Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Device configuration and management development system

Device configuration and management development system description/claims

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/484,871, filed Sep. 13, 2004, which application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. § 365(c) and § 120 to International Application Number PCT/GB02/03338, filed Jul. 23, 2002, published as WO 03/012635 A2, and under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a)-(d) or 365(b) to Great Britain Application Number 0118377.1, filed Jul. 27, 2001, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein.

The present invention relates to the development and/or management of configuration and management parameters for devices.

There is a need when developing devices for a management capability for the devices to be generated. Thus a device developer must devote some time to the task of providing management capabilities in a device. This is something that many developers dislike and can overlook. The responsibility usually falls to an administrator or manager to ensure that a management function is provided in the device by requesting certain management functions to be encoded in the device.

With the prevalent use of networked devices, the provision for both local and remote management has become essential for the proper functioning of a network. Networked devices can be used for a wide range of functions and it highly desirable to provide both local and central management.

In the prior art, the provision of both local and central management of devices is approached separately. A device developer is frequently required to provide certain management functions and does so by providing software for the device which provides an interface to the device e.g. over the network. An administrator or manager then provides a central management capability separately. This means that there is a fragmented approach to the management of the devices. There are two separate development groups, one providing local management and the other providing central management. This requires an increase in effort making it time consuming and expensive to create and maintain all the necessary documentation. Further co-ordination between the groups can be difficult and thus the maintenance of consistency and compatibility between the two ends of the management can be difficult. Further, developers who are normally responsible for influencing device features often do not understand the management requirements.

Thus in accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the present inventors have developed and end to end management solution which utilises a common management data structure during the development, deployment, and use of managed devices. A common management model is used which can provide a common management interface.

One aspect of the present invention provides a device configuration system and method for developing and managing configuration and management information for devices. The system enables developers to develop configuration data and/or management data. Configuration and/or management data is stored as device data that is stored in accordance with a common management model. This enables the parameters and the management information to be managed. Parameters and management data entered in the common model can be output in a software product as a device management product which includes a parameters and management data for a set of devices. The device management product can thus be used to configure and manage a set of devices using the common management model. Each device has configuration and management data stored therein in accordance with the common management model. This provides for both central management and for local management using the common management model. In this way end to end management is provided.

Another aspect of the present invention provides a device configuration development system for developing and/or managing configuration and/or management information for devices. Device data structured in accordance with the common model of parameters relating to the configuration and/or management of the devices is stored. A developer interface allows a software developer to develop software for configuring and/or managing devices and to store device data in accordance with a common model. A device configuration and/or management software product for configuring and managing a set of devices is built by reading stored data for a set of devices structured in accordance with the common model. Device management and control software is configured for controlling a processing apparatus in a device manager to configure and/or manage the devices using the data for the devices included in the product and to provide the data for a device to the device to allow a local configuration and/or management at the device. The device management and control software can be included in the product or it can be already installed in the device manager processing apparatus.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the software product is built by reading and including in the software product the software developed by the software developer for loading onto devices for configuring and managing the devices.

In a preferred embodiment, the devices comprise network devices and the common model is a model of parameters relating to the configuration and management of the network devices which can be for example network configuration parameters e.g. network protocol capabilities.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the common management model comprises a model of hardware characteristics, software characteristics and relationships therebetween. This therefore provides a full picture of the characteristics of the device for management purposes.

In one embodiment of the present the device data comprises configuration data and meta data. The configuration data defines configuration parameters that can be set for the device. A configuration data can have configuration values that can be set by the developer or be settable by a manager centrally or by an operator of the device The meta data comprises management information for the configuration data and for the device.

In one embodiment the device data can include management data which includes interface information defining the configuration of a user interface to the device data i.e. defining a management interface. In this way, the meta data can define a common interface for central and local management. In one embodiment, for networked devices, the common user interface preferably comprises a web interface provided by a web server.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the device data can be copied to allow a developer to enter device data if the need arise by simply copying device data for another device which most closely resembles the new device to be developed and modifying the device data as necessary.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the developer interface means includes means for generating code stubs for management functionality from the device data for combination with the software provided by the software developer to control the device. Thus this capability provides encouragement for a developer to use the development system to enter the management data and the task of writing the code for the management functionality is removed from the developer. It is only necessary for the developer to interface the code stubs into their code by writing suitable interface code or ‘glue’.

In one embodiment of the present invention, documentation for each device is stored. This can be stored as segments associated with respective parameters in the common model. Documentation for a device can be generated automatically by inserting management information from the management model into the documentation. Thus as management parameters are updated, the documentation is automatically updated. The documentation can be stored as document segments with each segment being associated with a respective parameter and having management parameters associated therewith. Thus documentation can be built up by incorporating management parameters into the documentation segments and aggregating the document segments to provide complete documentation for the device.

Within the common model, it is possible for the configuration parameters to identify a configured device comprising configuration data which is complete for a device or a configuration profile that includes some configuration data that can be input to complete or modify the configuration data for a device. For example, a number of configuration parameters could be set to a default value that can be altered by a user in order to modify the configuration data to provide a device profile. Thus in this way configuration parameters for a device can comprise configuration parameters from a configuration profile and user input configuration parameters. The configuration parameters from a configuration profile can be common to a large number of devices.

In accordance with another aspect, the present invention provides a management system or method for managing devices using the common management model. Data storage means stores management and configuration data for each device for managing and configuring the device. The management and configuration data is structured in accordance with the common management model i.e. in accordance with a common model of parameters related to the functioning and management of the devices. Means of communicating with the devices is provided in each device. Also the devices are provided with a copy of the management and configuration data for respective devices to provide for local management and configuration. Thus each device has a subset of the data in the common management model relevant for the management of the device. A device management means controls communications to and from the devices to provide central configuration of the devices and receipt of management data from the devices.

Thus in accordance with this aspect of the present invention, a device management system can be provided by the device development environment and the common management model can be used in both.

The device management system can, in one embodiment, provide the copy of the management and configuration data to each of the devices. In this way the management system can provide the initial configuration for the devices. This initial configuration can include the storage of code modules for controlling the devices for sending to and storing at the devices. The code module can be the same for the same type of device thus providing for not only common hardware but also common software for devices. The only difference between devices thus lies in the configuration and management data. This enables simple reconfiguration of devices by reconfiguration of their configuration and management data. No change of code is needed.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws