Patent ID: 8412945

Claim:
A server computer system comprising: one or more processing units; a memory, coupled to at least one of the one or more processing units, the memory storing a virtual machine, wherein an agent executive runs within the virtual machine, the agent executive executed by at least one of the one or more processing units, the agent executive comprising instructions for: (A) obtaining an agent API key from a user or by an automated process when the agent executive is executed a first time; (B) communicating the API key to a remote grid computer system in a first part of a synchronous process; (C) receiving, in a second part of the synchronous process and responsive to the first part of the synchronous process, an agent identity token from the remote grid computer system, wherein the remote grid computer system generates the agent identity token through a cryptographic token generation protocol when the API key is deemed valid; (D) storing the agent identity token in a secure data store associated with the agent executive; (E) collecting information on the server computer system for an evaluation of integrity of the agent executive using a plurality of agent self-verification factors; and (F) encrypting the information collected by the collecting (E) thereby creating encrypted information; (G) signing the encrypted information using the agent identity token thereby creating signed encrypted information; and (H) communicating the signed encrypted information to the remote grid computer system as part of an asynchronous process in which no network connection between the remote grid computer system and the agent executive is established.