Requesting, obtaining, and processing operational event feedback from customer data centers

• US 20060235822A1
• Filed: 04/15/2005
• Published: 10/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rajarajan, Vij, Sanghvi, Ashvinkumar J., Raghavan, Arun D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,571,150 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

In connection with an operations management system, a vendor feedback system reports on operational events that occur on customer data centers. The operations management system provides a standardized environment for providing feedback to a vendor of components installed at the customer data centers. Methods supported by the vendor feedback system can include directing the operations management system to report on predefined operational events involving the components installed by the vendor at the customer data centers. Event reports are then stored at the customer data centers in response to occurrences of the predefined operational events. The event reports can be generated in cooperation with the operations management system. The event reports are transmitted to the vendor as feedback relating to the components, and the vendor receives the event reports from the customer data centers. The vendor, in turn, can then analyze the event reports in detail to address any issues with the vendor'"'"'s products or services, referred to collectively as components, that may be increasing the customer'"'"'s TCO.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

utilizing an operations management system to provide a standardized environment for reporting on operational events occurring on a plurality of customer data centers; and

enabling vendor personnel to request operational data reports on operational events of interest to the vendor personnel.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising accessing the customer data centers using the operations management system.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining raw operational data upon which the operational data reports are based.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising aggregating the raw operational data.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising normalizing the raw operational data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a respective context for instances of the operational data reports.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling a customer to opt-in to allow the vendor personnel to obtain the operational data reports.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling a customer to approve the operational data reports before they are transmitted to the vendor personnel.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising associating an anonymous and unique identifier with a given customer.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising offering a customized support service to the given customer using, at least in part, the anonymous and unique identifier.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically populating a data store on a vendor site with the operational data reports as they are received from the customer data centers.

12. In connection with an operations management system that provides a standardized environment for reporting on operational events occurring on a plurality of customer data centers, a computer-implemented method for providing feedback to a vendor of components installed at the customer data centers, the method comprising at least the following:

traversing designated storage locations on the customer data centers to locate reports of operational events that were stored therein responsive to requests received from the vendor;

packaging the reports of the operational events for transmission to the vendor; and

transmitting the reports to the vendor as feedback relating to the components.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein traversing designated storage locations includes traversing storage locations that are assigned to specific developments groups within the vendor.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein traversing designated storage locations includes traversing storage locations that are assigned to specific application developments groups within a software vendor.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising creating a manifest document directing that the reports be transmitted to the vendor.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising populating header data structures associated with the transportable format with data extracted from the reports.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising enabling logging for a communications process that transmits the reports from the customer data center to the vendor.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising rendering the reports in a transportable, human-readable format.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising encrypting the reports for transmission.

20. In connection with an operations management system that provides a standardized environment for reporting on operational events occurring on a plurality of customer data centers, a computer-implemented method for obtaining and processing feedback provided to a vendor of components installed at the customer data centers, the method comprising at least the following:

directing the operations management system to report on predefined operational events involving the components installed by the vendor at the customer data centers;

receiving reports on the operational events from the customer data centers;

delivering the reports to secured servers maintained by the vendor;

enabling authorized representatives of the vendor to analyze the reports; and

addressing the operational events based at least in part on analyzing the reports.