Patent ID: 7155509

Claim:
In a network environment where messages relating to faults that occur in the network over time are stored as rows in a database having a finite amount of memory allocated for storing the messages, a fault message purge procedure, comprising: expunging a predetermined number of the rows in the database at the end of a current period; determining the predetermined number prior to beginning the step of expunging by: determining a rate at which the messages are being stored in the database for the current period, a size of the rows in the database, the finite amount of memory allocated for storing the messages in the database, a period at which the computer code is executed, and a period of time for which information relating to the faults is to be retained in the database; applying a purge script that specifies that the predetermined number of the rows to be expunged is 45,000 where the rate at which the messages are stored in the database is 15 per second, the size of the rows in the database is 1.5 kilobytes, the finite amount of memory allocated for storing the messages in the databases is 5 gigabytes, the period at which the computer code is executed is once per hour, and the period of time for which information relating to the faults is to be retained is 10 days, the purge script further specifying that when the rate at which the messages are stored in the database increases to 50 per second for the current period, then the predetermined number is increased to 1,500,000; and counting each message saved and expunged from the memory during a time period, wherein the count of saved and expunged messages are utilized for performance analysis.