COLLECTING AND PREDICTING CAPACITY INFORMATION FOR COMPOSITE NETWORK RESOURCE FORMED BY COMBINING PORTS OF AN ACCESS SERVER AND/OR LINKS OF WIDE AREAR NETWORK

A method of displaying capacity information relating to computer resources over a preselected period of time. The computer resource is connected to a communications network and the method includes collecting data relating to capacity of the resource by periodically sampling preselected resource elements at a preselected fixed interval to define a capacity variable for that resource. The periodic sampling takes place from a location on the network that is remote from the computer resource and over a period of time for the resource element. The capacity variable of the resource element is compared with capacity variable(s) collected immediately prior to said capacity variable. The capacity variable is stored, together with an associated timestamp, if said capacity variable falls outside a preselected margin of the average of the prior capacity variables. For each resource, the combined preselected capacity values of each preselected resource element are displayed in graphical and tabular form in reference to the total capacity of the preselected resource.