Patent ID: 7418461

Claim:
A method for determining a conformance of a server, comprising: retrieving a first set of schema information from a first database server, the first set of schema information describing a current structure of the first database server; retrieving a second set of schema information from a second database server, the second set of schema information describing a current structure of the second database server; comparing the first set of schema information to the second set of schema information to determine if the schema information for the first database server and the second database server are different, said step of comparing the first set of schema information to the second set of schema information initiated by a maintenance server; generating a first difference file responsive to said step of comparing the first and second set of schema information; retrieving a third set of schema information from a third database server, the third set of schema information describing a current structure of the third database server; comparing the third set of schema information to a master schema, the master schema representing an expected set of schema information for a plurality of database servers, the plurality of database servers including the third database server, said step of comparing the third set of schema information to a master schema initiated by the maintenance server; generating a second difference file responsive to said step of comparing the third and master set of schema information; and generating an alarm if the first or second difference file indicates that the first set of schema information is different from the second set of schema information or the third set of schema information is different from the master schema.