Monitoring method, system, and computer program based on severity and persistence of problems

• US 20070005298A1
• Filed: 06/22/2005
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Perrone, Antonio, Radcliffe, Rosalind, Allen, Wade, Deidda, Paolo, Fresquez, David
• Granted Patent: US 7,702,780 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/182
• 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 11/0754 by exceeding limits
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16

Abstract

For monitoring a data processing system, a sequence of critical conditions with increasing severity indexes is defined. Each critical condition is detected when a corresponding state parameter exceeds a threshold value with a predefined persistence over time. The persistence may be specified by a minimum number of repeated occurrences of this event, with a maximum number of consecutive non-occurrences that are allowed between them. Whenever critical conditions are detected, the monitoring application retrieves the severity index of the last detected critical condition with the highest severity index, and calculates an incremental index indicative of how closely the state parameter is approaching the next critical condition. An indicator of the health of the system may be generated by subtracting the severity index of the last critical condition plus the incremental index from an optimal value.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a data processing system, comprising:

providing a state parameter of the system;

detecting at least one of a plurality of predefined critical conditions for the state parameter, the critical conditions being ordered in a sequence with increasing severity, wherein each critical condition is detected in response to reaching a corresponding temporal threshold by a persistence of the state parameter at a corresponding guard level;

determining an incremental index indicative of approaching the first non-detected critical condition in the sequence according to a comparison between a current persistence of the state parameter at the guard level of the first non-detected critical condition and the corresponding temporal threshold; and

providing an indication of criticality of the state parameter based on the most severe detected critical condition in the sequence and the incremental index.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein a severity index is associated with each critical condition, wherein severity indexes of the critical conditions in the sequence are strictly monotone, and wherein the indication of criticality is based on a sum of the incremental index with the severity index of the most severe detected critical condition.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the incremental index is based on a ratio of current persistence and temporal threshold of the first non-detected critical condition.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein for each critical condition the guard level is defined by the reaching of a corresponding quantitative threshold by the state parameter, and the temporal threshold is defined by a minimum number of repeated occurrences of the state parameter at the guard level.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein for each critical condition the temporal threshold is further defined by a maximum number of non-occurrences of the state parameter at the guard level being allowed among the minimum number of occurrences.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the minimum number of occurrences and the maximum number of non-occurrences for the critical conditions in the sequence are monotone decreasing.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein determining the incremental index comprises:

multiplying the difference between the severity index of the first non-detected critical condition and the severity index of the most severe detected critical condition by the ratio between a value, equal to a current number of repeated occurrences of the state parameter at the guard level of the first non-detected critical condition without reaching the corresponding maximum number of non-occurrences, and the corresponding minimum number of occurrences.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein execution of the method is controlled by a service provider.

9. A computer program product including a computer-usable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program when executed on a data processing system causing the system to perform a method for monitoring the system, wherein the method comprises:

providing a state parameter of the system;

detecting at least one of a plurality of predefined critical conditions for the state parameter, the critical conditions being ordered in a sequence with increasing severity, wherein each critical condition is detected in response to reaching a corresponding temporal threshold by a persistence of the state parameter at a corresponding guard level;

determining an incremental index indicative of the approaching of the first non-detected critical condition in the sequence according to a comparison between a current persistence of the state parameter at the guard level of the first non-detected critical condition and the corresponding temporal threshold; and

providing an indication of the criticality of the state parameter based on the most severe detected critical condition in the sequence and the incremental index.

10. A data processing system, comprising:

means for providing a state parameter of the system;

means for detecting at least one of a plurality of predefined critical conditions for the state parameter, the critical conditions being ordered in a sequence with increasing severity, wherein each critical condition is detected in response to reaching a corresponding temporal threshold by a persistence of the state parameter at a corresponding guard level;

means for determining an incremental index indicative of the approaching of the first non-detected critical condition in the sequence according to a comparison between a current persistence of the state parameter at the guard level of the first non-detected critical condition and the corresponding temporal threshold; and

means for providing an indication of the criticality of the state parameter based on the most severe detected critical condition in the sequence and the incremental index.

11. A computer, comprising:

a monitoring agent for measuring a state parameter of the system; and

an aggregator for detecting at least one of a plurality of predefined critical conditions for the state parameter, the critical conditions being ordered in a sequence with increasing severity, wherein each critical condition is detected in response to reaching a corresponding temporal threshold by a persistence of the state parameter at a corresponding guard level, for determining an incremental index indicative of the approaching of the first non-detected critical condition in the sequence according to a comparison between a current persistence of the state parameter at the guard level of the first non-detected critical condition and the corresponding temporal threshold, and for providing an indication of the criticality of the state parameter based on the most severe detected critical condition in the sequence and the incremental index.