SYSTEM AND PROCESS FOR MAINTAINING A PLURALITY OF REMOTE SECURITY APPLICATIONS USING A MODULAR FRAMEWORK IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

A system and a process for maintaining a plurality of remote security applications using a centralized broker in a distributed computing environment are described. A centralized broker is executed on a designated system within the distributed computing environment. A console interface from the centralized broker is exposed. The console interface implements a plurality of browser methods which each define a browser function which can be invoked by a plurality of snap-in components. A namespace snap-in component is defined and includes a logical grouping identifying at least one remote security application being executed on a remote system within the distributed computing environment. A namespace interface from the namespace snap-in component is exposed. The namespace interface implements a plurality of namespace methods each defining a storage function which can be invoked by the centralized broker. A repository including a plurality of storages corresponding to each remote system is formed. Each storage includes a set of attributes describing each such remote security application defined within the namespace snap-in component.