System management infrastructure for corrective actions to servers with shared resources

• US 20040210889A1
• Filed: 04/17/2003
• Published: 10/21/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Childress, Rhonda L., Laney, Mark Anthony, Minyen, Reid Douglas, Pennell, Neil Raymond
• Granted Patent: US 7,529,981 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• 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 11/34 Recording or statistical evaluation of computer activity, e.g. of down time, of input/output operation ; Recording or statistical evaluation of user activity, e.g. usability assessment

Abstract

A corrective action method or subsystem for providing corrective actions in a for a computing domain shared among multiple customers wherein different domain resources are shared by different customers, and each customer'"'"'s corrective action preferences are accommodated differently according a repository of customer preferences. A database may be queried when a fault event or out-of-limits condition is detected for a given shared resource to determine which customers share the resource, determine each affected customer'"'"'s response preferences, and to perform corrective actions according to those response preferences. For example, three customers may share a particular hard drive in a shared computing system. One customer may prefer to receive an email notice when the drive is nearly full, another may prefer to receive additional allocation of disk space elsewhere, and the third may prefer to receive a written report of space utilization.

Claims

1. A method for providing corrective actions in a system management system for a computing domain shared among multiple customers, said method comprising the steps of:

providing a customer requirements repository containing corrective action preferences for each of said customers sharing said computing domain;

responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource, querying said repository to determine which customers share the affected shared resource;

extracting from said repository each sharing customer'"'"'s corrective action preferences associated with said fault event, out-of-limits condition or a class of such events and conditions; and

performing one or more corrective actions according to said extracted preferences.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of providing a customer requirements repository comprises providing a database.

3. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of providing a customer requirements repository containing corrective action preferences comprises providing a set of rules which are disposed for evaluation in said step of extracting corrective action preferences.

4. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises sending an electronic mail message.

5. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises sending a pager message.

6. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises opening a problem ticket.

7. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises generating a trouble report.

8. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises scheduling an upgrade to a computing platform resource.

9. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises scheduling a repair to a computing platform resource.

10. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of performing one or more corrective actions comprises scheduling an upgrade to a computing platform software component.

11. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises responding to an event associated with a processor bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

12. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises responding to an event associated with a memory utilization maximum limit.

13. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises responding to an event associated with a communication link bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

14. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises responding to an event associated with a persistent storage utilization maximum limit.

15. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises responding to an event associated with a delay of service maximum limit.

16. A computer readable medium encoded with software for providing corrective actions in a system management system for a computing domain shared among multiple customers, said software performing the steps of:

providing a customer requirements repository containing corrective action preferences for each of said customers sharing said computing domain;

responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource, querying said repository to determine which customers share the affected shared resource;

extracting from said repository each sharing customer'"'"'s corrective action preferences associated with said fault event, out-of-limits condition or a class of such events and conditions; and

performing one or more corrective actions according to said extracted preferences.

17. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for providing a customer requirements repository comprises software for providing a database.

18. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for providing a customer requirements repository containing corrective action preferences comprises software for providing a set of rules which are disposed for evaluation in said step of extracting corrective action preferences.

19. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for sending an electronic mail message.

20. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for sending a pager message.

21. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for opening a problem ticket.

22. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for generating a trouble report.

23. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for scheduling an upgrade to a computing platform resource.

24. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for scheduling a repair to a computing platform resource.

25. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for performing one or more corrective actions comprises software for scheduling an upgrade to a computing platform software component.

26. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises software for responding to an event associated with a processor bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

27. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises software for responding to an event associated with a memory utilization maximum limit.

28. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises software for responding to an event associated with a communication link bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

29. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises software for responding to an event associated with a persistent storage utilization maximum limit.

30. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 16 wherein said software for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource comprises software for responding to an event associated with a delay of service maximum limit.

32. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said customer requirements repository comprises a database.

33. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said customer requirements repository comprises a set of rules which are disposed for evaluation by said corrective action preference extractor.

34. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises an electronic mail message sender.

35. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a pager message sender.

36. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a problem ticket opener.

37. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a trouble report generator.

38. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a scheduler for an upgrade to a computing platform resource.

39. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a scheduler for a repair to a computing platform resource.

40. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein said corrective action instigator comprises a scheduler for an upgrade to a computing platform software component.

41. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein repository inquirer is configured to respond to an event associated with a processor bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

42. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein repository inquirer is configured to respond to an event associated with a memory

utilization maximum limit.

43. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein repository inquirer is configured to respond to an event associated with a communication link bandwidth utilization maximum limit.

44. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein repository inquirer is configured to respond to an event associated with a persistent storage utilization maximum limit.

45. The corrective action system as set forth in claim 30 wherein repository inquirer is configured to respond to an event associated with a delay of service maximum limit.

31. A corrective action system for a computing domain shared among multiple customers, said computing domain having a plurality of shared resources, said corrective action system comprising:

a customer requirements repository containing corrective action preferences for each of said customers sharing said computing domain;

a repository inquirer for responding to receipt of a fault event or out-of-limits condition for a shared resource by querying said repository to determine which customers share the affected shared resource;

a preference extractor configured to extract from said repository each sharing customer'"'"'s corrective action preferences associated with said fault event, out-of-limits condition or a class of such events and conditions; and

a corrective action instigator configured to perform one or more corrective actions according to said extracted preferences.