Patent ID: 7860919

Claim:
A method for collecting data from resources in a storage area network, the method comprising: receiving notification from an agent of the agent's availability for data collection from resources within a network; identifying, from the notification, a version value associated with the agent; determining, from the version value, a set of operations to be assigned to the agent that will be compatible with the agent; and assigning a subset of the set of operations to the agent to enable the agent to collect data from resources in the network; wherein determining, from the version value, a set of operations to be assigned to the agent that will be compatible with the agent comprises: comparing the version value received in the notification from the agent to an agent operations structure defining operations to be associated to different versions of at least one agent; and identifying the set of operations within the agent operations structure that correspond to the version value, wherein comparing the version value received in the notification from the agent to an agent operations structure defining operations to be associated to different versions of at least one agent: detecting the version value represents a current set of functions the agent can perform; upon determining the current set of functions is implemented via a first version of the agent, obtaining at least one first operation to be part of the set of operations, the first operation defined for operability within any agent defined in accordance with the first version; and upon determining the current set of functions is implemented via a second version of the agent, obtaining at least one second operation to be part of the set of operations, the second operation defined for operability within any agent defined in accordance with the second version; wherein the agent operations structure provides access to the first operation and the second operation, the first version of the agent and the second version of the agent each comprising different versions of the agent of a same type.