Loader and Provider Configuration for Remotely Provided Services

• US 20060212793A1
• Filed: 05/05/2006
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: David Haynes, Richard Marejka
• Original Assignee: David Haynes, Richard Marejka
• Inventors: Haynes, David, Marejka, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 8,856,635 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0859 by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5064 Customer relationship management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

A system and method of accessing remote services through a network including generating a message within a local computer system using a process having a specified type and version. The message is associated with the specified type and version and transported to an remote service provider system. The remote service provider system parses the message to identify the type and version information, then passes the message to a particular process that corresponds to the process used to generate the message based upon the type and version information.

Claims

1. A method of generating provider data comprising the steps of:

collecting system data from a customer system with a data provider process;

associating the system data from the customer system with version data of the data provider process to form provider data associated with the computer system, wherein the version data of the data provider process includes a type of the data provider process and a version of the data provider process; and

transporting the provider data to a service provider system, wherein the service provider system includes a data loader corresponding to the version data of the data provider process, receivers for accepting system data collected from the customer system and brokering the system data to the data loader, and a job queue for retaining provider data until it is processed by the data loader and priority values used by the service provider system for job selection.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

associating the version data with the data loader in the service provider system, wherein the data loader is designed to process the provider data generated by a pre-selected type and version of the data provider program.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein transporting the provider data comprises the step of:

sending the provider data through a cascaded pipeline comprising a monitored relay, a forwarding relay in electronic communication with the monitored relay, and an Internet relay in electronic communication with both the forwarding relay and the service provider system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the provider data comprises time data that indicates the time that the system data was collected from the customer system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the provider data is selected from the group consisting of configuration data, event data, trending data, reboot data, and field replaceable unit identification data.

6. A computer program product for generating provider data from a customer computer system to a remote services system, the computer program product comprising:

first computer code devices executable on a customer computer system collecting system data from the customer system; and

second computer code devices executable on the customer computer system for binding the collected system data with provider metadata to form a provider message, wherein the provider metadata identifies a type and a version of the first computer code devices.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the first computer code devices are configured to gather configuration data describing a current configuration of the customer computer system.

8. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the first computer code devices are configured to gather delta configuration data describing a changes in configuration of the customer computer system with respect to a previous time.

9. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the first computer code devices are configured to gather event data describing an describing system status information and compare the system status information against predetermined thresholds.

10. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the first computer code devices are configured to gather trend data indicating system performance metrics, wherein the first computer code devices are executed at predetermined times according to a programmed schedule.

11. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein the first computer code devices are configured to gather performance metrics data comprising a value indicating at least one of:

processor utilization, memory utilization, swap space utilization, root disk utilization, and uptime.

12. A system for implementing remote services on a plurality of customer computer systems, the system comprising:

a remote services communication pipeline that is accessible by a remote services computer and by each of the customer computer systems;

a first type of provider process executable on the plurality of the customer computer systems, the first type of provider process having multiple versions; and

a first type of loader process executable on the remote service computer, wherein the first type of loader process has a version corresponding to each version of the first type of provider process.

13. The system of claim 12 further comprising:

a first instance of the first type of provider executing on one of the plurality of customer computer systems;

a second instance of the first type of provider executing on one of the plurality of customer computer systems, wherein the first and second instances have different versions.

14. A method of accessing remote services through a network comprising:

generating a message within a local computer system using a process having a specified type and version;

associating the message with the specified type and version; and

transporting the message to an external service provider system, wherein the external service provider system includes a data loader corresponding to the specific type and version of the process, receivers for accepting the message from the local customer system, and a job queue for retaining the message until it is processed by the data loader and priority values used by the service provider system for job selection.