Digital Equipment Corporation

Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.p.

Colin Strutt

Leonard G Fehskens

G Paul Koning

Mark W Sylor

Richard L Rosenbaum

Mark J Seger

Jeffrey R Harrow

Linsey B O'Brien

Stanley I Goldfarb

Kenneth W Chapman

Robert C Schuchard

Sheryl F Namoglu

Jill F Callander

David L Aronson

Dennis O Rogers

Matthew J Guertin

Danny L Smith

Arundahati G Sankar

Timothy M Dixon

Steven K Wong

Benjamin M England

Philip John Trasatti

Ruth E Kohls

Robert R Ross

Kathy J Nelson

Allan B Moore

Peter H Burgess

James L Lemmon, Jr

Christine C Chan-Lizardo

William C Adams, Jr

Anil V Navkal

Gerard R Plouffe

James Anthony Swist

Ruth E J Kohls

Kathy Jo Nelson

Robert R N Ross

A system for managing an assemblage of entities. The entities interface within the assemblage for control of primary information handling functions and further interface with the system to permit the carrying out of management functions. The system includes management modules adapted to carry out management functions by independently interpreting and executing commands and a kernel including a table of dispatch pointers for directing the commands to the respective modules in which they are to be interpreted and executed. In addition, the system includes storage containing domain information defining groups of entities, where the kernel may issue a command to a group by issuing individual commands to appropriate modules.

Entity management system

Apparatus and a related method for managing entities in a complex and, in general, geographically distributed system, such as distributed data processing system. The management approach is defined in terms of a generalized model having management modules integrated into a single cooperative system by a management director kernel. The management modules include presentation modules to provide an interface with users who manage the complex system, access modules to provide an interface with managed entities or devices, and function modules to define various functions that may be performed in controlling or monitoring the managed entities. If the complex system being managed is large, a managed entity and an associated access module may be located on one physical system, while a presentation module is located on another physical system, close to the user, and a function module being used might be located on yet another physical system, for reasons of processing convenience. The present invention provides a convenient mechanism, consistent with the management model, for forwarding procedure calls between management modules located on different physical systems, through management director kernels located on different physical systems. Two types of remote procedure calls are disclosed, one to forward procedure calls for invoking primitive functions, each on a single managed entity, and a more powerful remote procedure call for invoking higher-level functions relating to user-defined domains of multiple managed entities.

Entity management system with remote call feature

A system for managing an assemblage of entities. The entities interface within the assemblage for control of primary information handling functions and further interface with the system to permit the carrying out of management functions. The system includes management modules adapted to carry out management functions by independently interpreting and executing commands, a kernel including a table of dispatch pointers for directing the commands to the respective modules in which they are to be interpreted and executed, and an enroller for enrolling new modules into the system by adding further pointers to the table. In addition, the system includes: a module adapted to independently interpret and execute selected management-related commands; stored records relating to accessed management information, each record indicating an associated time; an information manager, responsive to commands having a time schedule, for retrieving information from the records or accessing information from the entities, including a scheduler for issuing subsidiary accesses or retrievals at possibly multiple times according to the schedule; storage containing domain information defining groups of entities, where the kernel may issue a commands to a group by issuing individual commands to appropriate modules; a common command syntax including fields for identifying the entity and the operation to be performed; a module that stores rules identifying alarm conditions, including a generator for generating rules and an alarm detector for detecting an alarm condition in response to the rules; a module adapted to carry out self-management functions by interpreting and executing commands.

Extensible entity management system including an information manager for

Extensible entity management system including a dispatching kernel and

Extensible entity management system including rule-based alarms

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Westford, MA, United States of America

Colin Strutt