Patent ID: 7669237

Claim:
A method for managing a computer system on a network, the computer system including a computing node located on the network side of a network connection on the network and one or more mobile devices located on a user's side of the network connection on the network, comprising: running a discovery program on the network side of the network connection, the discovery program comprising: scanning the network based on a scan profile defining at least one parameter for connecting to at least one of domains, computing nodes, and mobile devices; detecting at least one domain on the network in accordance with the parameters defined in the scan profile, detecting at least one computing node within the detected domain in accordance with the parameters defined in the scan profile, and connecting to at least one of the detected computing nodes in accordance with the parameters defined in the scan profile, detecting, using the discovery program, one or more mobile devices connected to the detected computing node; detecting, using the discovery program, one or more mobile devices that were previously, but are not currently, connected to the detected computing node; determining information regarding at least one of the detected mobile devices based on at least one of a registry resource, a file resource, a process resource, a network management parameter, a data format, a packet format, a synchronization log entry, a directory structure, a database entry, the presence of an executable program and attributes associated with a mobile device or resource; and using the determined mobile device information to manage security of the computer system from the network side of the network connection.