Internet enabled computer system management

• US 6,779,029 B2
• Filed: 08/21/2001
• Issued: 08/17/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Singh, Jitendra K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Application Number:
  US09/934,398
• Publication Number:
  US 20020023154A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,092 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/220, 709/221, 709/222, 709/203, 709/219, 718/105
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/026 using e-messaging for transporting management information, e.g. email, instant messaging or chat
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0843 based on generic templates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0869 Validating the configuration within one network element
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0879 Manual configuration through operator
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

Methods for using the Internet to create applications that perform many of the functions now performed by management platforms and third party add-on tools in a much simpler manner are described herein. The applications are easier to use by novices than known tools and lower the overall cost of system management. Using known system components, the system'"'"'s configuration can be viewed or changed over the Internet using an HTML document to list and display the managed systems, together with icons that represent the state of the managed systems. By using “active controls” or Java scripts, the state of the managed systems can be dynamically updated by changing the color of associated icons or the displayed text. Using embedded commands or identifiers within template documents, a program can be created to automatically acquire needed system information. In another embodiment, an HTML CGI document containing desired system information and a reference link back to the system at the manufacturer'"'"'s selected site is created, allowing the manufacturer'"'"'s system to retrieve this system information automatically. The system information is then analyzed against a list of currently valid system configurations to detect potential problems. In turn, if potential problems are detected, the information is sent back to the managed system automatically.

Claims

1. In a computing environment comprised of at least one managed system and at least one client system which manages the managed system, each of the client and managed systems being capable of communicating with each other over the Internet, a method for configuration management comprising the steps of:

(a) creating a web browser list of managed systems in the form of a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) page;

(b) selecting by a user from the web browser list a managed system of interest;

(c) invoking a program to obtain parameters about the managed system of interest;

(d) creating a document from a template document using the program to insert the obtained parameters about the managed system of interest; and

(e) returning the document to the user.

2. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (a) the web browser list contains a list of system names linked to uniform resource locations that point uniquely to the program.

3. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (c) the program being one of the following:

a common gateway interface script program; and

a internet server application programming interface script program.

4. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (c) the script program invoked in response to an action by the user.

5. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (a) the web browser list is automatically generated by a program using an auto-discovery algorithm.

6. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (a) the web browser list is manually created by a user using an HTML editor.

7. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (c) the program is located on a web server that is not one of the managed systems.

8. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (d) the template document is created by a user using an HTML editor.

9. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (d) the template document includes embedded placeholders in locations where actual parameter values are to be displayed.

10. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (d) the template document includes embedded placeholders in locations where actual parameter values are to be displayed, the embedded placeholder including a start meta character and an end meta character.

11. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (d) the template document includes embedded placeholders in locations where actual parameter values are to be displayed, the embedded placeholder including identification information that uniquely identifies an attribute whose value is to be retrieved and displayed.

12. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (d) the template document includes embedded placeholders in locations where actual parameter values are to be displayed and wherein in step (c) the program retrieves parameters passed to it using one of the following interfaces:

a common gateway interface; and

a internet server application programming interface.

13. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (c) the parameters include at least a subset of the following:

information type;

internet protocol (IP) address;

Signal Network Management Protocol (SNMP) community name;

system configuration file name; and

template file name.

14. A method as in claim 1 wherein in step (c) includes the following substeps performed by the program:

(d.1) parsing the template document to retrieve embedded object identifiers;

(d.2) retrieving values of requested attributes; and

(d.3) converting a retrieved value to a form meaningful to the user.