Appeal No. 2001-0999
Application No. 08/972,220
thereon and report that data in window 40. To administer one of the
services, the network administrator then selects one of the listed entries in
window 40 for administration. If the e-mail service on server AB entry is
selected for administration, for example, another window 42 may be
launched. Window 42 would contain information regarding the e-mail
service on server AB such as the number of users on line, the amount of
disk space being used by this e-mail service, number of mail messages
stored per user, and the like. Through window 42, the network
administrator may then administer the e-mail service by changing the
attributes or parameters as desired. Other services may also be
administered in a similar manner.
Although the prior art approach to remote network administration
represents an improvement over the local network administration model of
FIG. 1, there are several disadvantages. By way of example, the prior art
remote network service management application requires knowledge
beforehand of the network services on the network servers. In order to
recognize and administer the services in a network, the prior art remote
network service management application is programmed upon installation
for specific types of services, and a specific network protocol and
configuration, and other network-specific as well as service-specific
details. Knowledge of these network-specific and service-specific details
is required by the prior art remote network service management
application to allow it to communicate with a particular service instantiation
on a particular network server.
If it is desired, subsequent to the installation of the prior art remote
network service management application, to extend the types of network
services available by, for example, installing a new network service on
one of the network servers, it is typically necessary to reprogram the prior
art remote network service management application to allow it to
recognize and support the newly installed service. The reprogramming is
necessary because when the prior art remote network service
management application was created, it is programmed only for the types
of network services available to the network at the time of its creation. The
prior art remote network service management application would not know
how to obtain status data and administer some novel network services
that may be developed subsequent to the creation and installation of the
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