Patent ID: 6271845
Filing Date: 2001-08-07
Classification: H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for allowing a user to proactively determine health status of network objects and group views by dynamically manipulating a user interface of a windows-based managed network environment, comprising:defining one or more health characteristics for each network object of a plurality of network objects grouped into one or more group views of the managed network environment, wherein the one or more health characteristics of each network object define a health status of the network object and wherein each health characteristic of the one or more health characteristics has a health status indicator representative of the health status of the health characteristic;monitoring the one or more health characteristics for each network object in order to determine the health status of each health characteristic of the one or more health characteristics for each network object;storing the one or more health characteristics for each network object of the plurality of network objects in a health characteristic configuration file of a group view of the plurality of group views to which the network object belongs;displaying a plurality of group view containers within the user interface with each group view container corresponding to a group view of a plurality of group views, each group view of the plurality of group views representative of a grouping of network objects of the plurality of network objects and containing a plurality of group view attributes, defined by a plurality of attribute values in a group view attribute list stored in an attribute configuration file of the group view, that define the grouping of network components of the group view, wherein a user can dynamically change one or more group views of the plurality of group views by changing one or more group view attributes of the plurality of group view attributes, wherein each group view container of the plurality of group view containers has a group view health status indicator representative of the overall health status of the group view represented by the group view container as determined by the health status of each network object of the one or more network objects of the group view, wherein each network object within a group view has a network object health status indicator representative of the health status of the network object as determined by the one or more health characteristics of the network object;identifying each group view of the plurality of group views that has a poor health status as indicated by the group view health status indicator of each group view container of the plurality of group view containers displayed;for each group view of the plurality of group views identified as having a poor health status, selecting the group view to display the grouping of network objects of the group view within the user interface;identifying each network object of the selected group view that has a poor health status as indicated by the network object health status indicator of each network object;for each network object of the selected group view identified as having a poor health status, selecting the network object to display a grouping of the one or more health characteristics of the network object;identifying each health characteristic of the one or more health characteristics of the network object that has a poor health status as indicated by the health status indicator of the health characteristic; andfor each health characteristic of the one or more health characteristics identified as having a poor health status, selecting the health characteristic to display within the user interface a message indicative of an event that caused the poor health status of the health characteristic.