Patent ID: 7624432
Filing Date: 2009-11-24
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: maintaining, in each managed system of a plurality of managed systems that are coupled to a management server via a network, at least one agent having a plurality of sub-agents, wherein a single operation by a management application executing in the management server targets a plurality of agents executing in the plurality of managed systems, wherein each of the plurality of agents supports at least one operation with identical semantics, and wherein the plurality of agents with capabilities to perform similar operations allow a single operation invocation by the management application to be duplicated and sent to the plurality of agents; storing, in a first computational platform that is a first managed system, a group assignment for an agent, wherein the group assignment identifies one or more groups to which the agent belongs and operations associated with the one or more groups; receiving, at the agent in the first computational platform, an access control ticket from the management application that executes in a second computational platform that is the management server, wherein the access control ticket indicates privileges granted to the management application by a central access control server for operations to be performed with respect to a plurality of groups, and wherein the management application avoids issuing an individual access control ticket for every agent of the plurality of agents on which the management application invokes an operation; and determining, locally in the first computational platform by the agent without referencing the central access control server, whether an operation requested by the management application is to be executed by the agent, based on a comparison of the access control ticket received from the management application to the group assignment for the agent, wherein an unique identifier represents a group name for a group, and wherein the management application can change the unique identifier that represents the group name, the method further comprising: