Patent ID: 7904916

Claim:
A computer system complex, comprising: a plurality of managed computer systems; a plurality of system management applications residing in respective systems of said computer system complex, each of said plurality of system management applications performing system management functions for a respective plurality of said managed computer systems; wherein a first system management application of said plurality of system management applications is different from a second system management application of said plurality of management applications; wherein said first system management application performs a first set of management functions for a first subset of said plurality of managed computer systems, and said second management application performs said first set of management functions for a second subset of said plurality of managed computer systems, said first and second subsets being disjoint; a consolidation management application residing in a first computer system of said computer complex, said consolidation management application generating a common user interface for each of said plurality of system management applications; wherein each of said plurality of system management applications is a stand-alone application which performs its respective set of system management functions independently of said consolidation management application; and a respective consolidation adapter corresponding to each of said plurality of system management applications, said respective consolidation adapter residing in a respective computer system in which a corresponding system management application resides, said consolidation adapter providing a communication interface between said consolidation management application and said corresponding system management application, said consolidation adapter receiving system management function requests in a common format generated by said consolidation management application, and invoking said requests in the respective corresponding system management application in a format compatible with the corresponding system management application; wherein said common user interface generated by said consolidation management application includes at least some user requests causing system management function requests in said common format to be transmitted concurrently to said first and said second system management applications, and to consolidate responses received from said first and said second system management applications for presentation to a user.