Systems and methods for unifying and/or utilizing state information for managing networked systems

• US 20050114502A1
• Filed: 11/25/2003
• Published: 05/26/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fonseca Melo, Eduardo da, Raden, Gary P., Soemo, Thomas M., Butler, Lisa M., Moerloos, Richard J. Jr., Ekmekci, Tolga Bayram
• Granted Patent: US 7,590,726 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 Utilisation of link capacity
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

The present invention leverages a data gathering service to provide information regarding a network system'"'"'s health, performance and/or utilization via a computing entity, local and/or remote. This provides an optimized means to aggregate a single network'"'"'s data and/or multiple networks'"'"' data, decreasing the amount of effort required by system administrators to keep a network operational and/or to provide control of its utilization and/or update a system'"'"'s state. In one instance of the present invention, a data gathering service aggregates data from systems and provides access to this information via a communication means. In another instance of the present invention, aggregated data is utilized to provide manual and/or automatic control of one or more aspects of a system'"'"'s utilization by an entity and/or a person. In yet another instance of the present invention, aggregated utilization data is employed to provide a management/productivity tool for end-users of a networked system.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates networked system monitoring, comprising:

a component that obtains aggregated system state data for at least one system component;

an analysis component that processes at least a portion of the aggregated system state data to determine at least one characteristic of at least one system state; and

a user interface that provides state related information based upon the state characteristic to a user.

2. The system of claim 1, the state related information comprising a current state status relating to at least one selected from the group consisting of system usage states, system performance states, and system health states.

3. The system of claim 2, the current state status relating to an individual end-user of the networked system.

4. The system of claim 2, the current state status indicating top “

X”

asset utilization of a particular networked system asset, where X represents a desired number of top asset users.

5. The system of claim 4, the desired number of top asset users comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of approximately 1, approximately 5, approximately 10, approximately 25, approximately 50, approximately 75, and approximately 100.

6. The system of claim 4, the particular networked system asset comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of memory usage, CPU utilization, hard disk space usage, random access memory (RAM) usage, and network communication bandwidth usage.

7. The system of claim 4, the top asset users comprising running processes.

8. The system of claim 4, the top asset users comprising end-users of the networked system.

9. The system of claim 8, the particular networked system asset comprising Internet usage.

10. The system of claim 1, the state related information comprising, at least in part, administrative guidance information corresponding to the networked system.

11. The system of claim 1, the state related information comprising an historical state status relating to at least one selected from the group consisting of system usage states, system performance states, and system health states.

12. The system of claim 11, the historical state status relating to an individual end-user of the networked system.

13. The system of claim 1, the system component comprising a server.

14. The system of claim 1, the user interface comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of a system usage user interface, a system performance user interface, and a system health user interface.

15. The system of claim 1, the user interface comprising a customizable user interface.

16. The system of claim 1, the user interface comprising an interactive user interface.

17. The system of claim 16, the interactive user interface comprising a prior state reversion control user interface.

18. The system of claim 16, the interactive user interface comprising a control user interface that controls a utilization aspect of the networked system.

19. The system of claim 18, the control user interface comprising a system prioritization user interface that prioritizes usage of the utilization aspect of the networked system.

20. The system of claim 18, the utilization aspect of the networked system comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of Internet bandwidth usage, CPU usage, hard disk space usage, e-mail usage, fax usage, and printing usage.

38. A system employing at least one system of claim 1 that provides a unified information source of at least one selected from the group consisting of performance monitoring data for a plurality of networked systems, usage monitoring data for a plurality of networked systems, and health monitoring data for a plurality of networked systems.

39. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable components of the system of claim 1.

41. A device employing the system of claim 1 comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of a computer, a server, and a handheld electronic device.

21. A method for facilitating monitoring of a networked system, comprising:

acquiring aggregated system state data for at least one system component;

analyzing at least a portion of the aggregated system state data to determine at least one characteristic of at least one system state; and

providing state related information based upon the state characteristic to a user.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

employing the state related information to optimally manage productivity of end-users of the networked system.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

utilizing the state related information to provide control of a related characteristic of the networked system.

24. The method of claim 23, the related characteristic of the networked system comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of state reporting management, process thread management, Internet use management, data storage management, memory use management, processing power use management, and load management.

25. The method of claim 23, the control comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of automatic control and manual control.

26. The method of claim 21, the user comprising a computing device.

27. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

utilizing state related error data and the aggregated system state data to provide system update information to the user.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising:

providing control to the user to initiate system updates provided in the system update information.

29. The method of claim 28, providing control including, at least in part, selecting, via user input, to automatically update at least one parameter of the networked system.

30. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

utilizing state related error data and the aggregated system state data to reduce state monitoring information.

31. The method of claim 30, the state related error data comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of software defects and hardware defects.

32. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

receiving control parameters from a user to control state related parameters.

33. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

data mining the aggregated system state data to determine at least one selected from the group consisting of a diagnosis of at least one aspect of the networked system and a prognosis of at least one aspect of the networked system.

34. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

controlling, via a user interface, the networked system based, at least in part, upon the aggregated system state data.

35. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

providing system state related recommendations based, at least in part, upon the aggregated system state data.

40. A device employing the method of claim 21 comprising at least one selected from the group consisting of a computer, a server, and a handheld electronic device.

36. A system that facilitates networked system monitoring, comprising:

means for obtaining aggregated system state data for at least one system component;

means for processing at least a portion of the aggregated system state data to determine at least one characteristic of at least one system state; and

means for providing state related information based upon the state characteristic to a user.

37. A data packet transmitted between two or more computer components that facilitates networked system monitoring, the data packet comprising, at least in part, information relating to monitoring of a networked system, the information including, at least in part, state related data based, at least in part, upon aggregated state data corresponding to at least one system component of the networked system.