Patent ID: 7490144

Claim:
A distributed network management system, comprising: a selected network hub server for communicating with a plurality of remote network servers or with at least one network device; each of said plurality of remote network servers for communicating with said at least one network device and said selected network hub server wherein each of said remote network servers derives state information from said network device by: polling said at least one network device at a polling interval, wherein polling said at least one network device comprises: sending a plurality of pings to an interface address on said at least one network device during said polling interval; and monitoring a number of pings returned from said at least one network device and calculating a percentage based on the number of pings sent and said number of pings returned; sending a query related to operational status to said at least one network device; receiving a response regarding said operational status from said at least one network device, wherein receiving a response regarding said operational status from said at least one network device comprises: receiving a response indicating whether said operational status is “up”, “down”, or “unknown”; and generating a status percentage for the polling interval by multiplying the percentage pings returned by a constant value associated with said operational status, said constant value comprising a first value if the operational status is “up”, a second value if the operational status is “down”, and a third value if the operational status is “unknown”; computing a weighted average over at least one said polling interval using results of said polling and said responses received from said at least one network device, wherein the weighted average is a representation of the state of said network device and wherein computing the weighted average comprises: computing the weighted average of the status percentage for a current and at least one previous polling interval and determining the state of said at least one network device from the weighted average; and storing said weighted average.