Patent ID: 7460874

Claim:
A method of monitoring performance of a message-delivery system, the system comprising at least one message router configured to receive messages and to output the messages for transmission to one or more destinations, the method comprising: detecting a router condition comprising at least one of (i) a threshold measure of difference between router-input and router-output, (ii) a threshold measure of change in router message-queue length, and (iii) a threshold measure of router-delivery attempts per message; and responsively generating an alert to indicate a problem with the message-delivery system, wherein detecting a threshold measure of difference between router-input and router-output comprises (a) for each of a plurality of time intervals measuring a respective difference between a number of messages received into a given message router and a number of messages transmitted out of the given message router and (b) determining that at least one such respective difference meets a predefined threshold, the method further comprising maintaining in data storage a plurality of predefined thresholds each corresponding with a particular time of day, wherein a given one of the time intervals falls within a given time of day and thus has a given predefined threshold, and wherein determining that at least one respective difference meets a predefined threshold comprises determining for the given time interval that the respective difference meets the given predefined threshold.