Patent ID: 7831959

Claim:
A method comprising: obtaining a source configuration specification from a storage server, the storage server being from a plurality of storage servers, the source configuration specification defining configuration settings of the storage server, wherein the configuration settings of the storage server include at least one of a startup parameter, a communication setting, or an access control setting and do not include parameters that designate allocation of storage resources; identifying a group including one or more target servers from the plurality of storage servers; generating a target configuration specification by trimming the source configuration specification, such that the target configuration specification includes at least one but not all of the configuration settings defined by the source configuration specification; receiving information identifying a version of a storage operating system executing on the target servers; identifying what configuration parameters of the target configuration specification are compatible with the version of the storage operating system executing on the target servers; pushing the target configuration specification to the group of target servers to apply the target configuration specification to the target servers; determining a configuration history of an individual storage server of the group of target servers over a period of time; detecting a change in a configuration setting of the individual storage server based on the configuration history; generating a notification event based on the detection; and providing a notification to a user at an appliance management program in response to generating the notification event.