Patent ID: 8103762

Claim:
A monitoring system for monitoring message-sending system in use, the message-sending system comprising at least two subsystems having interfaces for sending and/or receiving messages comprising one or more data values and an interface state, each subsystem having at least one associated interface description, the monitoring system comprising: i) at least one message detector for detecting messages output by a said interface; ii) an interface description store for storing one or more of said interface descriptions; and iii) a message data decoder for decoding data from a message detected by the at least one message detector by reference to a stored interface description associated with said interface; the monitoring system, in use: iv) detecting a message output by a subsystem interface; and v) decoding data from the detected message by reference to said stored interface description for the subsystem interface, the monitoring system further comprising: vi) a trigger store for storing sets of trigger data, for use by the monitoring system in monitoring messages detected by the message detector, each set of trigger data identifying a condition to be applied to at least one data value in a said detected message and an action to be taken by the monitoring system in response to detection of a data value meeting the condition, wherein at least one stored set of trigger data comprises an interface state to be found in a said detected message and the action is taken in response to both detection of a data value meeting the condition and the presence or absence of the interface state.