Patent ID: 7437455

Claim:
A method for detecting a system condition of a system comprising at least one agent by means of a manager coupled with the agents, whereby the at least one agent and manager communicate with one another by means of SNMP-protocol, the method comprising the following steps: each at least one agent provides parameters as SNMP variables and/or sum variables for request by the manager, wherein said parameters include information about a device controlled, regulated or monitored by the at least one agent; each at least one agent makes available additionally validity variables for request by the manger, wherein said validity variables include validity information, respectively, of a group of SNMP variables, whereby each change in a value of an SNMP variable in the group of SNMP variables simultaneously affects a change of a value of an associated validity variable; and each such group of SNMP variables can contain reference variables, wherein said reference variables make reference to other groups, whereby each reference in turn is added to the validity variables of the related group of SNMP variables, wherein an object identification identifier of each variable is broken down by the at least one agent into parts and same parts are omitted within a sum variable, wherein the at least one agent or manager is equipped in a program-technical manner, such that it automatically supplements missing parts for further processing before or after transmission of the variable from the at least one agent to the manager.