Patent ID: 7937459

Claim:
A method comprising: recording application-specific data on a set of counters of an application in a network element; sending, by the application, a service request to an updating block for the set of counters; reserving, in response to the service request, resources of the updating block for updating changed counter data of the application; sending, by the application, an updating message to the reserved resources of the updating block to update changed counter data of said set of counters of said application; forming an accounting file using a two-part file structure which comprises an index file and a counter file, wherein said index file comprises indexes; associating individual ones of said indexes with individual counters of said counter file; receiving information of counters of said set of counters from a memory controlled by a user of said counters, wherein the information comprises a control file modified by the user of the counters to identity, to the resources of the updating block, both counters that are to be ignored and counters that are to be updated in said accounting file; identifying, with said information, an index of the index file associated with an individual counter of the counter file to be updated; based on said updating message, updating, by the resources of the updating block, said accounting file using changed counter data of the counters identified by the control file modified by the user of said counters, collecting said counter data from said accounting file by a centralized counter handling block to write into a transfer file, writing the collected counter data into said transfer file to further handle of said counter data, wherein said collecting of said counter data is controlled using information from said control file, and wherein the counters are to be taken into account by changing said information in said control file, and writing the collected counter data into said transfer file to further handle said counter data, wherein said collecting of said counter data is controlled using information from said control file and wherein the counters are to be taken into account by changing said information in said control file.