Method and apparatus for doing electronic asset inventory from backup tapes

• US 20070198609A1
• Filed: 09/27/2005
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BDNA Corporation (Flexera Software LLC)
• Original Assignee: BDNA Corporation (Flexera Software LLC)
• Inventors: Black, Alistair, Thorpe, John
• Granted Patent: US 10,380,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

A system to conduct automatic asset discovery inventory of a company'"'"'s computing assets from backup images stored on a backup system. In more complex embodiments, user interface tools are provided to provide a choice of sources of data from which to conduct said inventory discovery. The user can choose between backup images, the actual computing systems and other nodes on one more networks of a company or third party software. If third party software is chosen, data gathered by the software about the network topology and attributes of systems on the network is gathered and converted to an intermediate data format. This intermediate data format is then converted to a data format understood by said automatic asset discovery system and then fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery system are compared to said data and conclusions drawn about the attributes of the network and systems on it. These conclusions are then stored in a repository along with conclusions drawn from comparison of fingerprints to said backup images and/or said computing systems themselves.

Claims

1. A method of automatically discovering assets on one or more networks connecting computing devices comprising:

executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to compare fingerprints to one or more sources of data so as to conduct an automated inventory of assets;

designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said one or more sources of data are one or more backup disk drive images of one or more computing devices coupled to one or more networks connecting said computing devices and which contain a copy of the file systems and/or directory structures and register entries of said one or more computing devices and wherein said automatic asset discovery program compares said fingerprints against said copies of file systems and/or directory structures and register entries stored on said one or more backup disk drive images.

3. The process of claim 1 further comprising the steps:

designating said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both for a user specified historical point in time; and

using said automatic asset discovery program to compare said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both for said user specified historical point in time to said fingerprints.

4. The process of claim 3 wherein said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made and then, subsequently, incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made, and wherein said step of designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared comprises designating said incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both.

5. The process of claim 3 wherein said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made and then, subsequently, incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made, and wherein said step of designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared comprises designating said incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both as they existed at a particular time so that said automatic inventory creates an inventory of assets as they existed at said particular time.

6. The process of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing user interface tools which can be invoked by a user to designate either said one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both or one or more computing devices coupled to one or more networks as said source of data to compare to said fingerprints.

7. A process for using a computer to automatically discovery the existence and type of assets in an organization, comprising the steps of:

using one or more network fingerprints to determine the existence of one or more networks and gather information about any discovered networks to determine the type and attributes thereof including the valid addresses on each discovered network, and make an entry in element and data tables recording the attributes of each discovered network;

using the valid addresses of each discovered network and one or more network interface card fingerprints, discovering all the network interface cards that exist on each discovered network and the attributes of each and making an entry in said element and data tables for each found network interface card;

for each network interface card found, accessing backup disk drive images and using fingerprints to examine each file system stored on the backup images for the computing systems coupled to each network interface card found, and using said fingerprints to determine the type of operating system installed and the hardware and software configuration of the computer upon which the operating system is installed.

8. A method of automatically discovering assets on one or more networks connecting computing devices, comprising:

A) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer;

B) accessing a backup system which stores backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said computing systems on said one or more networks, and using said automatic asset discovery program to compare data in said backup images to fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery program and draw conclusions therefrom as to the software and/or hardware configuration of at least some of said computing system which has a backup image stored on said backup system.

9. The method of claim.8 wherein step B) is performed by comparing said fingerprints to every backup image of a computing system.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein step B) is performed by comparing operating system fingerprints to all backup images on said backup system to determine which type of operating system is employed on each said computing system, and then only fingerprints pertinent to the particular types of software which can run on the operating system controlling a computing system are compared to data in a backup image of the hard disk of said computing system.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein step B) is performed by importing said backup images from said backup system into said computer on which is running said automatic asset discovery program.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein step B) is performed by comparing operating system fingerprints and computer system identification type fingerprints to all backup images on said backup system to determine which type of operating system is employed on each said computing system and which type of computing system it is, and then using only a set of fingerprints pertinent to the type of operating system and type of computing system to compare against information stored in said backup images.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein step A) further comprises the step of using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and wherein step B) further comprises the step of examining the backup images stored in said backup system to determine if every active computing system found on said one or more networks has a stored backup image.

14. The method of claim 8 wherein step B) further comprises the step of comparing every backup images stored in said backup system against said fingerprints.

