Use of attribution to describe management information

• US 20050091647A1
• Filed: 09/17/2004
• Published: 04/28/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: McCollum, Raymond W., Reistad, Brian, Hewardt, Mario, Feuerstein, Corina E.
• Granted Patent: US 7,712,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/130
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

Architecture that facilitates management of an application or service of a system. A catalog is provided that stores management information which is accessible to determine the status of the application of service. Code of the application or service to be installed on the system is attributed with management information. When installed, the application or service is processed to copy the management information into a manifest, which manifest is further stored in the catalog along with other manifests associated with different applications or services. The management information in a manifest is uniquely identified by a URI, which access to the management information is via the URI, and which leads to the associated application or service.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates management of an application and/or service, comprising:

at least one of an application and a service for installation; and

a storage component that stores management information which includes instrumentation information associated with the at least one of the application and service when the at least one of the application and service is installed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instrumentation information is stored as a manifest, which manifest includes a probe definition.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the probe definition includes a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that facilitates identifying the probe.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein a web host accesses the management information at runtime, which management information is remote therefrom.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the management information is exposed from at least one of an in-process provider and a decoupled provider.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instrumentation information includes at least one of component information and mode information.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the mode information is updated at runtime.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage component further stores event data, counter data, and configuration data.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising a viewer component associated with the storage component that facilitates viewing at least one of the event data, the counter data, the instrumentation information, and the configuration data.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the instrumentation information is accessed via a URI template that describes the instrumentation information independent of having to retrieve the instrumentation information for a specific instance.

11. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the system of claim 1.

12. A computer that employs the system of claim 1.

13. A server that employs the system of claim 1.

14. A computer readable medium having computer executable components that facilitate management of an application and/or service, comprising:

at least one of an application and a service for installation; and

a catalog component that stores a manifest of management information associated with the at least one of the application and service when the at least one of the application and service is installed.

15. The medium of claim 14, wherein the catalog is accessible from a remote host.

16. The medium of claim 14, wherein the catalog includes a manifest that is generated for each application that is installed and a manifest that is generated for each service that is installed.

17. The medium of claim 14, wherein the catalog component is remote from a location at which the at least one of the application and service are installed.

18. The medium of claim 14, wherein the management information is exposed from at least one of an in-process provider and a decoupled provider.

19. The medium of claim 14, wherein the management information includes component information, and mode information that is updated at runtime.

20. The medium of claim 14, further comprising a viewer component associated with the catalog component that facilitates viewing at least one of event data, counter data, instrumentation data, and configuration data.

21. The medium of claim 20, wherein the instrumentation information is accessed via a URI template that describes the instrumentation information independent of having to retrieve the instrumentation information for a specific instance.

22. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method of managing an application and/or service, comprising:

receiving the application and/or service for installation on a system, which application and/or service is associated with management information;

installing the application and/or service on the system; and

in response to installing the application and/or service, storing the management information in a catalog.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising generating a manifest of the management information for storage in the catalog.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising the acts of:

attributing the application and/or service with attributes that determine the management information;

processing the attributed application and/or service to generate a manifest of the management information; and

storing the manifest in the catalog.

25. The method of claim 24, the act of attributing is performed on the application and/or service which is at least one of an in-process provider and a decoupled provider.

26. The method of claim 24, the act of processing is performed on a plurality of different applications and/or services installed on the system such that the catalog includes a plurality of different respective manifests that identify the management information for the different applications and/or services.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising updating a manifest in the catalog with new management information.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising accessing the catalog to obtain the management information, and thereafter following the management information to the corresponding application and/or service.

29. The method of claim 22, the management information includes class definitions that are exposed and described in a managed object format.

30. The method of claim 22, further comprising retrieving the management information from the catalog in accordance with an associated URI that uniquely identifies the management information.

31. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method of managing an application and/or service, comprising:

storing instrumentation data of a corresponding application and/or service in a catalog in response to installation of the application and/or service on a system; and

providing access to the instrumentation data to check on a status of the corresponding application and/or service.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the instrumentation data is associated with at least one of a hardware device, an operating system, and a software application.

33. The method of claim 31, further comprising, providing new instrumentation data;

merging portions of the new instrumentation data with the instrumentation data; and

updating remaining portions of the instrumentation data with updated instrumentation data.

34. The method of claim 31, further comprising accessing the catalog to obtain the instrumentation data, and thereafter following the instrumentation data to the corresponding application and/or service.

35. The method of claim 31, further comprising retrieving the instrumentation data in accordance with an associated URI that uniquely identifies the instrumentation data.

36. The method of claim 31, further comprising retrieving the instrumentation data without having to retrieve the instrumentation data for a specific instance.

37. The method of claim 31, further comprising browsing the catalog with a viewer component to retrieve instrumentation data.

38. The method of claim 31, further comprising coding the instrumentation data in XML.