Patent ID: 7904543

Claim:
A computing system comprising: a plurality of reporting modules, wherein each reporting module contains an executable registration portion to register the respective reporting module and an executable data gatherer to collect data from the computing system and generate a report based on the collected data; and a report server comprising: at least one computer; a registration module, executing on the at least one computer, that stores references to the registered reporting modules and returns lists of names of the registered reporting modules; a report invocation module, executing on the at least one computer, that invokes the data gatherers of registered reporting modules, wherein the report invocation module retrieves the lists of names of the registered reporting modules from the registration module and invokes the data gatherers contained in the reporting modules using the lists of names; and a presentation module, executing on the at least one computer, that outputs reports generated by the plurality of reporting modules in a format viewable by a user, wherein the reports identify a plurality of software image types capable of being deployed to a device in the computing system.