Systems and methods for monitoring a computing environment

• US 20050193376A1
• Filed: 05/04/2005
• Published: 09/01/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Harrison, Guy
• Granted Patent: US 7,784,027 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/127
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/323 Visualisation of programs or trace data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence

Abstract

The invention comprises a system and method for monitoring the performance of an application. The invention includes a monitoring system graphical user interface (GUI) having an interactive window with on-screen graphics representative of the application architecture and component performance. The GUI comprises straightforward and intuitive icons, panels, and dataflows, representing the existence, capacity, or number of processes, memory structures, and the like of the application being monitored. In addition, the monitoring system includes an alert firing mechanism and process for alerting an administrator to potential or actual performance problems in the application.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring a computing environment, the method comprising:

providing on a user interface first on-screen graphics representing a plurality of application components including at least a processor, a memory and a paging file;

providing on the user interface second on-screen graphics representing an amount of data flow into and out of at least one of the plurality of application components; and

modifying a graphical attribute of the first on-screen graphics when a performance of at least one of the plurality of application components changes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the second on-screen graphics between the first on-screen graphics to represent data flow between at least two of the plurality of application components.

3. The method of claim 1, additionally comprising modifying a graphical attribute of the second on-screen graphics when the represented amount of data flow changes.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the graphical attribute of the first on-screen graphics when the performance of at least one of the plurality of application components reaches a predetermined caution level.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein modifying the graphical attribute comprises changing a color.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first on-screen graphics depict the usage of the processor.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of application components further includes at least one disk.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the second on-screen graphics further represent a page fault amount.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the second on-screen graphics further represent an amount of cache reads or writes.

10. An executable computer program for monitoring the performance statistics of a computing environment, the computer program comprising:

software configured to display on an interface first on-screen graphics representing application components including at least a processor, a memory and a paging file, the software further configured to display on the interface second on-screen graphics representing data flow between at least two application components; and

data including a plurality of threshold parameters corresponding to performance levels of at least one of the application components, wherein the software is configured to change a graphical attribute of the first on-screen graphics when the performance level of the at least one application component meets at least one threshold parameter.

11. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the software is further configured to display in panels application components having similar functionality.

12. The computer program of claim 11, wherein the software is further configured to display at least a portion of the second on-screen graphics extending between at least two panels so as to represent the data flow between the at least two application components.

13. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the processor is a server processor.

14. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the software is configured to group the first and second on-screen graphics within a visual map to resemble the underlying architecture of a computing environment.

15. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the plurality of threshold parameters comprises a hierarchy of caution levels, each of which corresponds to a different graphical attribute.

16. The computer program of claim 15, wherein the graphical attribute comprises at least one of size, color, texture, text, blinking, existence, speed, acceleration, value, sound, rotation, animation and content.

17. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the second on-screen graphics depict a page fault amount.

18. The computer program of claim 10, wherein the application components further comprise at least one disk.

19. The computer program of claim 10, wherein at least a portion of the threshold parameters are programmable by a user.

20. A system for monitoring the performance of a computing environment, the system comprising:

means for providing on a user interface first on-screen graphics representing a plurality of application components including at least a processor, a memory and a paging file;

means for modifying a graphical attribute of the first on-screen graphics when a performance of a first application component of the plurality application components changes; and

means for providing on the user interface second on-screen graphics representing an amount of data flow into and out of a second application component of the plurality of application components.