Report stream data rate regulation

摘要

Monitoring apparatus is provided for monitoring an on-going input to detect and report events of a predetermined type as defined by a set of criteria stored by the apparatus. Detected events are reported in a report stream the data rate of which increases with the number of such events. The data rate of the report stream is regulated to lie within upper and lower bounds by changing the selectivity of the set of event-selection criteria. This changing of the selectivity of the critera is effected in such a manner that the events detected with more selective criteria constitute a subset of the events that would have been detected with a less selective criteria. In a preferred embodiment, changing the criteria selectivity is done by changing the length of a bit mask.