CORRELATION OF MEDIA PLANE AND SIGNALING PLANE OF MEDIA SERVICES IN A PACKET-SWITCHED NETWORK

摘要

This invention relates to methods for correlating media streams and signaling sessions of services, for example, in a passive monitoring system of a packet-switched network. Furthermore, the invention also relates to an implementation of these methods in hardware and software, and provides a signaling plane probe, a media plane probe and a correlation unit. Moreover, a passive monitoring system comprising one or more of these hardware devices is provided. To correlate media streams and signaling sessions of services, the invention proposes to independently generate correlation keys in a media plane probe for monitored media streams and correlation keys for signaling sessions that are monitored by a signaling plane probe in a fashion that matching correlation keys are generated for a respective service. By identifying reports on the media streams and reports on the signaling session that contain matching correlation keys respectively, the media streams and the signaling streams are correlated in a correlation unit.