1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to simplifying the process of customizing the configurations of many different types of computers to simplify their maintenance and repair. In particular, it relates to automatically transforming uniform configuration data into different forms to compensate for different computer configurations.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the number of personal computers and servers used throughout business enterprises has increased, and as the price of the hardware and software has decreased, the cost of setting up and maintaining a large array of networked computers has come to be dominated by cost of servicing the computers and keeping them all operating. In the past, this was done by manual intervention, with service personnel visiting each computer or with the computers being brought in for repair. But the cost of providing such manual service is high, and the difficulties of providing trained staff members able to cope with any problem that might arise on any given computer has also grown. Additionally, the time it takes for service personnel to visit a site greatly increases the time during which a given computer may be out of service due to some problem.
Accordingly, attempts have been made in the past to automate some or all of the tasks relating to computer maintenance and repair. With respect to personal computers, a first approach has been to make available to the user, on the computer itself and also within service sites maintained on the Internet, knowledge data bases containing detailed documentary descriptions of the programs, and also self-help tools. Thus, for example, one may learn from a centralized database that new software drivers for hardware accessories are available, and these may be downloaded and automatically installed on personal computers. Likewise, software patch analyzers are available which can trace a problem to software defects and which can suggest the downloading of more recent versions of the software that may cure those problems.
An even more sophisticated approach to PC maintenance is provided by the ServiceNet platform developed by Motive Communications, Incorporated. ServiceNet is designed around a self-help paradigm in which a person using a desktop computer notices a problem and then manually opens a “trouble ticket” that is transmitted to a support provider. The PC operator uses a web interface to report the problem to a program called Chorus Client, which is an incident escalator. The incident escalator first may try to run prewritten diagnostic scripts or provide “self-help” tools. It may then “isolate” the incident, running scripts to gather configuration data, and then combining the user's problem description and the configuration data with contact information identifying the user of the computer and including such things as name, e-mail address, and telephone number. It may also gather host information from the PC. These are transmitted to an incident receiver which parses the information and passes it on to a central analysis server where a program called Duet, in combination with a program called Insight, enable the provision of “online” assistance by a service engineer to review the problem in the context of the user's computer as configured and to provide assistance.
The configuration data must be installed on every computer in an enterprise that is subject to this type of maintenance and support. It identifies, among other possible things, the name and e-mail address, etc., of the one who is to be contacted when a computer needs support. It can also identify the name, etc. of a system as well as critical network parameters, such as proxy hosts.
One difficulty is that computers differ. They may be running differing operating systems, for example. Such differences necessitate configuration data to be represented differently or to be stored in different files.