Patent ID: 7996518

Claim:
A method for detecting machine utilization activity by a computer comprising a hardware memory storage and a hardware processor unit coupled to the memory storage, the method comprising: receiving machine activity information from one or more client machines, wherein the machine activity information is received in a periodic message, wherein the periodic message is varied and optimizes a balance between performance and accuracy with respect to the one or more client machines; generating a usage report, wherein the report graphically displays the received machine activity information for a predetermined time period and wherein the report provides information regarding a length of time, out of the predetermined time period, that the one or more client machines remained in each of a plurality of client machine activity states associated with a plurality of state categories, the plurality of client machine activity states comprising an available (manual use)/online state, an exclusive use/online state, and an available/online state, wherein the length of time the one or more client machines remained in the available (manual use)/online state is greater than the length of time the one or more client machines remained in the exclusive use/online state and less than the length of time the one or more client machines remained in the available/online state, wherein the available (manual use)/online state comprises a state in which machine activity associated with at least one of a keyboard and a mouse has occurred on the or more client machines during the predetermined time period, wherein the exclusive use/online state comprises a busy state in which the one or more client machines is at least one of running tests or software, wherein the available/online state comprises a state in which the one or more client machines is free and available to perform a task, wherein the available/online state and the exclusive use/online state are utilized to determine a utilization percentage, the utilization percentage comprising a majority of the predetermined time period that the one or more client machines is available for additional tasks, the utilization percentage comprising about eighty percent of the predetermined time period, the predetermined time period comprising less than one day, wherein the report facilitates optimizing operations which ensure that the one or more client machines are used more often to perform the additional tasks; comparing the received machine activity information from the one or more client machines with stored machine activity information for the one or more client machines; and updating the stored machine activity information when the received machine activity information and the stored machine activity information are different.