Patent ID: 8504688

Claim:
A system for aggregate monitoring of user-based groups of private computer networks, the system comprising: a plurality of monitoring servers having at least one hardware processor for monitoring a plurality of private networks, wherein each private network is a local area network (LAN) at a different hospitality location; and each private network includes at least one monitoring server acting as a gateway between the private network and a wide area network (WAN), and monitoring the private network by collecting statuses of devices installed on the private network; wherein the at least one monitoring server of each private network is for collecting the statuses of the devices installed on the private network by monitoring network traffic passed between the private network and the WAN while acting as the gateway between the private network and the WAN; and a central server coupled to each of the monitoring servers via the WAN and having a storage device storing information pertaining to a plurality of users, the information respectively associating each of the users with a group of one or more of the private networks; wherein the central server is configured for: receiving a request from a remote device via the WAN, the request indicating a requesting user that issued the request; determining the group of private networks associated with the requesting user according to the information stored in the storage device; automatically generating a set of statistics according to the statuses collected for each private network in the group associated with the requesting user and not according to the statuses collected for other private networks that are not in the group associated with the requesting user; generating the set of statistics at least including a percentage of the private networks in the group associated with the requesting user that have at least one guest currently engaged in a particular type of Internet activity; wherein a private network in the group associated with the requesting user is deemed to have at least one guest currently engaged in the particular type of Internet activity when there is at least one active TCP connection from a user device on the private network to a destination port corresponding to the particular type of Internet activity; and sending the set of statistics to the remote device via the WAN in response to the request.