The status updates, which are acquired from IP Availability Manager and from periodic monitoring, serve as input to the data model in the Network Protocol Manager for BGP repository. Network Protocol Manager for BGP applies the status updates to the appropriate attributes of the corresponding BGP objects in the data model.

The data model involves a codebook that is created by VMware engineers as a result of their knowledge of IP and BGP networks. The codebook identifies IP and BGP problems and their symptoms, and presents a causality mapping between each problem and its set of symptoms.

Network Protocol Manager for BGP diagnoses root-cause availability problems by finding the problems in the code book that can best explain the observed symptoms. It also uses the code book to correlate the impact of a root-cause problem on the BGP objects that are either inaccessible or impaired as a result of the root-cause problem. The root-cause problem is either a physical-transport problem that is diagnosed by IP Availability Manager or a BGP problem that is diagnosed by Network Protocol Manager for BGP.