Methods and applets for providing and contributing to an it network management service

A method for contributing to a network management service for a user's IT network at a user's side, said management service being provided by a network management service provider over the Internet, comprising:

• receiving mobile code via the Internet, said mobile code, when running at the user's side, acts as a network management gateway between the user's network and the service provider connectable to the user's network via the Internet;
• receiving at least one request for a network management step from the service provider via the Internet and executing the request by the network management gateway;
• returning result data obtained in the network management step to the service provider via the Internet.

An applet including program code, which when executed in a user's Internet browser, acts as a network management gateway between a user's network and a network-management service provider;

• said applet, when receiving a request for a network management step from the service provider via the Internet, executes the request in the user's network and returns result data obtained in the execution of the network management step to the service provider via the Internet.

A method for providing a network management service for a user's IT network by a network management service provider over the Internet, comprising:

• sending at least one network management command in an encapsulated form to the user's side over the Internet for decapsulation into a network-management-protocol command at the user's side and execution in the user's IT network;
• receiving result data obtained by executing the network-management-protocol command over the Internet.