Patent ID: 7543027

Claim:
A method for sending a message from a first operator at a first of a plurality of workstations to a second operator at a second of the plurality of workstations in an operations-computing arrangement for operating one or more computer systems, the operations-computing arrangement including the first and second workstations coupled to respective operations servers and each of the plurality of workstations coupled to at least one of the operations servers, wherein each operations server is coupled to at least one computer system, each workstation executes software that provides an operator interface for operating a computer system and hosts a plurality of workstation applications, and each operations server provides an interface to a computer system, the method comprising: generating system event reports in response to computer system events detected by an operations server; transmitting the system event reports to one or more selected operations workstations; displaying data associated with the system event reports at the one or more operations workstations; providing an operator interface for entry of a text message at the first workstation; providing a plurality of operator-selectable identifiers of workstation applications and a plurality of operator-selectable types of event-reports for use in association with the text message; transmitting the text message from the first workstation to an operations server; generating at the operations server system a system event report that is of the type specified by the operator and that contains the text message and an associated identifier of a workstation application specified by the operator for the text message; transmitting the system event report that contains the text message from the operations server to the second workstation; wherein the generating and transmitting of the system event report that contains the text message are performed without waiting for a computer system event; transmitting the event report to the workstation application identified by the associated identifier; displaying the system event report that contains the text message at the second workstation in a window in which a format of displayed data depends on the type of event report; providing a plurality of operator-selectable names of operations servers for use in association with the text message; wherein transmitting a message from a workstation to a messaging server includes transmitting to the messaging server in association with the message a name of an operator-selected destination operations server; and connecting to a messaging server on the destination operations server, and transmitting the message to the messaging server on the destination operations server.