A method and apparatus are provided for monitoring resource utilization within a connection oriented switch. An operator defines a utilization threshold in terms of percentage of maximum capacity, and a connection resource tracker determines whether utilization of specified resources within the switch have exceeded this threshold. The switch then either sends a report to the operator identifying all such resources, or generates an alarm, revealing sources of congestion within the switch without requiring the operator to manually query each resource. The method and apparatus can alternatively be used to monitor for underutilization of resources. The method and apparatus allow rapid diagnostic and simplified monitoring of connection oriented switches.