Patent ID: 7493048

Claim:
A method for an optical transceiver to persistently log operational data, the method comprising the following: an act of the optical transceiver identifying first operational information regarding the optical transceiver, wherein the first operational information represents: a total operation time for the optical transceiver; a number of times the optical transceiver has been booted; an average operational time between boots; a total number of error conditions encountered; an identification of one or more error conditions encountered; or a categorization of the number of error conditions encountered for a plurality of different error types; after the act of identifying the first operational information, an act of the optical transceiver writing first log information representing the first operational information to a persistent memory within the optical transceiver; an act of the optical transceiver identifying second operational information regarding the optical transceiver; and after the act of identifying the second operational information, an act of the optical transceiver writing second log information representing the second operational information to the persistent memory within the optical transceiver.