Patent ID: 8396945

Claim:
A method for facilitating network diagnostic capabilities, comprising: automatically sending a plurality of first-level network diagnostic queries from a first network element to other network elements, wherein said first-level network diagnostic queries each determine if a respective prescribed type of operational condition exists within the network, wherein said first-level network diagnostic queries are sent in a rate-controlled manner such that said first-level network diagnostic queries are issued for execution at a rate whereby such issuance rate does not cause unacceptable network resource utilization as a result of execution of said first-level network diagnostic queries, and wherein said sending the plurality of first-level network diagnostic queries includes executing said first-level network diagnostic queries in a sampled manner such that less than all of said first-level network diagnostic queries are applied to a specified collection of network elements of the network during each one of a plurality of instances of said executing the plurality of first-level network diagnostic queries being performed and such that all of said first-level network diagnostic queries are applied to the specified collection of network elements in accordance with a prescribed query execution timeframe; and executing at least one of a plurality of said second-level network diagnostic queries in response to one of said first-level network diagnostic queries determining that the respective prescribed type of operational condition exists within the network, wherein executing said at least one second-level network diagnostic query results in determination of diagnostic information specific to the respective prescribed type of operational condition corresponding to one of said first-level network diagnostic queries, wherein said sending the plurality of first-level network diagnostic queries includes: performing said first-level network diagnostic queries in a first sequence during a first execution instance, and; performing said first-level network diagnostic queries in a second sequence different than the first sequence during a second execution instance thereby limiting the potential for a certain one of said first-level network diagnostic queries being synchronized with a periodically recurring network traffic pattern during consecutive execution instances of said first-level network diagnostic queries.