SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A FRAMEWORK FOR NETWORK APPLIANCE MANAGEMENT IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

A system and method for providing a framework for network appliance management in a distributed computing environment is disclosed. A status report periodically received from each of a plurality of network appliances is recorded. Each status report contains health and status information and application-specific data for each network appliance. Configuration settings for each network appliance progressively assembled concurrent to providing installable components are maintained. A catalog listing currently installable components for each network appliance based on the configuration settings is dynamically provided.