Patent ID: 7433306

Claim:
A method in a communications network fabric that is used to couple data processing systems together for collecting data about the transmission of network packets that are associated with specified applications through said communications network fabric, said method comprising: selecting a particular existing single bit in a standard definition of a frame header, said existing single bit already being defined by a communication protocol standard as an available bit in said frame header definition, said protocol standard being unchanged by said selection; specifying an application to monitor; setting said existing single bit in each network packet that is generated by a specified application; collecting, by said communications network fabric, performance data about a transmission of each packet through said communications network fabric that has said existing single bit set, wherein said communications network fabric collects performance data about a transmission of each packet that is generated by said application; requesting, by a performance manager to said communications network fabric, permission to use said existing single bit to set existing single bit in said each network packet of a selected group of specified applications to monitor; determining whether a performance manager other than said performance manager currently has permission to use said existing single bit; in response to determining that no performance manager other than said performance manager currently has permission to use said existing single bit, granting permission to said performance manager to use said existing single bit; and in response to determining that another performance manager other than said performance manager currently has permission to use said existing single bit, refraining from granting permission to said performance manager to use said existing single bit until said another performance manager other than said performance manager relinquishes said existing single bit.