The present invention provides a method and apparatus for internal network
device dynamic health monitoring. To increase network device
availability, internal network device evaluations of resource attributes
are conducted against threshold expressions and network managers are
notified of any threshold events to allow them to address issues before
failures occur. Flexibility is added by allowing users to select between
various predefined threshold expressions, and flexibility is further
increased by allowing users to input new threshold expressions. The user
provided threshold expressions are dynamically incorporated into the
network device's threshold evaluations while the network device is
running. Thus, network managers may change threshold expressions at any
time in accordance with their needs. The types of threshold expressions
that may be used are practically limitless and may include any operand
and multiple variables, including the time of day. In addition, multiple
threshold expressions may be cascaded together. Network managers may be
notified of threshold events in multiple manners as well. Moreover, the
types of resource attributes that may be evaluated is extended by
assigning unique identifiers to network device resources and allowing
threshold evaluations for any identifiable resource and associated
attributes.