Patent ID: 7920467

Claim:
A method for monitoring a plurality of network devices, comprising: identifying devices on the network having an SNMP connection; requesting identification data from each of the identified devices, wherein the requesting uses one or more of SNMP, HTTP, XML, ICMP, and PJL over TCP/IP; storing the device identification data received in response to the requesting; periodically requesting additional data from devices using the stored device identification data and, if the additional data satisfies a predetermined criterion, the predetermined criterion being a configurable parameter and based on a device status change, then creating and sending an electronic message to at least one specified recipient; connecting directly into any identified external device; forwarding information collected on a scheduled basis to an external collector; and coordinating the identifying and the requesting of multiple monitoring systems on the network; wherein all of the steps are performed based on instructions embedded within at least one network device and wherein instructions for interpreting the device status change automatically close an event that has been rectified and which has no accompanying status change indicator.