Patent ID: 7519729

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of monitoring a device communicatively coupled to a monitoring computer via a network, the method comprising: determining, by the monitoring computer, if the monitoring computer is able to communicate with said device by attempting to access the device using an address obtained from a first digital repository; accessing said device to attempt to obtain first device information indicating that the device was provided by a system-supported vendor using information stored in a second digital repository, if the determining step determines that the monitoring computer is able to communicate with said device; accessing said device to attempt to obtain second device information indicating that the model of the device is a system-supported model using the information stored in the second digital repository, if the monitoring computer obtained the first device information indicating that the device was provided by a system-supported vendor; obtaining, from the second digital repository, first information necessary to obtain status information for all devices having addresses stored in the first digital repository; obtaining, from the second digital repository, second information necessary to obtain status information for all devices provided by the system-supported vendor of the device, if the first device information was obtained from the device; obtaining, from the second digital repository, third information necessary to obtain status information for devices of the system-supported model of the device, if the second device information was obtained from the device; obtaining status information from the device using the first information; obtaining status information from the device using the second information, if the first device information was obtained from the device; and obtaining status information from the device using the third information, if the second device information was obtained from the device.