Patent ID: 7620718

Claim:
A method of managing and servicing at least one device communicatively coupled to a network with a monitoring apparatus, comprising: receiving, at a network interface of the monitoring apparatus, device information, including at least one of alert information and status information pertaining to the device, from the at least one device over the network; storing, in a digital depository, the received device information; storing, in the digital depository, business context information, including contract management information that indicates which devices are covered by a contract with a service provider, and at least one of billing management information and order management information related to managing and servicing the at least one device; storing, in the digital depository, user access information, the user access information governing access to the stored device information and the stored business context information of the at least one device by a plurality of users; providing, at the monitoring apparatus, at least one of the stored device information and the business context information to a user of the plurality of users based on the stored user access information; determining, at the monitoring apparatus, by interfacing with a digital system that stores the contract management information, whether the at least one device is to be serviced under the contract based on the contract management information that indicates which devices are covered by the contract; automatically placing and processing, at the monitoring apparatus, a service call for the at least one device through a service management subsystem if the at least one device is to be serviced under the contract based on the contract management information; and generating and sending, at the monitoring apparatus, a service quote to a sender of the device information if the at least one device is not to be serviced under the contract based on the contract management information.