System and method of enterprise systems and business impact management

• US 20050283445A1
• Filed: 08/24/2005
• Published: 12/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BMC Software Incorporated (KKR & Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: BMC Software Incorporated (KKR & Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Lemercier, Bernard, Trinon, Jean-Marc, Pignault, Olivier, Moitroux, Philippe
• Granted Patent: US 7,774,458 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/75
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4015 using location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

A system architecture and a method for managing using a cellular architecture to allow multi-tier management of events such as the managing of the actual impact or the potential impact of IT infrastructure situations on business services. A preferred embodiment includes a high availability management backbone to frame monitoring operations using a cross-domain model where IT component events are abstracted into IT Aggregate events. By combining IT Aggregate events with transaction events, an operational representation of the business services is possible. Another feature is the ability to connect this information to dependent business user groups such as internal end-users or external customers for direct impact measurement. A web of peer-to-peer rule-based cellular event processors preferably using Dynamic Data Association constitutes management backbone crossed by event flows, the execution rules, and distributed set of dynamic inter-related object data rooted in the top data instances featuring the business services.

Claims

1-32. -32. (canceled)

33. A method of monitoring a business service implemented on an infrastructure having a plurality of components and a plurality of detectors, comprising:

distributing a plurality of processing cells throughout the components of the infrastructure;

configuring the processing cells to handle events related to the business service with other processing cells;

collecting events related to the business service from one or more of the detectors with one or more of the processing cells;

organizing the collected events with one or more of the processing cells; and

determining an impact the organized events have on the business service.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the events comprise status, availability, or performance of a component utilized by the business service.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein the events comprise an indication of a problem at a component of the infrastructure utilized by the business service, an indication of a problem with an application utilized by the business service, an indication of a problem with a transaction associated with the business service, or an indication of a problem between components of the infrastructure utilized by the business service.

36. The method of claim 33, wherein the act of configuring the processing cells comprises supplying the processing cells with one or more rules, the rules governing how the processing cells handle events related to the business service with other processing cells.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule relating two or more of the processing cells in a hierarchy.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the act of organizing the collected events comprises aggregating two or more collected events between related processing cells of the hierarchy.

39. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule relating two or more of the processing cells in a layer.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the act of organizing the collected events comprises aggregating two or more of the collected events between the related processing cells of the layer.

41. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining a class of event to be handled by a processing cell.

42. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprises a rule defining how a processing cell aggregates a first collected event with a second collected event.

43. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining how a processing cell propagates a collected event to another processing cell.

44. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining an executable action to be performed by a processing cell in response to a collected event.

45. The method of claim 36, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule interrelating two or more of the processing cells in the infrastructure according to a transaction associated with the business service.

46. The method of claim 33, wherein the act of determining the impact the organized events have on the business service comprises calculating a performance or an availability measurement of the components of the infrastructure utilized by the business service based on the organized events.

47. A method of monitoring a business service implemented on an infrastructure having a plurality of components and a plurality of detectors, comprising:

distributing a plurality of processing cells throughout the components of the infrastructure;

configuring the processing cells to handle events related to the business service with other processing cells;

implementing a sample transaction associated with the business service with at least one of the processing cells;

collecting events resulting from the sample transaction from one or more of the detectors with one or more of the processing cells;

organizing the collected events with one or more of the processing cells; and

determining an impact the organized events have on the business service.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the act of implementing the sample transaction comprises configuring the at least one processing cell with first information of the sample transaction, the at least one processing cell associated with a source location of the sample transaction, the first information being used to implement the sample transaction.

49. The method of claim 47, wherein the act of implementing the sample transaction comprises configuring one or more of the processing cells with second information of the sample transaction, the one or more processing cells associated with a path for the sample transaction, the second information being used to collect execution information of the sample transaction implemented on the infrastructure.

50. The method of claim 47, wherein the act of implementing the sample transaction comprises executing the sample transaction at the at least one processing cell according to cycles having a frequency.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the act of implementing the sample transaction comprises identifying each of the cycles of the sample transaction with a specific identification tag.

52. The method of claim 51, wherein the act of implementing the sample transaction comprises generating an execution confirmation event at the at least one processing cell, the execution confirmation event including a timestamp for the execution of the sample transaction and the specific identification tag.

53. The method of claim 52, wherein the act of collecting events resulting from the sample transaction from the detectors with the processing cells comprises:

activating instrumentation functions with input data at the processing cells;

capturing execution information related to the sample transaction with the activated instrumentation functions; and

generating execution control events having timestamps and the specific identification tag in response to captured execution information.

54. The method of claim 47, wherein the events comprise status, availability, or performance of a component utilized by the business service.

55. The method of claim 47, wherein the events comprise an indication of a problem at a component of the infrastructure utilized by the business service, an indication of a problem with an application utilized by the business service, an indication of a problem with a transaction associated with the business service, or an indication of a problem between components of the infrastructure utilized by the business service.

56. The method of claim 47, wherein the act of configuring the processing cells comprises supplying the processing cells with one or more rules, the rules governing how the processing cells handle events related to the business service with other processing cells.

57. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule relating two or more of the processing cells in a hierarchy.

58. The method of claim 57, wherein the act of organizing the collected events comprises aggregating two or more collected events between related processing cells of the hierarchy.

59. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule relating two or more of the processing cells in a layer.

60. The method of claim 59, wherein the act of organizing the collected events comprises aggregating two or more of the collected events between the related processing cells of the layer.

61. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining a class of event to be handled by a processing cell.

62. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining how a processing cell aggregates a first collected event with a second collected event.

63. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining how a processing cell propagates a collected event to another processing cell.

64. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule defining an executable action to be performed by a processing cell in response to a collected event.

65. The method of claim 56, wherein the one or more rules comprise a rule interrelating two or more of the processing cells in the infrastructure according to a transaction associated with the business service.

66. The method of claim 47, wherein the act of determining the impact the organized events have on the business service comprises calculating a performance or an availability measurement of the components of the infrastructure utilized by the business service based on the organized events.