Patent Document ID: 7636318
Application ID: 11606877
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A network appliance for an object network having a plurality of nodes interconnected by a plurality of links and employing at least one routing protocol and at least one network-management protocol, the network appliance comprising: a processor and a computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by the processor, form the following modules: a network-interface module for acquiring current protocol data from said object network; a data manager for organizing and pre-processing said current protocol data; and a microscopic analyzer for processing said current protocol data to produce a current network image, said current network image comprising contemporaneous connectivity indicators, occupancy indicators, and performance indicators of said object network; wherein said microscopic analyzer comprises: a connectivity-image module for determining said connectivity indicators a performance-tracking module for determining said performance indicators; an occupancy-tracking module for determining said occupancy indicators; an alarm and diagnostics module computationally coupled to said connectivity-image module and said performance-tracking module for receiving alarms transmitted by said nodes of said object network and determining causes for said alarms; and a network-characterization module computationally coupled to said performance module and said occupancy-tracking module for determining metrics of said object network.