Method and system for auditing an enterprise configuration

Abstract

A method is provided for auditing the configuration of an enterprise comprising the steps of: collecting information relating to the configuration of the enterprise, analyzing the configuration information based on expert knowledge; and providing the result of the analysis in the form of reports, and other results of the analyses.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A method for auditing a configuration of an enterprise, comprising the steps of: 
 collecting information relating to a configuration of the enterprise;    analyzing the configuration information based on expert knowledge; and    providing a result of the analysis.    
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the step of generating a report of the result of the analysis in a format designated by a requesting party.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising the step of delivering the report to the requesting party.  
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the analyzing step includes the step of defining an analyzer based on expert knowledge as an issue with the configuration of the enterprise.  
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the step of analyzing the configuration information further includes the step of applying the analyzer to the configuration information to identify whether the issue exists within the enterprise.  
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4 , further including the step of capturing the expert knowledge for defining the analyzer.  
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method is entirely automated.  
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising the step of creating an action plan to address the issue identified by the analyzer.  
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the step of storing the information relating to the configuration of the enterprise.  
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the step of repeating the steps of the method.  
     
     
         11 . A method for auditing configuration of a plurality of field platforms or nodes in an enterprise, comprising the steps of: 
 collecting information relating to configurations of a plurality of field platforms or nodes;    creating a plurality of analyzers based on expert knowledge, each analyzer representing one or more issues with one of the plurality of field platforms or nodes;    applying the plurality of analyzers to the configuration information to determine whether the issues exists with the plurality of field platforms or nodes;    storing the issues identified with the plurality of field platforms or nodes;    creating a plurality of rules based on expert information, each rule representing an issue with the enterprise;    applying the plurality of rules to the issues stored that exist with respect to the field platforms or nodes;    providing a result of the analysis representing issues within the enterprise.    
     
     
         12 . A computer-implemented method for auditing automatically a configuration of at least one source within an enterprise, comprising the steps of: 
 collecting variably formatted configuration information from at least one source,    analyzing the configuration information using analyzers whose designs are based upon expert knowledge to identify the presence or absence of one or more issues associated with the at least one source; and    providing as a result of the analysis information defining the presence or absence of the one or more issues in a standard format.    
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein each variable format is determined by the ordering of information in the standard output of a computer program collector.  
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the source is a platform or node.  
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the standard format XML.  
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising the step of transferring the XML analysis result into a database and then using the database to control the assembly of reports.  
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the analyzing step includes the step of applying an analyzer to the configuration information to identify whether the issues exist within the source.  
     
     
         18 . A system for auditing a configuration of a plurality of sources within an enterprise, the sources including a plurality of combinations of hardware, software and operating systems, the system comprising: 
 a plurality of collectors for collecting configuration information from each of the plurality of sources, the configuration information including a plurality of combinations of data formats, data syntax, and data elements structure;    a component for analyzing the configuration information for each source of the plurality of sources to identify one or more issues associated with each source; and    a component for standardizing the configuration information.    
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the component for standardizing the configuration information includes a component for converting the configuration information into a uniform format.  
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , further including a component for generating a report of the result of the analysis.  
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the result may be adapted into one of a plurality of presentation layouts.  
     
     
         22 . An automated framework comprising: 
 a first component for collecting configuration information relating to a plurality of sources;    a second component for analyzing the configuration information based on expert knowledge to identify an issue associated within each source of the plurality of sources; and    a third component for providing results of the analysis of each source.    
     
     
         23 . The automated framework of  claim 23 , further comprising a fourth component for generating one of a plurality of reports with the results.