A system and method for monitoring the configuration and/or status of target
devices
on a network. The system comprises a monitoring application that can be run on
a first network device. The monitoring application is configured to monitor one
or more target devices on the network using data collector modules that run on
the target devices. The data collector modules are launched on the target devices
by the monitoring application and are configured to collect configuration and/or
status information about the target devices. After collecting the data, the data
collector modules preferably pass the data back to the first network device, where
a data upload application receives the data and uploads it to a central site. The
data at the central site is placed in a database for access by users or clients.
Users can access the data in the database by communicating with the central site,
for example, via a dial-up connection or via the Internet. Once connected to the
central site, a user can retrieve system information using a graphical user interface,
or can submit report requests to the central site. The interface used to access
information at the central site may be a web browser communicating through a web
server at the central site.