A System and Method for Dynamically Grouping Devices Based on Present Device Conditions

• US 20080082657A1
• Filed: 10/03/2006
• Published: 04/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PTC Inc.
• Original Assignee: Questra Corporation (PTC Inc.)
• Inventors: Taylor, John L., Hart, David P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,479 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A method to dynamically group devices based on device information, which is associated with a system for monitoring the device information that communicates information between a device and an enterprise. Information is collected from a device information source to obtain an actual status of a device. The actual status of the device is compared to a stored status of the device. The stored status is stored on a server of the enterprise. The enterprise determines if the actual status has been changed from the stored status. When a change is detected, the method performs at least one of the acts of automatically disassociating the device from a group that reflects the stored status and automatically associating the device with a new group to reflect the actual status.

Claims

1. In a system for monitoring device information that communicates information between a device and an enterprise, a method for dynamically grouping the devices, the method comprising:

collecting information from a device information source to obtain an actual status of a device;

comparing the actual status of the device to a stored status of the device, the stored status being stored in a database of the enterprise;

determining, in the enterprise, if the actual status has been changed from the stored status; and

when a change is detected, performing at least one of automatically disassociating the device from a group that reflects the stored status and automatically associating the device with a new group to reflect the actual status.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of determining if a group exists in the enterprise for the actual status of the device when the status has been modified, and if not, creating a new group in the enterprise for the actual status.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of establishing at least one dynamic group rule based on a condition of the device and associating the device with a group in the enterprise.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising a step of manually initiating the evaluation of the collected information to check if the condition of the devices matches the rule.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising a step of sending a notification to a group when the condition of the device matches the rule.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of changing a dynamic rule to trigger automatic disassociation of the device from a group.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of automatically disassociating the device from the group that reflects the stored status further comprises checking whether the group for the stored status is empty after the device is disassociated from the group, and if the group is empty, automatically deleting the group from the enterprise.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of disassociating group-based business logic from the group when the device is automatically disassociated from the group and associating group-based business logic to the new group when the device is automatically associated with the new group.

9. In a system for monitoring device information that communicates information between a device and an enterprise, a method for dynamically grouping the devices, the method comprising:

installing at least one of a new software and hardware to the device;

collecting information from a device information source to obtain an actual status of the device; and

automatically associating the device with a group to link the device to a defined rule.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising a step of determining if the group exists in the enterprise for the actual status of the device, and if not, creating a new group in the enterprise for the actual status.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising a step of establishing at least one rule based on a condition of the device and associating the rule with a group in the enterprise.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising a step of evaluating the collected information to check if the condition of the device matches the rule.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising a step of sending a notification to a group when the condition of the device matches the rule.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising a step of associating group-based business logic to the group when the device is automatically associated with the group.

15. A system for dynamically grouping devices associated with a monitor agent that monitors a device, the system comprising:

a server that communicates with the device, the device being configured to collect information to obtain an actual status of the device; and

an enterprise configured to compare the actual status of the device to collected information previously stored on the device and to determine whether the actual status has changed from the stored status, when the actual status is changed, the enterprise is configured to perform at least one of automatically disassociating the device from a group that reflects the stored status and automatically associating the device with a new group to reflect the actual status.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the enterprise is configured to determine if a group exists for the actual status of the device when the status has been modified, and if not, creates a new group for the actual status.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the enterprise is configured to establish at least one rule based on a condition of the device and to associate the rule with a group.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the enterprise is configured to evaluate the collected information to check if the condition of the device matches the rule.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the enterprise is configured to send a notification to a group when the condition of the device matches the rule.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein after the device is automatically disassociated from the group reflecting the stored status, the enterprise is configured to check whether the group for the stored status is empty after the device is disassociated from the group, and if the group is empty, to automatically delete the group from the enterprise.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein the enterprise is configured to disassociate group-based business logic from the group when the device is automatically disassociated from the group and associate group based business logic to the new group when the device is automatically associated with the new group.