PROBABILISTIC AGGREGATION OVER DISTRIBUTED DATA STREAMS

In one embodiment, a method of monitoring a network. The method includes, at each node of a set, constructing a corresponding vector of M components based on a stream of data packets received at the node during a time period, the set including a plurality of nodes of the network, M being greater than 1; and estimating a value of a byte traffic produced by a part of the packets based on the constructed vectors, the part being the packets received by every node of the set. The constructing includes updating a component of the vector corresponding to one of the nodes in response to the one of the nodes receiving a data packet. The updating includes selecting a component of the vector to be updated by hashing a property of the received data packet.