Methods, systems and computer program products for triggered data collection and correlation of status and/or state in distributed data processing systems

• US 20030191989A1
• Filed: 04/03/2003
• Published: 10/09/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: OʼSullivan, Patrick Charles
• Granted Patent: US 8,260,907 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/47.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5628 Testing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0879 Manual configuration through operator
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products for collecting data processing system status information monitoring network communications with the data processing system to observe transaction(s) associated with the data processing system. The transaction(s) is analyzed to determine if the transaction(s) complies with a quality standard and a trigger is generated based on the analysis of the transaction(s). System status information is collected responsive to the generation of the trigger. The collection of system status information may be provided by collecting system status information so that collection of the system status information automatically time correlates the collected system status information with the trigger.

Claims

1. A method of collecting data processing system status information, comprising:

monitoring network communications with the data processing system to observe at least one transaction associated with the data processing system;

analyzing the at least one transaction to determine if the at least one transaction complies with a quality standard;

generating a trigger based on the analysis of the at least one transaction; and

collecting system status information responsive to the generation of the trigger.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting system status information comprises collecting system status information so that collection of the system status information automatically time correlates the collected system status information with the trigger.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring a plurality of network communications; and

identifying respective ones of the plurality of network communications so as to establish network communications associated with the at least one transaction.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a trigger based on the analysis of the at least one transaction comprises:

correlating a plurality of events associated with at least one transaction to provide related events;

comparing a value associated with the related events with a threshold value; and

generating a trigger responsive to the value associated with the related events meeting the threshold value.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

weighting the related events to provide weighted correlated events;

wherein comparing a value associated with the related events with a threshold value comprises comparing a value of weighted correlated events with the threshold value; and

wherein generating a trigger responsive to the a value associated with the related events meeting the threshold value comprises generating a trigger responsive to the value of the weighted correlated events meeting the threshold value.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the correlated events are weighted based on at least one of a user identification associated with the plurality of transactions, transaction identity and/or an event class associated with a respective one of the plurality of events.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the correlated events are weighted based on each of a user identification associated with the plurality of transactions, transaction identity and an event class associated with a respective one of the plurality of events.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality standard comprises a quality associated with results of a function associated with the at least one transaction.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the collected system status information;

storing information about the transaction that generated the trigger; and

associating the stored information about the transaction and the stored collected system status information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the at least one transaction to determine if the at least one transaction complies with a quality standard comprises analyzing content of the at least one transaction to determine if the at least one transaction complies with a quality standard associated with transaction content.

11. A method of claim 1, wherein collecting system status information comprises:

collecting initial system status information;

evaluating the initial system status information to determine if additional system status information is to be collected; and

selectively collecting further system status information based on the evaluation of the status information.

12. A method of collecting data processing system status information, comprising:

generating a trigger based on a measure of quality of content of transactions associated with the data processing system; and

collecting system status information responsive to generation of the trigger so that collection of the system status information automatically time correlates the collected system status information with the trigger.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein generating a trigger comprises:

weighting events associated with one or more transactions based on at least one of a user identification associated with the plurality of transactions, transaction identity and/or an event class associated with respective ones of the events;

comparing the weighted events to a measure of quality threshold; and

generating a trigger based on the comparison of the weighted events to the measure of quality threshold.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein weighting events comprises:

correlating events to provide a plurality of related events associated with the one or more transactions;

weighting the related events based on at least one of a user identification associated with the plurality of transactions, transaction identity and/or an event class associated with respective ones of the related events to provide weighted related events; and

combining the weighted related events to provide an aggregate weighted value;

wherein comparing the weighted events to a measure of quality threshold comprises comparing the aggregate weighted value to the measure of quality threshold; and

wherein generating a trigger based on the comparison of the weighted events to the measure of quality threshold comprises generating a trigger based on the comparison of the aggregate weighted value to the measure of quality threshold.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein weighting the related events comprises weighting the related events based on each of a user identification associated with the plurality of transactions, transaction identity and an event class associated with respective ones of the related events to provide weighted related events.

16. A system for collecting status information associated with a data processing system, comprising

a platform services circuit configured to generate a trigger based on monitoring network communications with the data processing system to observe at least one transaction associated with the data processing system and analyzing the at least one transaction to determine if the at least one transaction complies with a quality standard;

and

an event services circuit configured to collect status information responsive to receipt of the trigger generated by the platform services circuit.

17. A computer program product for collecting status information associated with a data processing system, comprising:

a computer readable media having computer readable program code embodiment therein, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to generate a trigger based on monitoring network communications with the data processing system to observe at least one transaction associated with the data processing system and analyzing the at least one transaction to determine if the at least one transaction complies with a quality standard; and

computer readable program code configured to collect status information responsive to generation of the trigger.