Patent ID: 8180735

Claim:
A gateway device for operation at a user premises to provide and manage services of an endpoint device associated with the gateway device, the gateway device comprising: a first interface for enabling bi-directional network layer communications with the endpoint device associated with the gateway device, wherein the endpoint device includes data that is to be backed up; a second interface for enabling bi-directional communications with a service management center and at least one storage area external to the premises via a wide area network; a database containing an endpoint information table and an endpoint user table, wherein the endpoint information table contains information related to the endpoint device which includes a unique id of the endpoint device, a name of the endpoint device, a MAC address of the endpoint device, and a status of whether the endpoint device is available or unavailable, wherein the endpoint user table contains a mapping pair of the endpoint device and a user of the endpoint device such that the endpoint user table allows for multiple users including the user to be mapped to the endpoint device and allows for the user of the endpoint device to be mapped to multiple endpoint devices including the endpoint device; an endpoint manager module configured to initiate a back-up process at the endpoint device by accessing the endpoint information table and utilizing the unique id of the endpoint device, the name of the endpoint device, the MAC address of the endpoint device, and the status of the endpoint device, wherein upon initiation by the endpoint manager module the endpoint device sends the data to be backed up to the gateway device; a service-managed storage area configured to store the data received from the endpoint device; and a backup manager configured to communicate via the wide area network with the service management center to determine whether the endpoint device is authorized to have the stored data backed up to the at least one storage area external to the premises, wherein upon confirmation from the service management center that the endpoint device is authorized to backup the stored data to the at least one storage area external to the premises, the backup manager sends the stored data received from the endpoint device to the at least one storage area external to the premises via the wide area network for storage therein, wherein the stored data sent to the at least one storage area is compressed and encrypted.