Patent ID: 7606895

Claim:
A method of managing performance data and accounting data that are generated in a computer network, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: collecting performance data from the network using one or more collector blades that are dynamically installed into a data collection manager when the data collection manager is executing; wherein collecting performance data comprises polling one or more network elements in the network to obtain the performance data, according to an adaptive polling frequency, wherein the adaptive polling frequency is determined based on one or more rates of change in the performance data, wherein the rates of change are determined based on one or more dependencies among components of the network elements; wherein the collector blades comprise information identifying a source of the performance data, frequency of collection from that source, destination to send the performance data when it is collected, and a type of processing to be performed on the performance data; determining whether the performance data satisfies one or more thresholding rules, and if so, generating and sending one or more performance messages; filtering the performance data using one or more filters; aggregating the performance data; wherein aggregating the performance data comprises determining whether information needed to finalize a specified aggregation pattern is missing and, if needed information is missing, polling one or more network elements in the network to obtain missing information needed to finalize the specified aggregation pattern; correlating the performance data with other data received from one or more network management subsystems; and determining whether at least one of the collector blades is unnecessary, and if so, deactivating that collector blade without disabling the data collection manager.