Management of external hardware appliances in a distributed operating system

Abstract

Embodiments are provided to manage external hardware appliances from a distributed operating system interface in a computer network using a driver model to communicate with device drivers associated with the external hardware appliances. In one embodiment, a request to manage an external hardware appliance in the computer network may be received in a distributed web-based operating system interface. A driver model may be selected which is configured to interface with a device driver for managing configuration settings for the external hardware appliance. The driver model may be utilized to manage the external hardware appliance configuration settings from the interface. The settings may include managing domain name changes, firewall settings, proxy settings, and the like. In another embodiment, the driver model may be utilized to manage external hardware appliance settings during a network configuration operation initiated from the distributed operating system interface.