15. The process of claim 8 further comprising the steps:

designating said backup images for a user specified historical point in time; and

using said automatic asset discovery program to compare said backup images for said user specified historical point in time to said fingerprints so as to draw conclusions about which computing systems existed on said networks at said user specified historical point in time and the software and/or hardware configuration of said computing systems at said user designated historical point in time.

16. The process of claim 8 wherein step A) further comprises the step of using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and further comprising the step of providing user interface tools which can be invoked by a user to designate either backup images stored on said backup system or the active computing systems coupled to one or more networks discovered in step A) as the source of data to compare to-said fingerprints, and receiving user input as to the desired source of data to compare against said fingerprints, and if backup images are not chosen, accessing said active computing systems on said one or more networks and comparing said fingerprints to at least directory structures stored on hard disks of said active computing systems instead of said backup images to automatically discover assets on said one or more networks.

17. The process of claim 8 wherein step A) further comprises the step of using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and further comprising the step of:

accessing said backup system and determining from said backup images if every active computing system discovered during performance of step A) has a backup image stored on said backup system;

and wherein step B is performed by performing the following steps;

comparing operating system and computing system fingerprints against said backup images to determine which type of computing system and which type of operating system are present in each active computing system discovered during performance of step A); and

comparing against a backup image of an active computing system only fingerprints which are pertinent to the type of operating system and type of computing system present in said active computing system.

18. The process of claim 8 wherein step A) further comprises the step of using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and further comprising the step of:

accessing said backup system and determining from said backup images if every active computing system discovered during performance of step A) has a backup image stored on said backup system;

and wherein step B is performed by performing the following steps;

.

comparing all available fingerprints against all available backup images to automatically discover assets on said one or more networks.

19. The process of claim 8 further comprising the following steps performed after step A and before step B comprising:

A1) presenting user interface tools to a user of said automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of either backup images stored on said backup system of the nonvolatile memories such as hard drives of one or more computing system on said one or more networks or actual computing systems on said one or more networks as the source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said asset discovery program to search directory structures and registry entries to determine the hardware and/or software version of each computing system;

A2) receiving user input designating which source of raw data to compare to said fingerprints;

A3) if said user chooses actual computing systems on said one or more networks as the source of raw data to compare to said fingerprints, skipping step B of claim 8 and performing steps C and D below;

C) accessing each computing system on said one or more networks and comparing one or more of said fingerprints to at least the entries in said directory structure of said computing system to ascertain the operating system and application software and/or hardware which is installed on each computing system;

D) storing the operating system and application software, and versions and configuration of each computing system learned in step C in a repository.

20. A method of doing an inventory to automatically discovering assets on one or more networks connecting computing devices and the hardware and/or software configuration thereof, comprising:

A) presenting user interface tools to a user of an automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said automatic asset discovery program in order to determine hardware and/or software configuration of one or more nodes on a network, said choices including;

backup images of hard disks stored on a backup system;

one or more nodes on a network including actual computing systems;

a combination of backup images and one or more nodes on a network; and

/or one or more third party programs each of which is capable of gathering data of interest;

B) receiving a user choice of a source of data against which said fingerprints will be compared;

C) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to carry out an appropriate search or gathering process to obtain data from the user designated source, said search or gathering process comprising;

1) if actual computing devices and/or nodes on a network are selected as a source of data, using said automatic asset discovery program to compare at least some of said fingerprints to data in said actual computing devices and/or nodes to ascertain the hardware and/or software configuration thereof and recording the configuration so discovered in a repository for every actual computing device and/or node so examined;

2) if backup images are designated as the source of data, accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images; and

3) if one or more third party applications is selected as the source of data, accessing data gathered by said third party application(s) and stored in a repository, and converting said data to an intermediate data format so as to preserve its semantic meaning and then converting said intermediate format data to a predetermined data format of said automatic asset discovery program and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery program to said data in said predetermined data format and drawing conclusions about the attributes of systems from which said data was gathered and storing said conclusions in a repository;

D) presenting user interface tools to allow an operator to indicate if further discovery is needed, and determining if any further discovery is needed from operator inputs and responding thereto by repeating steps A, B, C and D, until said operator indicates no further discovery is desired.

21. The process of claim 20 further comprising the steps:

probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images.

