Patent ID: 7849171

Claim:
In a network based system having a monitoring system and a monitored device communicatively coupled via the network, the monitoring system being communicatively coupled to first and second databases, a method of monitoring the monitored device, comprising: obtaining a network address of the monitored device from the first database; accessing the monitored device using the obtained network address to obtain system identification information of the monitored device; determining if the monitoring system supports devices made by a manufacturer of the monitored device using information stored in the second database and the obtained system identification information; creating a software device object for the monitored device using information stored in said first and second databases, wherein the device object includes object identifiers used to obtain status information from devices of all manufacturers; updating the device object with object identifiers used to obtain status information from all devices of the manufacturer of the monitored device, if the monitoring system supports the devices made by the manufacturer; determining if the monitoring system supports devices corresponding to a model of the monitored device; and updating the device object with object identifiers used to obtain status information from devices corresponding to the model of the monitored device, if the monitoring system supports the devices corresponding to the model.