Patent ID: 8713662

Claim:
A method for managing and monitoring communication devices in a firewall/NAT protected network from a management system outside the firewall/NAT protected network, comprising: periodically and at predefined events opening a hypertext transfer protocol (http) connection from inside a firewall/NAT installation protecting the network and transmitting a request from the communication devices to the management system through the firewall/NAT installation protecting the network; when receiving said request in the management system, transmitting instructions and data to the communication devices in a http response through said http connection; and when one of the communication devices is connected to the network for a first time, opening an initial http connection from inside the firewall/NAT installation and transmitting a BOOT request through said firewall/NAT installation from said one of the communication devices, when receiving said BOOT request in the management system, transmitting configuration data and parameters to said one of the communication devices from the management system, said configuration data and parameters at least defining time intervals between periodical requests and events triggering requests to be transmitted from said one of the communication devices to the management system; and prior to opening the initial http connection, transmitting from said one of the communication devices to a DHCP server a DHCP request requesting an IP address of said one of the communication devices, and receiving from the DHCP server a DHCP response including both said IP address of said one of the communication devices and an IP address of the management system.