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Abstract

In a system for remotely monitoring networked devices and appliances, email messages are sent across networks, the email messages containing configuration, status or other information. For flexibility, it is desirable to quickly and easily change the message type designation, and to easily determine a data structure definition appropriate for storing the received information. To achieve this goal, the message type designation of a given message's information may be defined within the message itself, and extracted at the receiving end before the information is analyzed or stored according to a data structure definition determined by the message type designation. A large number of devices can thus communicate configuration, status and/or other types of information in a variety of message types. A method stores information concerning a remotely monitored device, the information being contained in a message that includes a message type designation. The method involves extracting the message type designation from the message, determining a data structure definition based on the message type designation, reading data elements from the message, and storing the data elements into a database according to the data structure definition. The method may be implemented in object-oriented programming, in a software module including a data retriever class and a database interface class.

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