Asset management via virtual tunnels

• US 9,104,993 B2
• Filed: 04/27/2012
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lantronix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Lantronix Incorporated
• Inventors: Miller, Daryl, Wagstaff, David
• Primary Examiner(s): ALGIBHAH, HAMZA N
• Application Number:
  US13/457,930
• Publication Number:
  US 20120278479A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,201 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/029 Firewall traversal, e.g. tunnelling or, creating pinholes

Abstract

An asset management system is presented. The management system includes monitoring devices able to provide asset data across firewalls without requiring reconfiguration of the firewalls. The asset data pass through a forwarding service that instantiates a virtual tunnel comprising a communication channel between the monitoring devices and remote asset management engines. The asset management engines can also be located behind firewalls. As the management engines aggregate asset data, the engines can present one or more alerts via a management interface.

Claims

1. An asset management system comprising:

a plurality of asset monitoring devices located behind a plurality of firewalls under control by a plurality of third party entities, each monitoring device of the plurality of asset monitoring devices configured to sense a status of an asset, and the plurality of asset monitoring devices comprising at least one hardware/software module configured to acquire data representative of the status of the asset, whereby the plurality of asset monitoring devices are coupled with at least one sensor to acquire sensor data, and each monitoring device of the plurality of asset monitoring devices comprising a device server;

a network based forwarding service configured to;

instantiate a virtual tunnel comprising an asset-side network address, a management-side network address, and a communication channel between the the asset-side network address and the management-side network address,

receive a plurality of asset status messages from the plurality of asset monitoring devices through the plurality of firewalls and addressed to a asset-side network address, the asset status message representative of the sensed asset status, and

forward the asset status messages to a management engine network address via a virtual tunnel and from the management-side network address according to routing information associated with the asset status messages; and

an asset management engine responsive to the management engine network address and configured to;

aggregate asset status messages, at least some asset status messages received from the forwarding service, and

generate an alert as a function of the aggregated asset status messages, and transmit the alert to a management interface.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset status messages reflect a status of at least one of the following:

a fuel, a food stuff, a resource, a temperature, and a piece of equipment.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the forwarding service comprises a cloud-based service.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset-side network address comprises at least one of the following:

a fixed network address, a URL, and a domain.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the management-side network address comprises at least one of the following:

a fixed network address, a URL, and a domain.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset monitoring device lacks a requirement to alter the firewall behavior to transmit the asset status message to the asset-side network address.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein asset status message communications between the asset monitoring device and the management engine via the forwarding services lacks a requirement for a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising asset transports configured to submit asset status messages to the asset management engine wherein the asset status messages are representative of a mobile asset local to the asset transport.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the mobile asset status comprises at least one of the following types of data:

a location, a position, a heading, a quantity, and a cost.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset status messages comprise at least one of the follow types of data:

competitor data, cost data, inventory data, account data, and alert data.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the management interface comprises a web interface.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the management interface comprises an API.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the management interface comprises at least one of the following:

a cell phone, a computer, a tablet, an application, and a voice-based interface.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset management engine comprises the forwarding service.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual tunnel comprises a bi-directional data exchange channel between the management engine and the asset monitoring device.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual tunnel comprises a secured tunnel.

17. The system of claim 1, the forwarding service is configured to manage a plurality of distinct virtual tunnel objects, each object representative of a separately managed virtual tunnel.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the forwarding services is configured to provide access to the virtual tunnel objects in exchange for a fee.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the asset monitoring devices are geographically distributed.