Automated ordering of computer system repair

• US 10,180,869 B2
• Filed: 02/16/2016
• Issued: 01/15/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Go, Alexander Say, MacGregor, Donald, Maeso, Gregorio, Davidson, Noah Aaron Cedar
• Primary Examiner(s): Riad, Amine
• Application Number:
  US15/045,118
• Publication Number:
  US 20170235629A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,064 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0706 the processing taking place on a specific hardware platform or in a specific software environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3031 where the computing system component is a motherboard or an expansion card
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/321 Display for diagnostics, e.g. diagnostic result display, self-test user interface
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484

Abstract

Monitoring the health of a computer system and suggesting an order of repair when problems within the computer system have been identified. Problem(s) and problem entity(s) within the computer system are identified during monitoring. Relationship(s) of the problem entities with other entities in the computer system are identified. A relationship type for each of the identified relationship(s) is determined. A combination of the identified problem(s), the identified problem entity(s), and the determined relationship type(s) is analyzed to determine an order in which repairs of one or more user-visible entities of the computing system should occur in order to address the identified problem(s). An alert comprising the determined order of the repairs is then presented to a user.

Claims

1. A computer system for continually monitoring the health of the computer system based on entity relationships, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more storage devices having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more processors, and that configure the system to monitor the health of the computer system and suggest an order of repair, including computer-executable instructions that configure the computer system to perform the following;

identify one or more problems within the computer system and one or more candidate entities within the computer system that are identified as being associated with the one or more problems; and

for each identified candidate entity, perform at least the following;

identify one or more relationships that the candidate entity has with other entities in the computer system;

for each identified relationship of the candidate entity, perform at least the following;

determine a relationship type for each identified relationship of the candidate entity; and

based on each determined relationship type, determine a relationship status of each entity within the identified relationship of the determined relationship type; and

based at least partially on the determined relationship type of the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity and the determined relationship status of each entity within the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity,

generate a certainty value associated with each of the one or more candidate entities, the certainty value for a given entity indicating a likelihood of the given entity being a root cause of at least one of the one or more problems;

determine an order in which repairs of one or more user-visible entities of the computer system are to occur in order to address the one or more identified problems; and

present to a user an alert comprising the determined order of the repairs.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more relationships comprises a container relationship type, wherein the relationship status of the candidate entity within the container relationship comprises a child relationship status.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of the safety of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

4. The computer system of claim 3, wherein the evaluation of safety of the computer system comprises utilizing artificial intelligence gathered from (i) previous repairs of problem entities that have a particular relationship type and/or (ii) previous repairs of currently identified problems.

5. The computer system of claim 3, wherein the evaluation of safety of the computer system comprises an analysis of the health of redundant data within the computer system with respect to one or more orders of repair.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an estimation of ease of repair of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of what repairs are most urgent.

8. A method, implemented at a computer system that includes one or more processors, for continually monitoring the health of the computer system and suggesting an order of repair, the method comprising:

identifying one or more problems within the computer system and one or more candidate entities within the computer system that are identified as being associated with the one or more problems; and

for each identified candidate entity, performing at least the following;

identifying one or more relationships that the candidate entity has with other entities in the computer system;

for each identified relationship of the candidate entity, perform at least the following;

determining a relationship type for each identified relationship of the candidate entity; and

based on each determined relationship type, determining a relationship status of each entity within the identified relationship of the determined relationship type; and

based at least partially on the determined relationship type of the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity and the determined relationship status of each entity within the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity,

generating a certainty value associated with each of the one or more candidate entities, the certainty value for a given entity indicating a likelihood of the given entity being a root cause of at least one of the one or more problems; and

determining an order in which repairs of one or more user-visible entities of the computer system are to occur in order to address the one or more identified problems.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein at least one of the one or more relationships comprises a container relationship type, wherein the relationship status of the candidate entity within the container relationship comprises a child relationship status.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of the safety of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the evaluation of safety of the computer system comprises utilizing artificial intelligence gathered from (i) previous repairs of problem entities that have a particular relationship type and/or (ii) previous repairs of currently identified problems.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the evaluation of safety of the computer system comprises an analysis of the performance of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an estimation of ease of repair of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of what repairs are most urgent.

15. The method of claim 8, the method further comprising the following prior to the presentation of the alert to the user:

identifying a user of the computer system; and

based on the identification of the user, determining that the one or more user-visible entities are visible.

16. A computer program product comprising one or more physical and tangible hardware storage devices having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by one or more processors of a computer system and that configure the computer system to continually monitor the health of the computer system and suggest an order of repair, including computer-executable instructions that are executable to configure the computer system to perform the following:

identify one or more problems within the computer system and one or more candidate entities within the computer system that are identified as being associated with the one or more problems; and

for each identified candidate entity, perform at least the following;

identify one or more relationships that the candidate entity has with other entities in the computer system;

for each identified relationship of the candidate entity, perform at least the following;

determine a relationship type for each identified relationship of the candidate entity; and

based on each determined relationship type, determine a relationship status of each entity within the identified relationship of the determined relationship type; and

based at least partially on the determined relationship type of the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity and the determined relationship status of each entity within the one or more identified relationships of the candidate entity,

generate a certainty value associated with each of the one or more candidate entities, the certainty value for a given entity indicating a likelihood of the given entity being a root cause of at least one of the one or more problems; and

determine an order in which repairs of one or more user-visible entities of the computer system are to occur in order to address the one or more identified problems.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein at least one of the one or more relationships comprises a container relationship type, wherein the relationship status of the candidate entity within the container relationship comprises a child relationship status.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of the safety of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an estimation of ease of repair of the computer system with respect to one or more possible orders of repair.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the determination of the order of repairs further includes an evaluation of what repairs are most urgent.