History-based prioritizing of suspected components

• US 20060161819A1
• Filed: 01/18/2005
• Published: 07/20/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Nissan-Messing, Orit, Zlotnick, Aviad
• Granted Patent: US 7,409,595 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• 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: G06F 11/2294 by remote test

Abstract

A method for servicing a computerized system includes detecting a failure of a given type in the computerized system, and generating a list of corrective actions in response to the failure, using an automated maintenance program. A record of one or more previous failures of the given type in the computerized system is retrieved, indicating at least one previous corrective action taken in response to the previous failures. The method prioritizes the list of corrective actions responsively to the record, using the automated maintenance program, so as to adjust a priority of the at least one previous corrective action in the list. The prioritized list from the automated maintenance program is provided to a repair function for use in servicing the computerized system.

Claims

1. A method for servicing a computerized system, comprising:

detecting a failure of a given type in the computerized system;

generating a list of corrective actions in response to the failure, using an automated maintenance program;

retrieving a record of one or more previous failures of the given type in the computerized system, and indicating at least one previous corrective action taken in response to the previous failures;

prioritizing the list of corrective actions responsively to the record, using the automated maintenance program, so as to adjust a priority of the at least one previous corrective action in the list; and

providing the prioritized list from the automated maintenance program to a repair function for use in servicing the computerized system.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computerized system comprises a data storage system.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein detecting the failure comprises receiving an automatic failure alert.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein retrieving the record comprises determining a time of the at least one previous corrective action, and wherein prioritizing the list comprises ordering the list responsively to the time.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein ordering the list comprises determining a most-recently-performed action, and moving the most-recently-performed action to the end of the list.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein ordering the list comprises reordering the list in ascending order of the time.

7. The method according to claim 4, wherein ordering the list comprises determining the priority responsively to the time of the at least one previous corrective action and to a measure of probability of the previous failures.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein determining the priority comprises comparing the time of the at least one previous corrective action performed on a component of the computerized system to a mean time between failures (MTBF) of the component.

9. The method according to claim 4, wherein ordering the list comprises determining whether to change the priority by comparing the time of the at least one previous corrective action performed on a component of the computerized system to a characteristic failure time of the component.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein generating the list of corrective actions comprises listing one or more suspected components to be replaced by the repair function.

11. The method according to claim 10, and comprising automatically detecting the components replaced by the repair function so as to generate the record.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein providing the prioritized list comprises presenting the prioritized list to a repair person.

13. Apparatus for use in servicing a computerized system, the apparatus comprising a maintenance processor, which is arranged to receive an indication of a failure of a given type in the computerized system, to generate a list of corrective actions in response to the failure, to retrieve a record of one or more previous failures of the given type in the computerized system, and indicating at least one previous corrective action taken in response to the previous failures, to prioritize the list of corrective actions responsively to the record so as to adjust a priority of the at least one previous corrective action in the list, and to provide the prioritized list to a repair function for use in servicing the computerized system.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the computerized system comprises a data storage system.

15. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to receive an automatic failure alert.

16. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to determine a time of the at least one previous corrective action and to order the list responsively to the time.

17. The apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to determine a most-recently-performed action and to move the most-recently-performed action to the end of the list.

18. The apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to reorder the list in ascending order of the time.

19. The apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to determine the priority responsively to the time of the at least one previous corrective action and to a measure of probability of the previous failures.

20. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to list one or more suspected components to be replaced by the repair function.

21. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the maintenance processor is arranged to detect automatically the components replaced by the repair function, so as to generate the record.

22. A computer software product for use in servicing a computerized system, the product comprising a computer-readable medium in which program instructions are stored, which instructions, when read by a computer, cause the computer to receive an indication of a failure of a given type in the computerized system, to generate a list of corrective actions in response to the failure, to retrieve a record of one or more previous failures of the given type in the computerized system, and indicating at least one previous corrective action taken in response to the previous failures, to prioritize the list of corrective actions responsively to the record so as to adjust a priority of the at least one previous corrective action in the list, and to provide the prioritized list to a repair function for use in servicing the computerized system.

23. The product according to claim 22, wherein the computerized system comprises a data storage system.

24. The product according to claim 22, wherein the instructions cause the computer to receive an automatic failure alert.

25. The product according to claim 22, wherein the instructions cause the computer to determine a time of the at least one previous corrective action and to order the list responsively to the time.

26. The product according to claim 25, wherein the instructions cause the computer to determine a most-recently-performed action and to move the most-recently-performed action to the end of the list.

27. The product according to claim 25, wherein the instructions cause the computer to reorder the list in ascending order of the time.

28. The product according to claim 25, wherein the instructions cause the computer to determine the priority responsively to the time of the at least one previous corrective action and to a measure of probability of the previous failures.

29. The product according to claim 22, wherein the instructions cause the computer to list one or more suspected components to be replaced by the repair function.

30. The product according to claim 29, wherein the instructions cause the computer to detect automatically the components replaced by the repair function, so as to generate the record.