METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MONITOR AND NOTIFICATION IN A NETWORK

A user specifies one or more monitoring/probing rules on a client station. These rules specify user instructions for monitoring and probing conditions, events, and data on monitored sites on the Internet. The client station transfers the rules to the monitoring site, which also processes and interprets the rules. When the monitoring site processes these rules, it results in (1) allocation of space and (2) creation or initialization of agent programs, which will effect periodic monitoring of Internet sites and send data back to the monitoring site. If the retrieved information at the monitoring site satisfies the user-specified conditions, the monitoring site will conduct further exploration to gather more information that may help determine the causes of these conditions. The results of such a probe may be obtained from the monitoring site or the Internet, and are communicated by the monitoring site to the client station.