Patent ID: 8407521

Claim:
A computer implemented method comprising: an agent manager transmitting a first set of one or more network commands to a plurality of user agents across a network to test the network, wherein the plurality of user agents execute respective ones of the first set of network commands to generate a first set of results, the first set of results including results from at least two of the plurality of user agents; analyzing the first set of results received from the plurality of user agents; automatically determining by the agent manager a second set of one or more commands to be issued to the plurality of user agents based at least in part on the results from at least two of the plurality of user agents; transmitting the second set of commands to at least one of the plurality of user agents, wherein the at least one of the plurality user agents executes respective ones of the second set of commands to generate a second set of results; diagnosing a problem in the network based on the first and the second set of results; and storing an indication of the diagnosed problem in a machine-readable medium; wherein the problem is diagnosed as a network segment failure in response to a first user agent on a first network segment successfully communicating with a second user agent on a second network segment and wherein the first user agent and the second user agent fail to communicate with a third user agent on a third network segment.