Agent administration console software for servicing failed requests

• US 20060026227A1
• Filed: 07/30/2004
• Published: 02/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Tripp, Travis Scott, Shaughnessy, Jay
• Application Number:
  US10/902,904
• Publication Number:
  US 20060026227A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0718 in an object-oriented system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/028 for synchronisation between service call and response
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0604 using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/20 Network management software packages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

A Java-enabled computer system (AP1) hosts an application server (11) and a database (13). The application server hosts an agent server (15), a database access layer (17), and a servlet container (19). The agent server hosts a set of software agents (AGI, AGR, AG1, AG2 . . . AGN) for responding to customer requests. The agents can be invoked in series to meet a customer request. When one of the agents fails, an administrator is notified. The administrator can access an administration console (30) using a browser (43). From the administration console, the administrator can edit the request and resubmit it directly to the agent suffering the failure without re-invoking preceding agents that completed their services successfully.

Claims

1. An agent administration console for a software agent system providing for serial invocation of agents to meet a request, each of said agents performing one or more services while handling said request, each of said services being defined by configuration data, said console comprising:

an Internet-browser accessible display of a status of a request that has been halted due to a failure event while being handled by an agent performing a requested service with respect to said request;

an Internet-browser accessible editor for editing said data associated with said request; and

an Internet-browser-activated submitter for resubmitting said request with edited data to said agent.

2. An agent administration console as recited in claim 1 wherein said Internet-browser accessible editor permits trouble-shooting options associated with a service to be changed prior to resubmission of said request.

3. An agent administration console as recited in claim 1 further comprising failure search means for displaying data status of failure events meeting selected search criteria.

4. An agent administration console as recited in claim 1 further comprising for generating an ad hoc request for a selected agent service.

5. An agent administration console as recited in claim 4 wherein said data status is copied to said ad hoc request when said ad hoc request is generated.

6. A method comprising:

detecting a failure in a service performed on a customer request handled by invoking software agents serially, said service being performed by one of said agents;

notifying an administrator electronically of said failure;

responding to Internet-browser activity by said administrator by;

providing access to said request in a status corresponding to a time of said failure,

providing editing access to data relating to said request, and

providing for resubmission of said request to said agent.

7. A method as recited in claim 6 wherein said notifying involves presenting said administrator with a link which when activated calls up a display presenting said data.

8. A method as recited in claim 6 wherein said responding further includes allowing said administrator to initiate an ad hoc request and submit it to said agent.

9. A method as recited in claim 8 wherein said responding further includes allowing said administrator to generate said ad hoc request so that it initially includes some of said data relating to said customer request.

10. A method as recited in claim 6 wherein said responding includes allowing said administrator to search for other agent failures.

11. A method as recited in claim M1 wherein said responding step further provides for allowing said administrator to change monitoring options prior to resubmission of said request to said agent.