Abstract: In a business network environment, each workstation or information access point (IAP) has installed thereon a quality of service (QoS) module to monitor the IAP's performance. The QoS module declares exceptions when it perceives that one or more of a predetermined plurality of functions or conditions of the computer has entered into a state indicative of degraded performance. At the time that an exception is declared, a snapshot is taken of the software applications running on the IAP, the amount of resources that they are using, and presence or absence of the user. As used in calculating a QoS index representative of the operational state of the IAP, exceptions are weighted to take into account the relative importance of these exceptions and the users which they affect. Because the QoS indices are time-normalized, they may be aggregated or compared across the network by an IT administrator.