Patent ID: 7693590

Claim:
A method for providing notification when a state of a monitored system persists for a specified period of time, the method comprising: detecting that a monitored system is in a specified state utilizing a monitoring device, wherein the monitoring device comprises an embedded device, wherein the embedded device is not a general purpose computer, and wherein the monitored system is incapable of transmitting or monitoring its own state; initiating a timer within the monitoring device in response to detecting that the monitored system is in the specified state; monitoring the monitored system, utilizing the monitoring device, to determine whether the monitored system remains in the specified state; and if the monitored system remains in the specified state for a specified period of time, transmitting notification that the monitored system remained in the specified state for the specified period of time from the monitoring device to a client device via a network, wherein no notification is transmitted in response to detecting that the monitored system is in the specified state until after it is determined that the monitored system has remained in the specified state for the specified period of time.