Recovery of Information from Commercial Web Portals

Novel tools and techniques for automated recovery of information from commercial web portals, including commercial web portals requiring credentials for access. In some instances images are captured and pushed to external processes for improving system performance. In some instances access to automated software agent remote control modules is balanced across a system comprising a plurality of processors hosting the automated software agent remote control modules. Some instances provide provisioning of credentials, in particular indicating credentials available for an unlimited or a select limited number of users and monitoring credential use of those credentials usable by a select number of users. Some instances provide cache management optimizes retrieval of data by external processes and ensures reliability of such data to reduce unnecessary web portal inquiries.