American Power Conversion Corporation

Schneider Electric It Corporation

David Joseph Smith

Todd J Giaquinto

David A Cardimino, Jr

James S Spitaels

Daniel C Cohen

Stephen Berard

John O'Leary

David M Aharonian

Thomas F Wenisch

Jeffrey J Brown

Elizabeth Schultz

Christian L Kuiawa

One aspect relates to a communication protocol for communicating between one or more entities, such as devices, hosts or any other system capable of communicating over a network. A protocol is provided that allows communication between entities without a priori knowledge of the communication protocol. In such a protocol, for example, information describing a data structure of the communication protocol is transferred between communicating entities. Further, an authentication protocol is provided for providing bidirectional authentication between communicating entities. In one specific example, the entities include a master device and a slave device coupled by a serial link. In another specific example, the communication protocol may be used for performing unbalanced transmission between communicating entities.

Communication protocol and method for authenticating a system

A system for use with electric equipment includes a first input/output (I/O) device configured to couple to the electric equipment, a monitor coupled to the first I/O device and configured to determine information regarding the electric equipment, a second I/O device configured to communicate with a communication network, a memory that stores a computer-executable program configured to be executed by a computer to provide a computer interface for providing indicia of the information regarding the electric equipment, the computer interface being in a format that is distinct from a network browser format, and an interface-provisioning device configured to convey the computer-executable program toward the computer via the second input/output device and the communication network.

User interface provisioning

Aspects of the invention are directed to monitoring a plurality of UPS devices coupled to a network. According to one aspect of the invention, a computer is coupled to the plurality of UPS devices through the network and monitors the states of the UPS devices by using a UPS devices monitoring icon. The UPS monitoring icon takes on various shapes depending on the status or state of one or more UPS devices being monitored and generally acts as an annunciator to the status or state. For example, the UPS monitoring iconcan take on one of four symbols depending on whether the UPS devices are operating normally or one or more UPS devices have been diagnosed as being in a 'critical' state, a 'warning' state or an &#x201c;unknown&#x201d; state.

Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices monitoring system

A method of controlling shutdown of processes on equipment powered through a UPS comprises: providing a graphical display system and a graphical pointing device; displaying on the graphical display system a graphic having a time access and a process access; arranging along the process access indicia of one or more processes to be shutdown; for at least one of the one or more processes, displaying a time bar extending from a start point along the time access to an end point along the time access; and controlling one of the start point and the end point of the time bar with the pointing device, whereby shutdown of the at least one process is controlled according to the times of the start point and the end point of the time bar.

Graphical view of shutdown process

A method and system are provided for authenticating a user of a computer over a computer network. In one embodiment of the invention, the method includes transmitting an applet having a challenge string and a first encryption key, receiving a login packet having the challenge string and a password that is encrypted using the first encryption key, decrypting the password, receiving information from an authentication provider, and authenticating the password by using the information provided by the authentication provider. The challenge string can be either a sequence number or a session identifier. The authentication provider can be a software program or an authentication server. An advantage of embodiments of the present invention is that a computer can provide secure Internet communications using a web browser that does not support SSL and can provide secure integration with third party security systems.

Growing community of inventors

East Greenwich, RI, United States of America

David Joseph Smith