Patent ID: 7502848

Claim:
A method of creating a data processing object associated with a communication protocol used to extract status information related to a monitored device communicatively coupled to a network, comprising: accessing the monitored device using the communication protocol to obtain at least vendor information related to the monitored device; obtaining, from a first memory, access function information for extracting the status information from an accessible data file on the monitored device, wherein said access function information includes a directory name of the accessible data file and a file name of the accessible data file; generating a string including the obtained vendor information, the directory name of the accessible data file, and the file name of the accessible data file, wherein the string corresponds to the accessible data file for which the status information can be extracted from; using the string as a key to a data structure storing a plurality of create functions that create data processing objects corresponding to the vendor information, the directory name of the accessible data file, and the file name of the accessible data file, wherein the data processing objects encapsulate an algorithm for extracting information from the accessible data file of the monitored device; obtaining, from the data structure, a creation function corresponding to the generated string that creates the data processing object to extract the status information from the accessible data file corresponding to the string including the vendor information, the directory name, and the file name included in the string; and creating the data processing object using the obtained creation function.