The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 04, 2004
Filed:
Jan. 04, 2000
Daniel Edward House, Raleigh, NC (US);
Shaw-Ben Shepherd Shi, Austin, TX (US);
Richard Lee Daugherty, Cary, NC (US);
John Ryan McGarvey, Apex, NC (US);
Chandra Paul Immanuel, Durham, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a method and system for providing cross-platform access to Internet users of a heterogeneous grouping of computers. In a system aspect, the system includes a plurality of heterogeneous computer systems, at least one of the plurality of computer systems including an Internet user identity; and an enterprise directory service, the enterprise directory service being shared by the plurality of computer systems, the enterprise directory including at least one enterprise role which is associated with the Internet user identity, the at least one enterprise role capable of being used to access the plurality of computer systems independently of any specific operating system user identification. By allowing enterprise roles to be defined independently of any specific operating system user identification, flexibility is injected into the network configuration and Internet user aggravation is reduced. Enterprise roles may also be provided in the context of enterprise groups, allowing access to systems in the network by Internet users to be more readily controlled.