22. A method of doing an inventory to automatically discovering assets on one or more networks connecting computing devices and the hardware and/or software configuration thereof, comprising:

A) probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

B) accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images;

C) presenting user interface tools to a user of an automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said automatic asset discovery program in order to determine hardware and/or software configuration of one or more nodes on a network, said choices including;

backup images of hard disks stored on a backup system, or, one or more nodes on a network including actual computing systems;

D) receiving a user choice of a source of data against which said fingerprints will be compared;

E) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to carry out an appropriate search or gathering process to obtain data from the user designated source, said search or gathering process comprising;

1) if actual computing devices and/or nodes on a network are selected as a source of data, using said automatic asset discovery program to compare at least some of said fingerprints to data in said actual computing devices and/or nodes to ascertain the hardware and/or software configuration thereof and recording the configuration so discovered in a repository for every actual computing device and/or node so examined;

2) if backup images are designated as the source of data, accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images;

F) presenting user interface tools to allow an operator to indicate if further discovery is needed, and determining if any further discovery is needed from operator inputs and responding thereto by repeating steps C, D, E and F until said operator indicates no further discovery is desired.

23. A method of doing an inventory to automatically discovering assets on one or more networks connecting computing devices and the hardware and/or software configuration thereof, comprising:

A) probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

B) accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images;

C) accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images; and

D) if there are more active computing systems than backup images, optionally continuing discovery by comparing at least some of said fingerprints to said active computing system discovered during performance of step A) which do not have backup images.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein step A) is performed by accessing network topology third party software and converting network topology data gathered thereby into a form useable by said automatic asset discovery program if necessary, and wherein step D) performs said continuing discovery and this decision to continue discovery of assets for which there is no backup image is made automatically, and wherein discovery of assets about which third party software has already gathered data is carried out by using data gathered by said third party software.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising an additional step comprising gathering data about assets on said one or more networks and for which there are no fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery program by accessing SNMP enabled software and gathering data collected about said assets therefrom.

26. The method of claim 24 wherein said step of discovery of assets about which third party software has already gathered data is from said third party software is done by the following steps:

gaining access to said third party software'"'"'s data repository;

extracting data gathered about said assets from said data repository;

storing data in each field of said data repository into a field with the same semantic meaning in a table in a common intermediate format used for all third party software gathered data so as to preserve the semantic meaning of the data;

converting said intermediate format data in said table to a format used by said automatic asset discovery program;

comparing fingerprints stored in said automated asset discovery program against said data which has been converted from said intermediate format;

drawing conclusions based upon said comparison and storing said conclusions in a repository.

27. The method of claim 23 wherein step D is performed only if an operator manually designates at least some of the active computing systems which do not have backup images for automated asset discovery.

28. A process comprising:

A) accessing a backup system having backup images of nonvolatile memories of at least some of said computing systems and searching backup images stored thereon using fingerprints to ascertain the software and/or hardware configuration of each computing system whose backup image is stored;

B) storing conclusions regarding software and/or hardware configurations in a repository;

C) determining if additional discovery needs to be performed;

D) if additional discovery is to be performed, accessing one or more active computing systems on said network and searching each system so accessed using fingerprints to ascertain the software and/or hardware configuration thereof, and repeating step D to store the conclusions developed in this step E; and

E) if no additional discovery is to be performed, ending said process.

29. The process of claim 28 further comprising the following steps:

F) probing one or more networks to locate computing systems which are responding to packets addressed to their network addresses; and

G) determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images stored on said backup system; and

wherein step C is performed by comparing a list of active computing systems determined in step F to a list of backup images on said backup system and performing step D if not all active computing systems have backup images or there may be software and/or hardware to be inventoried that cannot be discovered solely from a backup image.

30. The process of claim 29, wherein steps F and G are performed before step A and the type of machine and operating system are determined in step F for each computing system discovered during the probe step and, using that information, only fingerprints appropriate to the operating system and/or machine type are used for the search step A.

31. A computer-readable medium containing computer-readable instructions which can control a computer to perform the following process:

executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to compare fingerprints to one or more sources of data so as to conduct an automated inventory of assets;

designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared.

32. The computer readable medium of claim 31 wherein said one or more sources of data are one or more backup disk drive images of one or more computing devices coupled to one or more networks connecting said computing devices and which contain a copy of the file systems and/or directory structures and register entries of said one or more computing devices, and wherein said computer-readable instructions are further structured to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

comparing said fingerprints against said copies of file systems and/or directory structures and register entries stored on said one or more backup disk drive images.

33. The computer readable medium of claim 31 wherein said computer-readable instructions are further structured to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

designating said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both for a user specified historical point in time; and

using said automatic asset discovery program to compare said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both for said user specified historical point in time to said fingerprints.

34. The computer readable medium of claim 33 wherein said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made and then, subsequently, incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made, and wherein said computer-readable instructions are further structured to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

receiving operator input designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared said operator input designating said incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both, and using said incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drives as the source of data against which to compare said fingerprints.

