Patent ID: 8176138

Claim:
A system, comprising: a processor; and a computer storage medium storing instructions executable by the processor to implement a system description and provisioning mechanism on the system before the system is initialized, wherein the system description and provisioning mechanism implements at least a subset of a peer-to-peer platform protocol, such that during said initialization of the system, and upon installation of the system in a network environment, the system description and provisioning mechanism: collects system information for the system, wherein the collected system information comprises a hardware configuration of the system; includes the collected system information in a peer-to-peer platform advertisement that is formatted according to the peer-to-peer platform protocol; broadcasts or multicasts the peer-to-peer platform advertisement containing the collected system information automatically on a network coupled to the system, wherein a control station separate from the system receives the broadcast or multicast collected system information, and in response, automatically determines custom provisioning instructions that are specific to the system, based on the collected system information and on specific requirements of the network environment in which the system is installed, and wherein the separate control station automatically determines different provisioning instructions specific to another system in response to receiving different collected system information from the other system; receives one or more messages including the custom provisioning instructions that are specific to the system from the separate control station that received the broadcast or multicast collected system information; and provisions the system automatically according to the custom provisioning instructions received from the separate control station.