Patent ID: 7328260

Claim:
A storage area network (SAN), comprising: a plurality of SAN components coupled to a SAN fabric, wherein each of the SAN components is configured to be monitored over a network separate from the SAN fabric according to management information provided for each SAN component; a data store comprising a rules file comprising: rules for mapping the management information provided for each SAN component to one or more information items for each SAN component; and a plurality of attributes, wherein each attribute corresponds to a SAN component for which information items are to be collected; a SAN management server configured to: discover a SAN component of the plurality of SAN components coupled to the SAN fabric to obtain the respective management information for the discovered SAN component; in response to discovering the SAN component: detect whether a portion of the respective management information matches one or more particular attributes of said plurality of attributes within the rules file; in response to detecting that a portion of the respective management information matches one or more particular attributes of said plurality of attributes within the rules file, determine one or more particular rules of said rules that correspond to said one or more particular attributes as specified by the rules file; and generate a management object for the discovered SAN component according to said one or more particular rules; and use the management object to collect the information items for the discovered SAN component as specified by the one or more particular rules.