Patent ID: 7421484

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a selection of a group of devices in a data communication network to be configured in accordance with a previously-stored common configuration profile, the devices of the group being situated in different locations within the data communications network, the common configuration profile having previously-stored configuration data that specifies, as to each device of the group, values for multiple configuration parameters corresponding to desired operation of that device; automatically opening a network connection with each of the devices of the group; automatically retrieving identifying data from each of the devices of the group; automatically mapping, for each device of the group and subsequent to receiving the selection, the retrieved identifying data to a corresponding one of multiple configuration profile deployment routine sets, wherein the retrieved identifying data of each device corresponds to a different configuration profile deployment routine set, and each configuration profile deployment routine set includes programming instructions to convert the configuration data from the common configuration profile into device-specific commands to configure the device having the corresponding retrieved identifying data; automatically generating device-specific commands for each device of the group, wherein the device-specific commands for each device are generated subsequent to the automatic mapping for that device and are generated using the previously-stored configuration data of the common configuration profile and the configuration profile deployment routine set corresponding to the identifying data for that device; and automatically transmitting the device-specific commands to each device of the group.