Methods and apparatus for topology discovery and representation of distributed applications and services

• US 20040046785A1
• Filed: 09/11/2002
• Published: 03/11/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Keller, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 7,240,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/734
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components

Abstract

A technique for generating a topology associated with a computing environment comprises the following steps/operations. First, components in the computing environment and their dependencies are identified. Identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle (e.g., including deployment, installation and runtime) associated with at least one component of the computing environment. Then, the one or more identified components are presented in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components. The topological representation comprises a functional plane, a structural plane and an operational plane respectively corresponding to at least a portion of a functional categorization, a structural categorization and an operational categorization of the model. By way of example, the inventive techniques may be applied to a distributed computing environment. The computing environment may also be an autonomic computing environment.

Claims

1. A computer-based method for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, the method comprising the steps of:

identifying components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and

presenting the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises a distributed computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises an autonomic computing environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises identifying, for a given component, which other components depend on the given component and which other components the given component depends on.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a stepwise manner.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a combined manner.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the model is in a form comprising a functional categorization, a structural categorization and an operational categorization.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the identifying step further comprises computing the operational categorization of the model based on at least one input criterion.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one input criterion comprises at least one of a name of a given component, a host associated with the given component, a direction of the traversal, a depth of the traversal, a path of the traversal and at least one filtering criterion.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the topological representation comprises a functional plane, a structural plane and an operational plane respectively corresponding to at least a portion of the functional categorization, the structural categorization and the operational categorization of the model.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the topological representation comprises one or more presentation elements annotated with status information.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated via one or more status procedures.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more status procedures comprise at least one of a component inspection procedure, a component exercising procedure, a component heartbeat detection procedure and a component status indication procedure.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of propagating at least a portion of the status information from one plane to at least another plane.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated for a single component.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated for more than one component substantially concurrently.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional plane represents component functionality.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the structural plane represents static dependency relationships of the components.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein the operational plane represents a runtime status of the components.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the operational plane further represents dynamic bindings associated with the components.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein a component is one of a service, an application, middleware, hardware, a device driver, an operating system and a system associated with the computing environment.

22. Apparatus for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, the apparatus comprising:

at least one processor operative to;

(i) identify components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and

(ii) present the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components; and

memory, coupled to the at least one processor, operative to store at least a portion of results associated with the identifying and presenting operations.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the computing environment comprises a distributed computing environment.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the computing environment comprises an autonomic computing environment.

25. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying step further comprises identifying, for a given component, which other components depend on the given component and which other components the given component depends on.

26. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying operation further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a stepwise manner.

27. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying operation further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a combined manner.

28. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the model is in a form comprising a functional categorization, a structural categorization and an operational categorization.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the identifying operation further comprises computing the operational categorization of the model based on at least one input criterion.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the at least one input criterion comprises at least one of a name of a given component, a host associated with the given component, a direction of the traversal, a depth of the traversal, a path of the traversal and at least one filtering criterion.

31. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the topological representation comprises a functional plane, a structural plane and an operational plane respectively corresponding to at least a portion of the functional categorization, the structural categorization and the operational categorization of the model.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the functional plane represents component functionality.

33. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the structural plane represents static dependency relationships of the components.

34. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the operational plane represents a runtime status of the components.

35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the operational plane further represents dynamic bindings associated with the components.

36. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the topological representation comprises one or more presentation elements annotated with status information.

37. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated via one or more status procedures.

38. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein the one or more status procedures comprise at least one of a component inspection procedure, a component exercising procedure, a component heartbeat detection procedure and a component status indication procedure.

39. The apparatus of claim 36, further comprising the operation of propagating at least a portion of the status information from one plane to at least another plane.

40. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated for a single component.

41. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated for more than one component substantially concurrently.

42. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein a component is one of a service, an application, middleware, hardware, a device driver, an operating system and a system associated with the computing environment.

43. An article of manufacture for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, comprising a machine readable medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

identifying components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and

presenting the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components.