Remote discovery and system architecture

1. A method for consolidating computing devices, comprising:

sending a discovery agent over a network connection to at least one computing device;

receiving a first data set from the discovery agent indicative of characteristics of the at least one computing device;

displaying, on a display of a user computing device, at least one difference between the first data set and a second data set, wherein the second data set is from a second computing device other than the at least one computing device that was the source of the first data set and the first data set comprises information indicative of at least one application resident on the at least one computing device and the second data set comprises information indicative of at least one application resident on the second computing device;

installing a version of the at least one application resident on the at least one computing device on the second computing device;

removing at least one application resident on the at least one computing device; and

removing the discovery agent from the at least one computing device.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the second data set is from the same computing device that was the source of the first data set but from a different time.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the at least one computing device is a server computer among a plurality of server computers.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein at least one of the first and second data sets comprises information indicative of at least one process executing on the at least one computing device.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the act of displaying at least one difference between the first and second data sets comprises displaying an indication of a difference in the at least one application in both the first data set and the second data set.

6. The method of claim 4 comprising installing a version of the at least one process on a second computer.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the first data set comprises information indicative of at least one database.

8. The method as recited in claim 7 wherein the information indicative of the at least one database comprises column table information for tables in the at least one database.

9. The method as recited in claim 8 comprising populating a database on a second computer with at least a portion of the table information from the at least one database.

10. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the act of sending the discovery agent to the at least one computing device comprises sending a remote procedure to the at least one computing device and remotely executing the remote procedure.

11. The method as recited in claim 10 comprising receiving the at least one data set via named pipes.

12. A method of consolidating services performed on a first and second computing device to a second computing device, comprising:

sending a discovery agent to the first computing device to determine a plurality of services provided by the first computing device;

receiving a first set of information from the discovery agent indicative of the plurality of services provided by the first computing device;

comparing the first set of information to a second set of information indicative of a plurality of services provided by a second computing device to determine at least one service provided by the first computing device that is not available on the second computing device;

changing the services performed by the second computing device to include the at least one service of the plurality of services provided by the first computing device that is not available on the second computing device;

removing at least one service of the plurality of services provided by the first computing device; and

removing the discovery agent from the first computing device.

13. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the discovery agent comprises computer executable instructions for determining system characteristics on the first computing device.

14. The method as recited in claim 13 wherein the system characteristics comprise at least one of: the number of processors, available processors, processor level, devices, disk drive characteristics, disk drive capacity, system name, page size, operating system version, operating system build, and network connectivity.

15. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the discovery agent comprises computer executable instructions for determining executable process characteristics on the first computing device.

16. The method as recited in claim 15 wherein the process characteristics comprise at least one of: CPU utilization, memory utilization, active processes, active process dependencies, processor usage, memory usage, process creation time, process ID, process owner, process handles, process version, dependency version, process timestamp, process description, and dependency description.

17. The method as recited in claim 12 where the discovery agent is executed by way of a remote procedure call.

18. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the discovery agent communicates the first set of information by way of named pipes.

19. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the services comprise an application service provided by the first computing device.

20. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the services comprise a database service.

21. The method as recited in claim 12 wherein the discovery agent comprises computer executable instructions for determining database characteristics on the first computing device.

22. The method as recited in claim 21 wherein the database characteristics comprise at least one of: roles, users, aliases, rules, functions, user defined datatypes, user messages, tables, views, indexes, extended procedures, stored procedures, and triggers.