Patent ID: 7526677

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of handling failures in a computer system including a compliance checking system in a computer network, the method comprising computer-implemented acts of: (A) receiving, at a server computer, a statement of health from a client computer, wherein the statement of health describes the health of the client computer; (B) attempting, by the server computer, to use the statement of health to complete a compliance check of whether the client computer complies with at least one network health policy; (C) in response to a failure of the compliance check caused by the inability of the server computer to determine whether the client computer complies with the at least one network health policy, determining a category of an error that at least partially caused the failure of the compliance check, wherein the category of the error is at least one of: client communication error, server communication error and server computer error; and (D) performing an action at least partially based on the determined category of the error.