Patent ID: 7672948

Claim:
A method, implemented on a host-asset, of facilitating transformation of survey data from being in at least one foreign format used by a survey-tool on the host-asset to being in a desired format, the method comprising: receiving, on a host-asset, at least first foreign data from at least a first survey-tool, the foreign data being in an at least a first foreign format used by the first survey-tool, respectively; appending, to the at-least-first foreign data, at least a first service-key to identify the at-least-first service tool as the gatherer thereof, respectively, to produce a data block that includes at least a first key-and-foreign-data pair, wherein the foreign data includes values of plural parameters which characterize an operational state of the host-asset; receiving, on the host asset, at least second foreign data from at least a second survey-tool, the at-least-second foreign data being in at least a second foreign format used by the second survey-tool, respectively, wherein the first and second foreign formats are different; appending at least a second service-key to the at-least-second foreign data to identify the at-least-second service tool as the gatherer thereof, respectively, such that the data block includes the first key-and-foreign-data pair and at least a second key-and-foreign-data pair; and wherein the receiving and appending are performed locally at the host-asset, the host-asset being a client-type entity, the first survey-tool being a sensor on the host-asset; and sending the data block to a remote server-type entity for transformation to the desired format according to the at least a first service-key, respectively.