Patent ID: 7610372
Filing Date: 2009-10-27
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of managing information related to at least one monitored device communicatively coupled to a network, comprising: selecting a communication protocol among a plurality of communication protocols used to extract status information from the at least one monitored device; retrieving, from a first memory, by a protocol object associated with the selected communication protocol, vendor and model information of the at least one monitored device; obtaining, by the protocol object, a vendor name of a monitored device of the at least one monitored device supported by the selected communication protocol; obtaining, by the protocol object, a model name corresponding to the obtained vendor name; concatenating the obtained vendor name and the obtained model name to generate a descriptive string; determining if the descriptive string is present in a vendor-model support map stored in a second memory, the vendor-model support map having at least one entry, wherein each entry includes a descriptive string and a vendor-model value; if the determining step determines that the descriptive string is not present in the vendor-model support map, storing the descriptive string in the vendor-model support map in association with the protocol object; and repeating the selecting, retrieving, obtaining the vendor name, obtaining the model name, concatenating, determining, and storing steps for each protocol of the plurality of communication protocols to generate a vendor-model support map for each of the plurality of communication protocols; wherein the protocol object includes a type of status information, a weight of status information, and information for extracting the type of status information from the monitored device using the corresponding communication protocol; wherein the method further comprising: checking whether the weight of status information stored in the protocol object is greater than a corresponding weight associated with the type of status information stored in the second memory; and if the weight of status information stored in the protocol object is greater than a corresponding weight associated with the type of status information stored in the second memory, accessing the monitored device using the selected communication protocol and the information for extracting the type of status information from the monitored device.