Patent ID: 8086582

Claim:
A system, comprising: a processor and a memory; a universal engine configured to scan and index data stored in at least one device, for a plurality of different purposes; and a plurality of applications configured to control the universal engine for performing the scanning and indexing for a respective one of the plurality of purposes, where an agent is provisioned on the at least one device and configured to: receive a policy via a network from a management console; control the scanning and indexing performed by the universal engine based on the policy; perform an action based on a result of the scanning and the indexing that includes, at least, storing results of the scanning and the indexing; and communicate heuristics from the at least one device via the network to the management console, which is configured to dynamically configure policies based on the heuristics via a feedback loop, wherein the heuristics include information regarding an amount of processing or communication resources available at the at least one device and a schedule of resource availability.