METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ASSESSING PERFORMANCE AND HEALTH OF AN INFORMATION PROCESSING NETWORK

摘要

Network functional components made up of a set of network elements (routers, switches and other infrastructure devices) communicating and cooperating to implement a network service such as a routing protocol or the spanning tree used to implement VLANs, are assigned performance and/or health metrics, which are communicated through a communications device, such as a display or speaker. A "Correct" performance metric for each network functional component of the network indicates that functional network component's conformance to a set of programmed configuration standards, which typically represent best practices for the network. A "Stable" performance metric for each network functional component indicates the degree to which that network functional component is operating efficiently and effectively. By combining these performance metrics for the individual network functional components, for instance by averaging them, one can arrive at a single performance metric for the entire network. The metric scales are is arbitrary, for example a scale of 0-10 can be used, and can accommodate weighting of the values based on the seriousness of performance issues identified on the network.