Patent ID: 9516034
Filing Date: 2016-12-06
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method comprising: presenting to a network manager, via a graphical user interface (GUI) of a network management system, information regarding a plurality of network devices managed by the network management system, wherein the plurality of network devices are associated with a private computer network and are logically interposed between client systems of the private computer network and an external computer network; receiving, via the GUI, from the network manager information indicative of a first physical interface of a first network device of the plurality of network devices and a second physical interface of a second network device of the plurality of network devices that are to be normalized, wherein the first physical interface and the second physical interface have different physical attributes; normalizing, by the network management system, the first physical interface and the second physical interface by creating a virtual interface to which both the first physical interface and the second physical interface correspond; receiving, via the GUI, from the network manager information regarding a policy applicable to the virtual interface; responsive to said receiving, creating or modifying, by the network management system, a first configuration file for the first network device while the first network device is in an offline state and creating or modifying a second configuration file for the second network device while the second network device is in the offline state, wherein one or more policies or rules contained within the first configuration file and the second configuration file are expressed in terms of the virtual interface; and applying policy configurations, by the network management system, to the first network device and the second network device and resolving physical interface configurations for the first physical interface and the second physical interface during installation of the first network device and the second network device by resolving references to the virtual interface in the first configuration file into the first physical interface and resolving references to the virtual interface in the second configuration file into the second physical interface.