NETWORK METRIC REPORTING SYSTEM

• US 20090019147A1
• Filed: 10/04/2007
• Published: 01/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Pure Networks, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: O'Leary, Myk, Averbuch, Aaron, Wilson, Jeremy, Ahlers, Tim, Mooney, Steve, Owens, John-Anthony, Younger, Lauren, Vandenberg, Greg
• Granted Patent: US 9,491,077 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

A tool for monitoring the use of devices in an interconnected network. Desired network information, such as the use of browsers on the networked devices, the use of other applications hosted on the networked devices, and the speed and volume of data traffic to and within the network, may be collected by one or more network management tools operating within the network, and then provided to an outside reporting server. In response, the reporting server then organizes and reports the collected information to one or more authorized parties associated with the network. The reporting server may send the collected network information directly to the authorized parties via electronic mail, or provide access to the collected network information by posting it on a secured Web site.

Claims

1. A monitoring system, comprising:

(a) a first network management tool executable on a first computer device and comprising;

a first device information collection module configured to collect information relating to the first computer device, and

an information transmission module configured to transmit collected information to an electronic device remote from the first computer device; and

(b) a reporting tool executable on a server computing device and comprising;

an information receiving module configured to receive the collected information, and

an information reporting module configured to generate a report based on the collected information.

2. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, further comprising:

a second network management tool executable on a second computer device and comprising;

a second device information collection module configured to collect information relating to the second computer device, and

an information sharing module configured to share the information relating to the second computer device with the first computer device; and

wherein the first network management tool further includes a synchronization module configured to receive the information collected by the first device information collection module, receive the information collected by the second device information collection module, synchronize the information collected by the first device information collection module with the information collected by the second device information collection module, and provide the synchronized collected information to the information transmission module.

3. The monitoring system recited in claim 2, wherein the first computer device and the second computer device are members of a network.

4. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes application information relating to software applications run by the first computer device.

5. The monitoring system recited in claim 4, wherein the application information includes total time of use of at least one of the software applications.

6. The monitoring system recited in claim 4, wherein the first device information collection module is configured to determine, for at least one of the software applications having a first identifying name, a second identifying name.

7. The monitoring system recited in claim 4, wherein the application information includes amount of data downloaded from a website by at least one of the software applications.

8. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes peripheral information relating to peripheral devices connected to the first computer device.

9. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes network information relating to a network in which the first computer device is a member.

10. The monitoring system recited in claim 9, wherein the network information includes byte traffic across the network.

11. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes configuration information relating to a configuration of the first computer device.

12. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information transmission module is configured to transmit collected information to the server computing device using extensible markup language files.

13. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information reporting module is configured to provide the report to a user via electronic mail.

14. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information reporting module is configured to provide the report to a user via a web page accessible by the user.

15. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the information reporting module is configured to access a third-party data set, and generate the report based on the data set.

16. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, wherein the reporting tool is configured to associate the first computer device with a code and provide the code to the first computer device.

17. A method, comprising the steps of:

collecting from a remote network information characterizing a metric associated with the remote network;

automatically preparing a report describing the metric; and

automatically providing the report to a user.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein collecting information comprises providing to the remote network a network management tool executable on at least one electronic device of the remote network.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein preparing a report comprises accessing a third-party data set.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein providing the report comprises providing the report to the user via a web page accessible by the user.