System and method for monitoring and managing system assets and asset configurations

• US 6,973,491 B1
• Filed: 08/09/2000
• Issued: 12/06/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Staveley, Marc, Kemp, Dean
• Primary Examiner(s): Cuchlinski, Jr., William A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): MESFIN, YEMANE
• Application Number:
  US09/635,823
• Time in Patent Office: 1,945 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/202
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/566 Grouping or aggregating service requests, e.g. for unified processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A system and method for monitoring the configuration and/or status of target devices on a network. The system comprises a monitoring application that can be run on a first network device. The monitoring application is configured to monitor one or more target devices on the network using data collector modules that run on the target devices. The data collector modules are launched on the target devices by the monitoring application and are configured to collect configuration and/or status information about the target devices. After collecting the data, the data collector modules preferably pass the data back to the first network device, where a data upload application receives the data and uploads it to a central site. The data at the central site is placed in a database for access by users or clients. Users can access the data in the database by communicating with the central site, for example, via a dial-up connection or via the Internet. Once connected to the central site, a user can retrieve system information using a graphical user interface, or can submit report requests to the central site. The interface used to access information at the central site may be a web browser communicating through a web server at the central site.

Claims

1. In a network of devices, a method for monitoring the configuration and/or status of said devices, comprising the steps of:

launching a device monitoring tool on at least one of said devices on said network;

said monitoring tool launching one or more data collectors on one or more target devices, said target devices being the devices on the network that are to be monitored;

said data collectors collecting status and configuration data about target devices and passing said data back to said monitoring tool;

said monitoring tool uploading said data to a central site, wherein the uploading comprises splitting the data into multiple data chunks and transmitting the data chunks separately to the central site, the transmitting comprising transferring each of the data chunks over a link in the network between the at least one of said devices and the central site according to a transfer protocol wherein each of the data chunks may be subject to packetization;

at the central site, merging the data chunks to create a data file; and

at said central site, loading said data file into a database;

wherein the monitoring tool is further adapted for listening to a storage location at the at least one of the devices to determine if the storage location has an available data file comprising at least a portion of said data from the data collectors and when determined available, initiating the unloading of said available data file to the central site.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of accessing said database to obtain information about said target devices.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein said step of accessing said database comprises the steps of:

using a web browser, sending a request for information to said central site via the Internet;

at said central site, issuing a command to the database to retrieve the requested information; and

sending the retrieved information back to the web browser via the Internet.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the step of formatting the retrieved information into a report format prior to the step of sending the retrieved information back.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of accessing a configuration file to determine which data collectors are to be run on which target devices.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

said monitoring tool communicating with the central site to determine if newer releases of the monitoring tool or the data collectors exist, or to determine if there are additional data collectors; and

if newer releases exist or if there are additional data collectors, downloading the newer releases or additional data collectors from the central site.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of:

prior to launching the one or more data collectors on the one or more target devices, starting a remote analysis program on the one or more target devices, the remote analysis program for monitoring and managing the execution of the data collectors on the one or more target devices.

18. The method of claim 5, wherein the configuration file defines a size of the data chunks.

8. A system for monitoring the configuration and/or status of devices on a network, comprising:

a monitoring application to be run on a first device on the network, said monitoring application being configured to coordinate the monitoring of one or more target devices on the network;

data collector modules to be run on the one or more target devices, the data collector modules being configured to collect configuration and/or status data about said target devices, said data collector modules being launched on said one or more target devices by said monitoring application and said monitoring application accessing a configuration file to determine which of the data collector modules to run on which ones of the target devices; and

an upload application to be run on said first device, said upload application being configured to receive said data from said data collector modules and upload the data to a central site,

wherein the upload application listens to a storage location at the first device to determine if the storage location has an available data file comprising at least a portion of said data from said data collector modules and when determined available, initiating the uploading of the data to the central site.

9. The system as recited in claim 8, further comprising a remote analysis application to be run on said one or more target devices, said remote analysis application being started on said one more target devices by said monitoring application, said remote analysis application being configured to monitor and manage the execution of the data collectors on said one or more target devices.

10. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein said data is stored at said first location, and wherein said first location comprises a graphical user interface for viewing said data.

11. The system as recited in claim 8, further comprising means for accessing said data at said central site.

12. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein said monitoring application is configured to communicate with the central site to determine if a newer release of the system is available, and if a newer release of the system is available, said monitoring application being configured to download and install the newer release of the system.

13. A method for monitoring a set of information for a plurality of computer devices linked to a digital communications network, comprising:

starting a data collection tool on a one of the network devices;

retrieving a configuration file with the data collection tool;

using the configuration file to identify a set of the network devices to be monitored;

running one or more data collectors on the identified network devices, each of the data collectors collecting differing sets of information for a corresponding one of the identified network devices;

transmitting the collected set of information from the identified network devices to the data collection tool on the one of the network devices; and

operating an upload tool on the one of the network devices to listen to a storage location at the one of the network devices to determine if the storage location has an available data file comprising at least a portion of the collected set of information and when determined available, uploading the available data file to a central site over a communications network.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the configuration file comprises a listing of the data collectors to be run on each of the identified network devices.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the configuration file comprises a listing of the differing sets of the information to be included in the passed collected set of information.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the using of the configuration file to identify the network devices to be monitored comprises obtaining a list of remote hosts names from a name service.

17. The method of claim 16, further wherein the using of the configuration file comprises applying filter rules to the list of remote hosts names and including only the remote host names in the list that comply with the filter rules in the identified network devices.