Patent ID: 7962610

Claim:
A computer for managing a plurality of computer network elements, comprising: a storage memory; said computer configured for a management console function; and said computer configured for at least one statistical inspector, in communication with said management console function said at least one statistical inspector remotely performing a relevance determination function in connection with an associated network element for collecting, storing in said storage, and manipulating time-based data at said associated network element; said management console function comprising a bin mechanism for collapsing said time-based data stored by said at least one statistical inspector for said network element to identify an historical trend in connection with said network element and/or said plurality of network elements; wherein said at least one statistical inspector comprises: a binning structure for storing said time-based data as time based measurements; wherein each of said time based measurements is stored within a bin that represents a discrete interval of time; wherein said binning structure comprises: a first series of time stamped bins that collect time-based data for a first discrete interval of time; and at least one additional series of time stamped bins that collect time-based data for at least one additional, different discrete interval of time; wherein said time-based data are stored in one or more statistical bins and wherein said management console function combines minute bins every hour into hour bins and hour bins into day bins and wherein the contents of the bins are any of: stored locally, reported to a remote management console, and purged, for reducing data storage requirements while consolidating data and preserving the statistical nature of said data; and said statistical inspector using a least-squares method to fit a line through data in a particular bin or a line through the logarithms of the data in the bin to provide a statistical projection that is used in identifying said historical trend.