Patent ID: 7631297

Claim:
An installation management system, comprising at least one processor and further comprising: a management program containing management elements capable of providing monitoring and management for a plurality of applications; a set of policies for use in conjunction with said plurality of applications, said set of policies containing, for each application supported, information regarding a respective management element of said management program; a policy-based engine connected to use knowledge of the content of a server and said set of policies to determine needed ones of said management elements for the server; an agent configured to run on the server; and an agent manager configured to act as an interface between said policy-based engine and said agent and to download programs to said agent; wherein said agent contains an address of said agent manager and is further configured to request a scanner from said agent manager, to install and execute said scanner, and to pass an output of said scanner to said agent; and wherein said agent is a vendor-neutral agent and further comprising a set of weightings that provides, for each application supported, (a) a list of management programs from a plurality of vendors that are available to manage said application and (b) a respective weighting value.