Patent ID: 7415706

Claim:
A method for managing versions of a plurality of software components on a network, comprising: detecting a version change to a first software component associated with a network device out of the plurality of the software components; automatically identifying a second software component out of the plurality of the software components that needs to be changed to be compatible with the first software component, wherein the second software component depends on the first software component; assessing the software dependencies and compatibilities of at least the first and second software components; downloading upgrades of the first and second software components from a network device; storing the upgrades of the first and second software components in a computer cache; a version manager maintaining version information of the upgrades of the first and second software components; checking the version information of the upgrades of the first and second software components stored in the computer cache; storing the version manager in the component cache; wherein the step of assessing the software dependencies and compatibilities is performed by a component manager which is directly connected to the component cache, and reads from the writes to the component cache; the version manager maintaining the version information of the first and second software components of the network device including requesting the version information from the network device; the version manager passing the version information to the component manager; determining whether the component cache contains a current copy of the version manager; requesting and receiving a current copy of the version manager from the network device; and retrieving a current copy of the version manager from the component cache.