Enhanched flow processing

Abstract

A network monitoring device responds to a network status data (whether 'pushed' from the network device or 'pulled' from the network device), maintaining a buffer of saved status data. The status data is reordered, manipulated, and presented to users in order. The monitoring device can thus report an accurate momentary report of the status of the network environment. When status data is delayed too long, the monitoring device can discard it, or reduce its weighted consideration. The monitoring device adjusts its wait for status data, either as an average or individually per device, attempting to balance accuracy and latency. The monitoring device also records of how much status data it is required to process, in response to the amount it can process reliably, and maintains a sampling rate for status data, somewhere between evaluating all of the status data, and evaluating only a small portion of the status data, when capable, attempting to balance the degree of sampling, against both error and latency.