SECURE REMOTE MANAGEMENT OF NETWORK DEVICES WITH LOCAL PROCESSING AND SECURE SHELL FOR REMOTE DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION

1 . An apparatus for autonomously managing one or more collocated managed devices, comprising:

a secure remote manager (SRM) device, connected to at least one of said one or more managed devices, the SRM device located in the same network locale as said managed devices;

said SRM device including:

a communication connection to at least one of the managed devices;

a controller embedded in the SRM device; and

wherein said controller forwards information in graphical form using a secure connection to an administrative user workstation located remotely from the SRM device.

2 . An apparatus as in claim 1 wherein a secure connection is provided using Secure Shell (SSH).

3 . An apparatus as in claim 2 wherein the secure connection also provides an XWindows graphical interface.

4 . An apparatus as in claim 1 wherein element manager processing executes on the SRM device.

5 . An apparatus as in claim 1 wherein database data concerning end user data is not accessible from the administrative workstation.

6 . An apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the SRM device further manages administrative workstation user authentication and login.

7 . An apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the connection from the SRM device to the administrative user workstation is not shared.

8 . A method for a managing device to manage one or more collocated managed devices, the method comprising:

establishing a console communication connection to at least one managed device to be managed, the console communication connection respective to each of the managed devices and independent of all other connections to managed devices; and

forwarding information relating to the console communication connection to a centrally located administrative workstation in graphical form over a secure wide area network connection, the secure wide area network connection established using a secure shell networking protocol.

9 . The method according to claim 8 additionally comprising:

forwarding one or more operations to one or more of the managed devices, as received from the administrative workstation, to manage the one or more collocated managed devices.

10 . The method according to claim 8 further comprising

storing information regarding a managing device or the managed devices, the information not accessible to the managed devices or the administrative workstation.

11 . The method according to claim 8 further comprising:

communicating with the managed device via a command line interpreter over the forwarded serial connection.

12 . The method according to claim 8 further comprising:

obtaining an operation to be processed for one of the managed devices;

authorizing the operation;

connecting to the managed device via the console communication connection;

detecting a state of the managed device via the console communication connection;

transmitting the operation to the managed device via the console communication connection;

receiving data indicative of execution of the operation from the managed device via the console communication connection;

providing data indicative of execution of the operation to the administrative workstation in graphical form.

13 . The method according to claim 8 wherein the secure connection also provides an XWindows graphical interface.

14 . The method according to claim 8 wherein element manager processing executes in managing device.

15 . The method according to claim 8 wherein database data concerning end user data is not accessible from the administrative workstation.

16 . The method according to claim 8 wherein the managing device manages administrative workstation user authentication and login.

17 . The method according to claim 8 wherein the connection from the managing device to the administrative user workstation is not shared.