Asset management via virtual tunnels

• US 9,521,121 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2015
• Issued: 12/13/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lantronix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Lantronix Incorporated
• Inventors: Miller, Daryl R., Wagstaff, David L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Algibhah, Hamza
• Application Number:
  US14/936,943
• Publication Number:
  US 20160173449A1
• Time in Patent Office: 399 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 configured to acquire data representative of a status of one or more assets, comprising:

a plurality of asset monitoring devices located behind firewalls under control of different third party entities, each monitoring device configured to sense an asset status of an asset;

a device server configured to establish a communication session with a management engine, the communication session comprising;

a forwarding service implemented on a network server, configured to instantiate a virtual tunnel comprising an asset-side network address, a management-side network address, and a communication channel between the addresses,

receiving asset status messages that are load balanced based on content of the messages from the plurality of asset monitoring devices through the firewalls and addressed to an asset-side network address,

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

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

compare data within a plurality of aggregated messages to alert criteria so as to determine if one or more alerts should be generated and sent to a management interface;

the alert criteria being stored within an alert database.

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 asset monitor device comprises a device server.

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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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).

9. 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.

10. The system of claim 9, 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.

11. 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.

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

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

14. 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.

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