Method and system for monitoring distributed applications on-demand

• US 20050198275A1
• Filed: 07/15/2004
• Published: 09/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Marinelli, Claudio, D'Alo, Salvatore, Donatelli, Alex, Bernardini, Gianluca, Santoli, Giulio
• Granted Patent: US 7,490,323 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 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• 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 11/3093 Configuration details thereof, e.g. installation, enabling, spatial arrangement of the probes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions

Abstract

A method (300;600) and system for monitoring distributed applications (for example, running on multiple WAS nodes of a cluster) is proposed. The solution of the invention is based on a self-adaptive resource management infrastructure. Particularly, an authority publishes (306-312) a plurality of rules, each one defining a desired target configuration for a category of subjects. A membership controller on each subject is responsible to assign (315-333) the subject to the respective category; a compliance engine then retrieves and applies (336-351) the rules corresponding to the category of the subject. The resource management infrastructure is used to implement a monitoring on-demand of the distributed application. For this purpose, two rules are defined (603-606) for the WAS nodes having the distributed application in a running condition and in a non-running condition, respectively. Each WAS node having the distributed application in the running condition applies (639-645) the first rule, so as to start the monitoring application; as soon as the distributed application switches to the non-running condition, the WAS node applies (654-657) the second rule, so as to stop the monitoring application automatically.

Claims

1-10. -10. (canceled)

11. In a data processing system including a plurality of processing entities, a method of monitoring a distributed application suitable to run on at least one of the processing entities, the method including the steps of:

surveying the processing entities to detect a change between a running condition and a non-running condition of the distributed application on each processing entity,

enabling a monitoring application for the distributed application on the processing entities where a change to the running condition has been detected, and

disabling the monitoring application on the processing entities where a change to the non-running condition has been detected.

18. In a data processing system including a plurality of processing entities, a computer program including program code means directly loadable into a working memory of the system for performing a method of monitoring a distributed application suitable to run on at least one of the processing entities when the program is run on the system, the method including the steps of:

surveying the processing entities to detect a change between a running condition and a non-running condition of the distributed application on each processing entity,

enabling a monitoring application for the distributed application on the processing entities where a change to the running condition has been detected, and

disabling the monitoring application on the processing entities where a change to the non-running condition has been detected.

19. In a data processing system including a plurality of processing entities, a program product including a computer readable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program being directly loadable into a working memory of the system for performing a method of monitoring a distributed application suitable to run on at least one of the processing entities when the program is run on the system, the method including the steps of:

surveying the processing entities to detect a change between a running condition and a non-running condition of the distributed application on each processing entity,

enabling a monitoring application for the distributed application on the processing entities where a change to the running condition has been detected, and

disabling the monitoring application on the processing entities where a change to the non-running condition has been detected.

20. In a data processing system including a plurality of processing entities, a system for monitoring a distributed application suitable to run on at least one of the processing entities, the system including:

means for surveying the processing entities to detect a change between a running condition and a non-running condition of the distributed application on each processing entity,

means for enabling a monitoring application for the distributed application on the processing entities where a change to the running condition has been detected, and

means for disabling the monitoring application on the processing entities where a change to the non-running condition has been detected.

21. In a data processing system including a plurality of nodes, a system for monitoring a distributed application suitable to run on at least one of the nodes, the system including on each node:

a membership controller for surveying the node to detect a change between a running condition and a non-running condition of the distributed application on the node, and

a compliance engine for enabling a monitoring application for the distributed application on the node where a change to the running condition has been detected and for disabling the monitoring application on the node where a change to the non-running condition has been detected.