Patent ID: 8234660
Filing Date: 2012-07-31
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for receiving and presenting to a support person using a control and presentation component installed on a first computer associated with a support platform, at least one system property parameter of at least one second computer, the at least one system property parameter having at least one system property value, the method comprising: receiving from the support person, via a graphical support plug-in hierarchy user interface, an indication that at least one support plug-in should be activated on a plurality of other computers including the at least one second computer, a first one of the plurality of other computers being in a first cluster and a second one of the plurality of other computers being in a second cluster; based on said indication, automatically sending a request from the first computer to a manager of an engine installed on the second computer to activate the at least one support plug in; sending an activation command from the engine to at least one support plug-in manager running on the second computer, said at least one support plug-in manager associated with said at least one support plug-in; activating the at least one support plug-in; sending the at least one system property value of the at least one system property parameter of the at least one second computer from the at least one support plug-in to the at least one support plug-in manager; sending at least one support message comprising the at least one system property value of the at least one system property parameter from the at least one support plug-in manager to the control and presentation component, wherein the at least one system property value of the at least one system property parameter sent from the at least one support plug-in to the at least one support plug-in manager and sent from the at least one support plug-in manager to the control and presentation component comprises the at least one system property value of the at least one system property parameter usable in checking for the existence or absence of a resource in the second computer, the existence or absence of the resource in the second computer being required for running an application on the second computer; wherein the at least one support plug-in is automatically activated on the first one of the plurality of other computers and on the second one of the plurality of other computers based on the single indication received from the support person; wherein the graphical support plug-in hierarchy user interface comprises a comparison mode, in which results of execution of the at least one support plug-in on two or more servers are shown in a table, a first one of the two or more servers being in the first cluster and a second one of the two or more servers being in the second cluster, wherein each column in the table shows the results on a specific node of the first cluster, a first column of the table showing the results on a first node of the first cluster, a second column of the table showing the results on a second node of the first cluster; wherein the results on the first node that are shown in the first column of the table indicate a result of a check of files, resources, or configuration settings associated with one or more applications; and wherein the results on the second node that are shown in the second column of the table indicate a result of a check of files, resources, or configuration settings associated with the one or more applications.