Patent ID: 7225241

Claim:
An asset management system for managing a network asset communicably connectable to a computer network, said asset management system comprising: storage means for storing management information of the network asset communicably connectable to the computer network, including network asset identifying information identifying the network asset and computer network node identifying information of the network asset identifying the network asset on the computer network to which the network asset is communicably connected; determining means for determining sender and destination network address of information circulating over the computer network and for determining whether said information circulating over the computer network is information sent from the network asset being managed or information addressed to the network asset being managed; gathering means for gathering network asset management information, including network asset identifying information identifying the network asset being managed and computer network node identifying information of the network asset based upon the information circulating over the computer network, when determined by said determining means that the information circulating over the computer network is information sent from the network asset being managed or information addressed to the network asset being managed; and updating means for comparing the gathered network asset management information with the stored network asset management information and when the gathered network asset management information and the stored network asset management information are not same, updating the stored network asset management information with the gathered network asset management information.