Identifying resource and data instances in management systems

• US 20050033795A1
• Filed: 08/05/2003
• Published: 02/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wood, Douglas A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,720,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/200
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/30 Managing network names, e.g. use of aliases or nicknames name-to-address mapping H04L61/45

Abstract

Methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business whereby managed resources and/or data are identified using a model based on object-oriented techniques. A resource hierarchy is defined for a set of resources/data to be managed, and naming rules are associated with classes in this hierarchy. The naming rules for a particular class describe how to uniquely identify resources of that class among more than one management system and in a way that is independent of the management system. The identities are structured strings created using the naming rules of the class to which the resource/data belongs. Structural restrictions placed on the structured strings allow any two identities to be compared for equality (using, for example, a simple string comparison).

Claims

1. A method of uniquely identifying resources, comprising steps of:

modeling the resources using a hierarchical schema, wherein classes in the schema correspond to resource types and wherein instances in the schema represent individual resources, each instance being associated with one of the classes according to the resource type of the individual resource represented by the instance; and

defining, at a topmost class of the hierarchical schema, a naming rule property and an instance identity property, wherein;

each class at levels of the hierarchical schema beneath the topmost level inherits the naming rule property and the instance identity property;

a value of the naming rule property for a selected class identifies properties of the selected class that enable instances of the selected class to have unique identities; and

an instance of the selected class specifies the unique identity for that instance, using the identified properties for the selected class.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

creating an identity for a particular one of the resources, using the naming rule for the class with which a particular instance that represents the particular resource is associated; and

storing the created identity as the value of the instance identity property for the particular instance.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of locating a particular instance that represents a particular resource using the value of the instance'"'"'s identity property.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the value of the instance identity property for a selected one of the instances comprises a local identity.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the local identity comprises a class name for the class with which the instance is associated and one or more name/value pairs, wherein each name/value pair comprises a property name and a value for that property name, using property names specified as the value of the naming rule property for the class.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the value of the instance identity further comprises an identification of a scoping context that is required to provide uniqueness of the instance identity value.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein:

the value of the instance identity further comprises an identification of a scoping context that is required to provide uniqueness of the instance identity value; and

the identification of the scoping context comprises a scoping class name that identifies a selected one of the classes, wherein the particular resource is unique within the selected class, along with one or more name/value pairs, wherein each name/value pair comprises a scoping class property name and a value for that scoping class property name, wherein the scoping class property names are specified as the value of the naming rule property for the scoping class.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the scoping class name is identified in the value of the naming rule property for the class with which the instance is associated.

9. The method according to claim 5, wherein the value of the instance identity further comprises an identification of a root scope within which the particular resource is unique.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the identification of the root scope comprises a domain name within which the particular resource is located.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the value of the naming rule property is specified using a structured document.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the value of the naming rule property is specified using a structured markup language.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the hierarchical schema is an object-oriented schema.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of creating an identity for a particular one of the resources, using the naming rule for the class with which a particular instance that represents the particular resource is associated.

15. A system for uniquely identifying resources, comprising:

a hierarchical schema that models a plurality of resources, wherein classes in the schema correspond to resource types and wherein instances in the schema represent individual resources, each instance being associated with one of the classes according to the resource type of the individual resource represented by the instance;

means for defining, at a topmost class of the hierarchical schema, a naming rule property and an instance identity property, wherein;

each class at levels of the hierarchical schema beneath the topmost level inherits the naming rule property and the instance identity property;

a value of the naming rule property for a selected class identifies properties of the selected class that enable instances of the selected class to have unique identities; and

an instance of the selected class specifies a unique identity for that instance, using the identified properties for the selected class; and

means for overriding the value of the naming rule property at any of the levels of the hierarchical schema beneath the topmost level.

16. A computer program product for uniquely identifying resources, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer readable program code means for accessing a hierarchical schema that models a plurality of resources, wherein classes in the schema correspond to resource types and wherein instances in the schema represent individual resources, each instance being associated with one of the classes according to the resource type of the individual resource represented by the instance;

computer readable program code means for defining, at a topmost class of the hierarchical schema, a naming rule property and an instance identity property, wherein;

each class at levels of the hierarchical schema beneath the topmost level inherits the naming rule property and the instance identity property;

a value of the naming rule property for a selected class identifies properties of the selected class that enable instances of the selected class to have unique identities; and

an instance of the selected class specifies a unique identity for that instance, using the identified properties for the selected class; and

computer readable program code means for overriding the value of the naming rule property at any of the levels of the hierarchical schema beneath the topmost level.

17. A method generating unique resource identities, comprising steps of:

determining a particular resource for which a unique resource identity is to be generated;

accessing a class hierarchy with which resources are modelled, thereby obtaining a class definition for a class that corresponds to a resource type for the particular resource;

locating, in the class definition, a naming rule that specifies how identities for instances of the class are to be generated; and

generating the identity for the particular resource using the located naming rule.