Patent ID: 8903893

Claim:
A method for diagnostic heartbeating in a distributed data processing environment, the method comprising: a first component, executing using a processor and a memory in a first data processing system, receiving from a second component a set of diagnostic parameters to include in a diagnostic heartbeat packet, wherein the diagnostic heartbeat packet is a packet comprising a header, a set of heartbeat parameters, and the set of diagnostic parameters; the first component receiving from the second component information identifying a data communication protocol to be used for transmitting the diagnostic heartbeat packet; the first component setting a first diagnostic parameter in the set of diagnostic parameters to a first value, the first value being selected to detect a first soft network error condition, wherein a soft network error condition is a network error condition that adversely affects transmission of packets having certain properties in the data communication network; the first component configuring the diagnostic heartbeat packet for transmission using the identified data communication protocol and including the set of diagnostic parameters; the first component determining a ratio of a number of basic heartbeat packets to a number of diagnostic heartbeat packets to send in a time period, wherein basic heartbeat packets are packets that comprise a header and a set of heartbeat parameters and that are devoid of a set of diagnostic attributes, and wherein basic heartbeat packets are configured to be transmitted over an identified communication protocol; the first component sending to the second component a basic heartbeat packet at a time determined according to the ratio; and the first component sending the diagnostic heartbeat packet to the second component.