Patent ID: 6947984

Claim:
A method for reporting on the collection of network usage information from a plurality of network devices, comprising: (a) collecting network communications usage information in real-time from a plurality of network devices at a plurality of layers utilizing multiple gatherers each including a plurality of information source modules each interfacing with one of the network devices and capable of communicating using a protocol specific to the network device coupled thereto, the network devices selected from the group consisting of routers, switches, firewalls, authentication servers, web hosts, proxy servers, netflow servers, databases, mail servers, RADIUS servers, and domain name servers, the gatherers being positioned on a segment of the network on which the network devices coupled thereto are positioned for minimizing an impact of the gatherers on the network; (b) filtering and aggregating the network communications usage information; (c) completing a plurality of data records from the filtered and aggregated network communications usage information, the plurality of data records corresponding to network usage by a plurality of users; (d) storing the plurality of data records in a database; (e) allowing the selection of one of a plurality of reports for reporting purposes; (f) submitting queries to the database utilizing the selected reports for retrieving information on the collection of the network usage information from the network devices; and (g) outputting a report based on the queries.