. Alternatively, the network monitoring unit can estimate which available end-to-end paths between the source-destination pair have a probability of packet loss that satisfies a predetermined loss threshold.