International Business Machines Corporation

Box Limited

Bigfix, Inc.

Peter Benjamin Loer

Dennis Sidney Goodrow

Lisa Ellen Lippincott

Peter Lincroft

Benjamin John Kus

Gregory Mitchell Toto

Jeremy Scott Spiegel

Jonathan S Fan

David Salim Hindawi

David Leigh Donoho

Orion Hindawi

James M Brown

Amrit Tsering Williams

James B Evans

Jason E Mealins

John Edward Firebaugh

Jesse Ward-Karet

Christopher Jacob Loer

Aaron Olaf Louick Bauer

Brian Patrick Green

Michael Latham Ottum

Anna Esther Min

Dennis S Goodrow

Orion Yosef Hindawi

Systems and methods for secure resource access and network communication are provided. A plurality of policies are received on a client device, each policy comprising a respective resource and a respective permission for a respective action that can be performed by a user of the client device in regards to the resource. A first application, which is configured to store data in an encrypted repository on the client device, receives a request to open a resource. The first application determines that one of the policies prohibits access by the resource to the encrypted repository and, based thereon, selects a different second application to open the resource that does not have access to the encrypted repository. The second application then opens the resource.

Systems and methods for secure resource access and network communication

A Policy- and Relevance-based User Interface (UI) for an enterprise suite Console provides a Console Operator access to information about systems on a network under management. By means of such UI, a user experience is dynamically constructed within product domains particular to the system under management using content elements that flow from content sites into the user environment, populating user interface and driving the Operator experience. Specifications distributed with the content determine how the local Console UI organizes and presents information. The UI is further determined by each Console operator's content access rights. The UI allows for re-flowing the Console UI without reinstalling or updating the Console application, seamlessly integrating new content in to the UI and targeting language to specific working areas.

Content-based user interface, apparatus and method

An apparatus and method for centralized policy management of large-scale networks () of computational devices is disclosed. The apparatus includes a number of distributed clients () run on registered computers (-), gathering policy advisories () and reporting () relevance () to a system administrator (). The system administrator may view the relevant messages () through a management interface () and deploy suggested actions to distributed clients (), where the actions are executed to apply the solutions of the advisories ().

Formalizing, diffusing and enforcing policy advisories and monitoring policy compliance in the management of networks

A pseudo-agent is disclosed herein that bridges this divide. For purposes of the discussion herein, a pseudo-agent is a machine that is installed on a fully capable host machine, such as a Windows or UNIX machine, and that gathers and evaluates content from a management server, takes actions if so instructed, and reports the results of its evaluation upstream. However, unlike an agent in a traditional management system, which inspects and acts on the local machine, the pseudo-agent actually inspects and acts on a remote device, or many remote devices.

Mechanisms for evaluating relevance of information to a managed device and performing management operations using a pseudo-agent

A client hypervisor comprises a virtual agent that runs outside of a system OS and that allows device management independent of the OS and user. The virtual agent is tied to a device and not a specific instance of the OS. Such client hypervisors expose new functionality to ease managing systems. Some of these capabilities come from the persistence and privileges outside the OS. In some embodiments of the invention, this new management functionality is exposed to allow device management via new virtualization concepts, such as multiple VMs per system, VM replacement, snapshot/rollback, etc.

Endpoint-hosted hypervisor management

An embodiment of the invention provides a technique that extends relevance-based computation to include computation based on information accessed from or exchanged with other agents. Mechanisms are provided by which an agent accesses or exchanges information between or among other agents and may include one or more of: central bulletin board, broadcast, direct request&#x2014;pull, direct request&#x2014;push, and server-routed. Architectural models of distributed decision making to facilitate a distributed and policy-based management of IT infrastructure are provided.

Method and apparatus for distributed policy-based management and computed relevance messaging with remote attributes

Pseudo-agent

A console for an enterprise suite is disclosed. The enterprise suite addresses the increasingly complex problem of keeping critical systems updated, compatible, and free of security holes. It uses Fixlet&#xae; technology to identify vulnerable computers on the network and then allows authorized personnel to correct problems across any subset of the network with a few simple mouse-clicks. The enterprise suite helps keep the networked computers updated and properly patched, all from a central console which, along with supporting architectural enhancements, is the subject matter of this document. The invention allows rolling out a security patch in minutes instead of months, thus allowing an administrator to stay ahead of potential hacker attacks. The invention also makes it possible to track the progress of each computer as updates are applied, thus making it simple to gauge the level of compliance across the entire enterprise.

Enterprise console

Formalizing, diffusing, and enforcing policy advisories and monitoring policy compliance in the management of networks

The invention disclosed herein enables a collection of computers and associated communications infrastructure to offer a new communications process which allows a requestor to receive configuration information of a computational device from a responder. The requester first sends query documents that contain queries for configuration information of a computational device to the responder; the responder automatically collects the answers for the queries and sends a response document that contains the configuration information of the computational device to the requestor. The queries are written in a formal descriptive language which is transparent, safe for network evaluation, and extensible, and the configuration reader of the responder can parse the queries and automatically invoke a set of standard inspectors to obtain the corresponding configuration information.

Method to remotely query, safely measure, and securely communicate configuration information of a networked computational device

Growing community of inventors

Oakland, CA, United States of America

Peter Benjamin Loer