METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATED SERVICE ADMINISTRATION VIA A DIRECTORY SERVICE

• US 20020194171A1
• Filed: 03/02/1999
• Published: 12/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: HARJANTO, ANDY, JUDD, STEVEN G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,076,476 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

A system and method of network administration uniformly exposes the administrative interfaces of network services to facilitate network administration. Each service has published, in a network directory service, an object comprising information relevant to the service. An administrative tool is able to harvest information from the object and use it to automatically invoke a service-specific tool. The service-specific tool is able to locate and communicate with the service by using information passed to the service-specific tool from the administrative tool.

Claims

1. For use in a computer network, a method for invoking a service-specific administrative tool adapted for administering a service installed on a network computer, the method comprising the steps of:

querying a directory service to retrieve an object corresponding to the service, the object containing information representative of the service, and;

using at least some of the information to automatically invoke the service-specific administrative tool.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the information representative of the service comprises:

information which identifies the service by one or more characteristics selected from the group consisting of the name, type, location, and description of the service, and

information usable to locate a service-specific administrative tool adapted to administer the service.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the information representative of the service further comprises a binding information property which identifies at least the location of the service of interest and the manner of communication between the service-specific administrative tool and the service.

5. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of indirectly administering the service using a generalized management program.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising the step of:

causing the generalized management program to invoke an interface program usable to pass at least some of the information contained in the object corresponding to the service from the generalized management program to the service-specific administrative tool.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising the steps of:

querying the object corresponding to the service to determine whether the object supports the interface program; and

using the object'"'"'s ability to support the interface program to determine the ability of the service to be managed by a service-specific tool.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer network is a local area network.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer network is a wide area network.

2. A computer readable medium for invoking a service-specific administrative tool adapted for administering a service installed on a network computer, the computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for performing the steps of:

querying a directory service to retrieve an object corresponding to the service, the object containing information representative of the service, and;

using the information to automatically invoke the service-specific administrative tool.

10. For use in administering a service through a generalized management console which invokes a service-specific tool, a computer readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for performing the steps of:

receiving from the generalized management console information usable by the service-specific tool to communicate with the service; and

passing the received information to the service-specific tool.

11. For use in a computer network, a method of administering a service, comprising the steps of:

querying a directory service for objects representative of services matching search criteria;

selecting a service from a list of results generated in response to the query, the list containing at least one result;

retrieving an object corresponding to the selected service from the directory service, the object comprising information representative of the selected service;

reading at least some of the information in the object;

using a first portion of the read information to automatically invoke a service-specific administrative tool adapted to administer the service;

passing a second portion of the read information to the service-specific administrative tool; and

using at least some of the second portion of the read information passed to the service-specific administrative tool to bind the service-specific administrative tool to the selected service.

13. The administrative tool according to claim 12, wherein the information representative of the service comprises:

information which identifies the service by one or more characteristics selected from the group consisting of the name, type, location, and description of the service, and

information usable to locate the service-specific administrative tool.

14. The administrative tool according to claim 13, wherein the information representative of the service further comprises a binding information property which identifies at least the location of the service of interest and the manner of communication between the service-specific administrative tool and the service.

15. The administrative tool according to claim 12, further comprising an interface usable to pass at least some of the information contained in the service object from the generalized tool to the service-specific tool.

16. The administrative tool according to claim 15, wherein the generalized tool queries the service object to determine whether it supports the interface, and uses the ability of the object to support the interface to determine the ability of the service to be managed by a service specific tool.

17. The administrative tool according to claim 12, wherein the computer network is a local area network.

18. The administrative tool according to claim 12, wherein the computer network is a wide area network.

12. A management tool for use in managing a service in a computer network comprising:

a service object containing information representative of the service;

a directory service in which the object is published;

a generalized tool adapted to query the directory service and to obtain the information representative of the service; and

a service-specific tool in communication with the generalized tool adapted to receive the information representative of the service and to use the information representative of the service to administer the service.