Patent ID: 7421495

Claim:
A method for monitoring hardware information associated with a plurality of distinct network devices in an enterprise system, comprising: invoking a flexible configuration file, the flexible configuration file comprising a first location directive to retrieve parameters from a first network device and a second location directive to retrieve parameters from a second network device, the first network device comprising a first device type and the second network device comprising a second device type; remotely retrieving real-time hardware information associated with (i) the first network device based on the first location directive and (ii) the second network device based on the second location directive, the hardware information including parameters related to one or more hardware characteristics of the first network device or the second network device, wherein remotely retrieving real-time hardware information associated with (i) the first network device based on the first location directive and (ii) the second network device based on the second location directive comprises polling the first network device and the second network device based on a polling configuration file, the polling configuration file comprising separate polling intervals for individual ones of the parameters related to hardware characteristics; enabling selection, by a user, of the first network device or the second network device; dynamically presenting the real-time hardware information associated with the selected network device through a display, the display comprising a first and a second window, the first window comprising a hierarchical tree structure of user-selectable hardware characteristics of the selected network device, the second window comprising a tabular display of information associated with a hardware characteristic selected by the user in the hierarchical tree structure of the first window.