Patent ID: 6928394

Claim:
A management method for use in a manager device, for dynamically adjusting an amount of information retrieved from one or a plurality of managed devices in an information processing system, according to a provided level of service, said method comprising for each managed device, the steps of: each time an event generated by an alive timer is detected: sending an alive request to the managed device for determining whether the managed device is alive or not; each time an event generated by a monitoring timer is detected: if, based on service level information previously stored, the service level provided by the managed device meets a predetermined level of service: sending a monitoring request to the managed device for requesting a first amount of monitoring information; if, based on the service level information previously stored, the service level provided by the managed device does not meet the predetermined level of service: sending a monitoring request to the managed device for requesting a second amount of monitoring information, where the second amount of monitoring information is greater than the first amount of monitoring information; if a monitoring reply is received from the managed device in response to a monitoring request: determining, based on service level information comprised in said monitoring reply, whether the level of service provided by the managed device meets the predetermined level of service; storing said service level information; if no alive reply to an alive request or no monitoring reply to a monitoring request is received from the managed device, and if, based on the service level information previously stored, the level of service provided by the managed device meets the predetermined level of service: sending a monitoring request to the managed device for requesting the second amount of monitoring information; and updating the service level information previously stored by indicating that the service level provided by the managed device does not meet the predetermined level of service.