Network metric reporting system

• US 9,491,077 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2007
• Issued: 11/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ahlers, Tim, Mooney, Steve, Owens, John-Anthony, Vandenberg, Greg, O'Leary, Myk, Averbuch, Aaron, Wilson, Jeremy, Younger, Lauren
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Viet
• Assistant Examiner(s): BELCHER, HERMAN A
• Application Number:
  US11/867,670
• Publication Number:
  US 20090019147A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,323 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 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, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes application information relating to software applications run by the first computer device and network information relating to a network in which the first computer device is a member, wherein the application information includes an amount of data downloaded from a website by at least one of the software applications and for each top-level or sub-content page request, a number of bytes downloaded by each top-level or sub-content page request, wherein the network information includes byte traffic across the network, wherein the first device information collection module is further configured to determine if the website is a user-requested website page and if the website page has been previously requested;

an information transmission module configured to transmit collected information to an electronic device remote from the first computer device, wherein the electronic device is a gateway; and

a reporting tool configured to associate the first computer device with a code and provide the code to the first computer device, wherein the reporting tool is 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, wherein the generated report includes information about the website, wherein the first computer device is configured to detect a network to which the first computer device is attached, wherein the first computer device is further configured to query a plurality of devices in the network for their respective Internet protocol (IP) addresses and to query any locally connected devices, and wherein the first computer device is configured to monitor a status of at least some of the devices that it has identified as being attached to the network, wherein the information reporting module is configured to access a third-party data set and generate the report based on the data set.

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 application information includes total time of use of at least one of the software applications.

5. The monitoring system recited in claim 1, 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

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

10. 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.

14. The monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the information about the website includes a trustworthiness rating for the website.

11. A method, comprising:

collecting, from a remote network by a first computer device, information characterizing a metric associated with the remote network, wherein the information collected by the first device information collection module includes application information relating to software applications run by the first computer device and network information relating to a network in which the first computer device is a member, wherein the application information includes an amount of data downloaded from a website by at least one of the software applications, for each top-level or sub-content page request, a number of bytes downloaded by each top-level or sub-content page request, wherein the network information includes byte traffic across the network, wherein the information includes data used to determine if the website is a user-requested website page and if the website page has been previously requested;

automatically preparing a report describing the metric, wherein the report includes information about the website; and

automatically providing the report to a user, wherein the first computer device is configured to detect, identify, and name the remote network to which the first computer device is attached, and wherein the first computer device is further configured to query a plurality of devices in the remote network for their respective Internet protocol (IP) addresses, and to query any locally connected devices, wherein the first computer device is configured to monitor a status of at least some of the devices that it has identified as being attached to the remote network, wherein an information reporting module is configured to access a third-party data set and generate the report based on the data set.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein collecting information comprises providing to the remote network a network management tool executable on at least one electronic device of the remote network.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein preparing a report comprises accessing a third-party data set.

15. A method comprising:

collecting information relating to a plurality of electronic devices coupled to a local network, wherein the information collected includes application information relating to software applications run by each of the electronic devices, network information relating to a network in which each of the electronic devices is a member, and websites accessed by each electronic device; and

generating a report based on the collected information, wherein the report includes the application information and for each website accessed by each electronic device, the report includes a common name identifier for a specific electronic device that accessed each website, an amount of data downloaded from each website, for each top-level or sub-content page request, a number of bytes downloaded by each top-level or sub-content page request, an amount of time spend on each website, byte traffic across the local network, information about each website, if the website page has been previously requested, and a trustworthiness rating for each website, wherein the report is generated by an information reporting module and the information reporting module is configured to access a third-party data set and generate the report based on the data set.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the information collected further includes data to determine if the website is a user-requested website page.