35. The computer readable medium of claim 33 wherein said data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made and then, subsequently, incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both are made, and wherein said computer-readable instructions are further structured to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

receiving operator input designating as one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both which contain data against which said fingerprints can be compared comprises, said operator input designating said incremental data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both as they existed at a particular time so that said automatic inventory creates an inventory of assets as they existed at said particular time.

36. The computer readable medium of claim 31 wherein said computer-readable instructions are further structured to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

providing user interface tools which can be invoked by a user to designate either said one or more sources of data backup tapes or backup disk drive images or both or one or more computing devices coupled to one or more networks as said source of data to compare to said fingerprints.

37. A computer-readable medium containing computer-readable instructions which can control a computer to perform the following process:

using one or more network fingerprints to determine the existence of one or more networks and gather information about any discovered networks to determine the type and attributes thereof including the valid addresses on each discovered network, and make an entry in element and data tables recording the attributes of each discovered network;

using the valid addresses of each discovered network and one or more network interface card fingerprints, discovering all the network interface cards that exist on each discovered network and the attributes of each and making an entry in said element and data tables for each found network interface card;

for each network interface card found, accessing backup disk drive images and using fingerprints to examine each file system stored on the backup images for the computing systems coupled to each network interface card found, and using said fingerprints to determine the type of operating system installed and the hardware and software configuration of the computer upon which the operating system is installed.

38. A computer-readable medium containing computer-readable instructions which can control a computer to perform the following process:

A) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer;

B) accessing a backup system which stores backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said computing systems on said one or more networks, and using said automatic asset discovery program to compare data in said backup images to fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery program and draw conclusions therefrom as to the software and/or hardware configuration of at least some of said computing system which has a backup image stored on said backup system.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by comparing said fingerprints to every backup image of a computing system.

40. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by comparing operating system fingerprints to all backup images on said backup system to determine which type of operating system is employed on each said computing system, and then only fingerprints pertinent to the particular types of software which can run on the operating system controlling a computing system are compared to data in a backup image of the hard disk of said computing system.

41. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by importing said backup images from said backup system into said computer on which is running said automatic asset discovery program and comparing said imported backup images to said fingerprints.

42. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by comparing operating system fingerprints and computer system identification type fingerprints to all backup images on said backup system to determine which type of operating system is employed on each said computing system and which type of computing system it is, and then using only a set of fingerprints pertinent to the type of operating system and type of computing system to compare against information stored in said backup images.

43. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step A) by using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and wherein step B) further comprises the step of examining the backup images stored in said backup system to determine if every active computing system found on said one or more networks has a stored backup image.

44. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by comparing every backup images stored in said backup system against said fingerprints.

45. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform the following additional steps:

designating said backup images for a user specified historical point in time; and

using said automatic asset discovery program to compare said backup images for said user specified historical point in time to said fingerprints so as to draw conclusions about which computing systems existed on said networks at said user specified historical point in time and the software and/or hardware configuration of said computing systems at said user designated historical point in time.

46. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step A) by performing the following additional steps:

using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks;

providing user interface tools which can be invoked by a user to designate either backup images stored on said backup system or the active computing systems coupled to one or more networks discovered in step A) as the source of data to compare to said fingerprints;

receiving user input as to the desired source of data to compare against said fingerprints, and if backup images are not chosen, accessing said active computing systems on said one or more networks and comparing said fingerprints to at least directory structures stored on hard disks of said active computing systems instead of said backup images to automatically discover assets on said one or more networks.

47. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step A) by performing the following additional steps:

using said automatic asset discovery program to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks;

accessing said backup system and determining from said backup images if every active computing system discovered during performance of step A) has a backup image stored on said backup system;

and further comprising computer-readable instructions which control a computer to perform step B) by performing the following steps;

comparing operating system and computing system fingerprints against said backup images to determine which type of computing system and which type of operating system are present in each active computing system discovered during performance of step A); and

comparing against a backup image of an active computing system only fingerprints which are pertinent to the type of operating system and type of computing system present in said active computing system.

48. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform step A) by performing the following additional steps:

using said automatic asset discovery program or data gathered from third party software to probe one or more networks to determine which addresses on said network have active computing systems associated therewith so as to determine the active computing systems on said one or more networks, and further comprising the step of;

accessing said backup system and determining from said backup images if every active computing system discovered during performance of step A) has a backup image stored on said backup system;

and further comprising computer-readable instructions to control a computer to perform step B) by performing the following steps;

comparing all available fingerprints against all available backup images to automatically discover assets on said one or more networks.

49. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform the following steps after step A) and before step B):

A1) presenting user interface tools to a user of said automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of either backup images stored on said backup system of the nonvolatile memories such as hard drives of one or more computing system on said one or more networks or actual computing systems on said one or more networks as the source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said asset discovery program to search directory structures and registry entries to determine the hardware and/or software version of each computing system;

A2) receiving user input designating which source of raw data to compare to said fingerprints;

A3) if said user chooses actual computing systems on said one or more networks as the source of raw data to compare to said fingerprints, skipping step B of claim 8 and performing steps C and D below;

C) accessing each computing system on said one or more networks and comparing one or more of said fingerprints to at least the entries in said directory structure of said computing system to ascertain the operating system and application software and/or hardware which is installed on each computing system;

D) storing the operating system and application software, and versions and configuration of each computing system learned in step C in a repository.

50. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein said computer-readable instructions further comprise instructions to control a computer to perform the following steps:

A) presenting user interface tools to a user of an automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said automatic asset discovery program in order to determine hardware and/or software configuration of one or more nodes on a network, said choices including;

backup images of hard disks-stored on a backup system;

one or more nodes on a network including actual computing systems;

a combination of backup images and one or more nodes on a network; and

/or one or more third party programs each of which is capable of gathering data of interest;

B) receiving a user choice of a source of data against which said fingerprints will be compared;

C) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to carry out an appropriate search or gathering process to obtain data from the user designated source, said search or gathering process comprising;

1) if actual computing devices and/or nodes on a network are selected as a source of data, using said automatic asset discovery program to compare at least some of said fingerprints to data in said actual computing devices and/or nodes to ascertain the hardware and/or software configuration thereof and recording the configuration so discovered in a repository for every actual computing device and/or node so examined;

2) if backup images are designated as the source of data, accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images; and

3) if one or more third party applications is selected as the source of data, accessing data gathered by said third party application(s) and stored in a repository, and converting said data to an intermediate data format so as to preserve its semantic meaning and then converting said intermediate format data to a predetermined data format of said automatic asset discovery program and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in said automatic asset discovery program to said data in said predetermined data format and drawing conclusions about the attributes of systems from which said data was gathered and storing said conclusions in a repository;

D) presenting user interface tools to allow an operator to indicate if further discovery is needed, and determining if any further discovery is needed from operator inputs and responding thereto by repeating steps A, B, C and D, until said operator indicates no further discovery is desired.

51. The computer-readable medium of claim 50 storing further computer-readable instructions which, when executed by a computer cause said computer to perform the following steps:

probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images.

52. The computer-readable medium of claim 50 storing further computer-readable instructions which, when executed by a computer cause said computer to perform the following steps:

A) probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

B) accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images;

C) presenting user interface tools to a user of an automatic asset discovery program that provides a choice of source of data to be compared to fingerprints used by said automatic asset discovery program in order to determine hardware and/or software configuration of one or more nodes on a network, said choices including;

backup images of hard disks stored on a backup system, or, one or more nodes on a network including actual computing systems;

D) receiving a user choice of a source of data against which said fingerprints will be compared;

E) executing an automatic asset discovery program on a computer to carry out an appropriate search or gathering process to obtain data from the user designated source, said search or gathering process comprising;

1) if actual computing devices and/or nodes on a network are selected as a source of data, using said automatic asset discovery program to compare at least some of said fingerprints to data in said actual computing devices and/or nodes to ascertain the hardware and/or software configuration thereof and recording the configuration so discovered in a repository for every actual computing device and/or node so examined;

2) if backup images are designated as the source of data, accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images;

F) presenting user interface tools to allow an operator to indicate if further discovery is needed, and determining if any further discovery is needed from operator inputs and responding thereto by repeating steps C, D, E and F until said operator indicates no further discovery is desired.

53. A computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause said computer to perform the following steps:

A) probing one or more networks to determine active computing systems thereon;

B) accessing a backup system storing backup images of the hard disks of at least some of said active computing systems on said one or more networks and determining if there are more active computing systems than there are backup images and creating a list of which active computing systems do not have backup images;

C) accessing said backup system and comparing at least some of said fingerprints stored in an automatic asset discovery program to data in backup images; and

D) if there are more active computing systems than backup images, optionally continuing discovery by comparing at least some of said fingerprints to said active computing system discovered during performance of step A) which do not have backup images.