Patent ID: 8271605

Claim:
An agent-based management system, comprising: a controller; at least one clustered machine comprising a first machine and a second machine sharing a resource or service, each of the first and second machine comprising an individual agent; and a local agent coupled to the controller, the local agent to open a virtual non-persistent connection to the clustered machine, wherein the shared resource or service is to be accessed by the local agent through the virtual non-persistent connection using a virtual IP address in response to the controller receiving a user request to manipulate the shared resource or service, and wherein an individual agent of an active one of the first and second machines having access to the shared resource or service is to manipulate the shared resource or service and return information over the virtual non-persistent connection in response to commands sent by the local agent over the virtual non-persistent connection to enable the individual agents of the at least one clustered machine to be represented as a single object with the local agent as a single interface to the single object.