Method for analyzing network application flows in an encrypted environment

摘要

In a communication network having computer systems communicatively coupled to each other with communication equipment, where the computer systems are executing network applications that send and receive either encrypted or unencrypted data packets over the communication network, a method for quantifying performance of the communication network. In one embodiment, between an application program interface and a protocol stack in a computer system, where the application program interface resides in an application layer of the computer system and the protocol stack resides in a kernel layer of the computer system, the present invention executes a process for identifying a network application, where the network application originates a request data packet and a response data packet. Second, in this embodiment the present invention records time-stamps when the request data packet and the response data packet are between the application program interface and the protocol stack in the computer system. Third, in this embodiment the present invention computes a difference between a first time-stamp and a second time-stamp. In this embodiment, the present invention next calculates performance statistics measured on the difference and stores the performance statistics in a memory unit of the computer system, where the memory unit is read-accessible and write-accessible from both the application layer and the kernel layer of the computer system. Finally, in this embodiment of the present invention, the computer system reports the performance statistics to a central computer system.