Extensible network agent method, system, and architecture
AssigneeJDS Uniphase Corporation
InventorsMerlin Rhoda, Scott Blomquist
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system or method that extends a communication test/measurement agent by providing the communication test/measurement agent with built-in functionality to allow a central communication test/measurement system to generically communicate with and operate the agent, and by providing the communication test/measurement agent with built-in functionality to allow the agent to automatically recognize and dynamically incorporate plugins that are specific to different types of communication interfaces and which allow the network test/measurement system to communicate with the respective different types of communication interfaces.
Claims15
A method of extending a communication test/measurement agent, comprising:
- providing the communication test/measurement agent with built-in functionality to allow a communication test/measurement system or client to generically communicate with and operate the agent;
- and
- providing the communication test/measurement agent with built-in functionality to allow the agent to automatically recognize and dynamically incorporate interface-specific plugins that are specific to different types of communication interfaces and which allow the communication test/measurement client or system to communicate with the respective different types of communication interfaces.
A method of communication with network analysis software, the method comprising:
- sending requests from a communication testing console to a communication agent;
- receiving the requests at the agent;
- when a first one of the requests is directed to a communication interface, handling the first request with a plugin of the agent that is specific to the type of the communication interface;
- and
- when a second one of the requests is not directed to a communication interface, handling the second request with a common generic portion of the agent.
A method of extending a communication agent that provides a communication point for a console of a communication test/measurement system, the method comprising:
- deploying the communication agent, where the communication agent is deployed on a computing device comprising a communication interface and communicates with the communication interface using a driver application program, and where the console programmatically accesses the agent and accesses the interface through the agent;
- and
- after the deploying, making the deployed communication agent aware of a new communication interface by installing on the computing device plugin software that can handle commands specific to the new communication interface, where the agent self-recognizes the plugin software and self-integrates the plugin software, whereby the plugin software becomes part of the agent and allows the console to send commands to the new communication interface.
A communication test/measurement agent, comprising:
- built-in code to allow a central communication test/measurement system to generically communicate with and operate the agent;
- and
- built-in code to allow the agent to automatically recognize and dynamically incorporate interface-specific plugins that are specific to different types of communication interfaces and which allow the network test/measurement system to communicate with the respective different types of communication interfaces.
A machine-readable storage storing information enabling a network test/measurement agent to perform a process, the process comprising:
- receiving and processing generic communications from a central communication test/measurement system to generically operate the network test/measurement agent;
- and
- recognizing and dynamically incorporating into the network test/measurement agent interface-specific plugins that are specific to different types of communication interfaces and which allow the central communication test/measurement system to communicate with the respective different types of communication interfaces.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.