Patent ID: 8438269

Claim:
A method of measuring performance and capacity of a network, the method comprising: monitoring network activity using an application programming interfaces monitoring system that includes a processor and a probe, the processor configured to receive a web services definition language file, the web services definition language file including instructions associated with monitoring network elements of the network; generating, by a probe control system, a control message that includes regular expressions automatically generated in response to execution of the instructions included in the web services definition language file by the processor, the control message transmitted to the probe to control a state of the probe to collect selected performance data associated with the network elements of the network from at least one of a load balancer and a network switch; receiving the selected performance data associated with the network elements from the probe, the selected performance data resulting from collection by the probe using the regular expressions included in the control message, the selected performance data including a time stamp and performance information; analyzing the received selected performance data to determine information associated with performance and capacity of the network; and providing the determined information associated with the performance and capacity of the network to a network operations center.