EP1410138A2

Method and apparatus for remote network management

Abstract

A system and method is provided for remote administration and management of a computer network, by installation of distributed software agents in remote network components, such as software agents implemented using encapsulated reusable interfaces such as COM or CORBA interfaces. Remote network management is effected by communication with the distributed agents using a structured language-independent parsable text document, such as a markup language; e.g. XML.

Term

Term ended

Projected expiry passed 26 October 2021, 4.9 years ago.

  1. Priority
  2. Filed
  3. Published
  4. Projected expiry
  5. Today

17 claims: 6 independent, 11 dependent

  1. 1
    Claims of equivalent WO 0235315 A2 What is claimed is:1. A computerized method of monitoring and administering remote computer resources, the method comprising: the installation of remote software agents which may access background processes of remote computer resources;the composition of a markup language structured document which may provide structured data to a remote software agent;return of an automatically-generated markup language structured document containing desired data regarding network attributes.
  2. 4
    A method of administration of remote networked computing resources, the resources having an operating system running background processes, comprising the steps of retrieving via a structured markup document one or more particular subsets of available managed service properties or statistics specified by remote administrative client;configuring, via a structured markup document transmitted to a remote administrative client, background processes ofthe resources.
  3. 7
    A computerized method for the secure remote management of distributed computer network comprising the steps of:providing a remote distributed agent resident on remote networked computers capable of monitoring and controlling operating system background processes, including dormant processes;providing access to the remote distributed agent a utility for the processing and interpretation of programming language-independent parsable text documents;composing via a programming language-independent parsable text document inquiries regarding network resources and background processes properties and status;transmitting the text document via a secure transmission path to a remote distributed agent;receiving via a secure transmission path from the remote agent a programming language-independent parsable text document containing data regarding network status;transmitting to a remote agent via a secure transmission path, a language- independent parsable text document containing instructions to the remote agent for network administration functions for execution.
  4. 12
    A remotely administered computerized network, comprising:distributed computing resources comprising multiple computing and peripheral devices, said resources being interconnected by communications links;an operating system;distributed software agents resident on the remote devices, said agents using specified interface objects, said agents having access to and control over background processes ofthe network, and being capable of receiving and transmitting network administration data via structured markup documents.
  5. 13
    The method of 12, wherein the markup documents are implemented in a derivative of SGML.
  6. 14
    The method of 13, wherein the markup documents are implemented in XML.