Another way to decrease accounting messaging related to overhead is to include only ‟active” objects in a periodical reporting. An ‟active object” in this context is an object which has seen a ‟significant” change in corresponding counters. A significant change is defined in terms of a cumulative value (the sum of all reference counters).
This concept is applicable to all methods used for gathering accounting information, such as an XML file and RADIUS, as well as to all applications using accounting, such as service-acct, ESM-acct, and Application Assurance.
Accounting records are reported at the periodical intervals. This periodic reporting is extended with an internal filter which omits periodical updates for objects whose counter change experienced lower changes than a defined (configurable) threshold.
Specific to RADIUS accounting the significant-change command does not affect ACCT-STOP messages. ACCT-STOP messages are always sent, regardless the amount of change of the corresponding host.
For Application Assurance records, a significant change of 1 in any field of a customized record (send a record if any field changed) is supported. When configured, if any statistic field records activity, an accounting record containing all fields is collected.