Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed herein for retrieving network traffic data. In one embodiment, a networking apparatus comprises a memory; a network device; and a processing unit coupled to the network device and the memory. The processing unit is operable to execute a data engine that performs bulk data transfers from the network device periodically into a data buffer in the memory and translates data received from the network device, based on a mapping definition, into a user defined format for export to one or more applications running on networking apparatus.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for collecting a snapshot of the statistics of a computer network. The devices of the network that provide the statistics synchronize their clocks to a time source. The statistics collector can request the devices to read their counters at a specified time. The counter values are stored and time-stamped on the devices. The statistics collector can later retrieve the stored counter values from the devices and correlate the statistics by the time-stamps.