SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FILTERING COLLECTED DATA

• US 20070061450A1
• Filed: 10/31/2006
• Published: 03/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blazent Incorporated (ServiceNow Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Blazent Incorporated (ServiceNow Incorporated)
• Inventors: Zheng, Wei, Gerhold, Brian, Burnley, Christopher, Sherman, Mike, Day, Pamela
• Application Number:
  US11/554,623
• Publication Number:
  US 20070061450A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3082 the data filtering being achieved by aggregating or compressing the monitored data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3089 Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in sensing the monitored data, e.g. interfaces, connectors, sensors, probes, agents software debugging using additional hardware using a specific debug interface G06F11/3656; performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3452 Performance evaluation by statistical analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24556 Aggregation; Duplicate elimination
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/885 Monitoring specific for caches

Abstract

A system and method for filtering collected data in connection with tracking the use of resources of a computer is disclosed. Embodiments of the system comprise a plurality of client computers, wherein each computer has one or more resources that the system tracks; a client application for each client computer, each client application for collecting utilization duration data relating to the utilization of the resources of the application'"'"'s corresponding client computer; an application server for receiving the utilization duration data collected by the client applications and for storing the received data in a storage structure; wherein each client application has a filter for filtering data collected by the client application. Embodiments of the method comprise identifying an instance when a particular software resource is used; measuring and recording a period relating to the detected utilization of the software resource; wherein the period is an estimated duration of the utilization of the software resource.

Claims

1. A system for tracking utilization of resources of computers, the system comprising:

a plurality of client computers, wherein each computer has at least one resource that the system tracks;

a client application for each client computer, each client application collecting utilization duration data relating to the utilization of the at least one resource of the application'"'"'s corresponding client computer, each client application including a filter for filtering data collected by the client applications; and

an application server for receiving the utilization duration data collected by the client applications and for storing the received data in a storage structure.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of a first set of the client applications collects different types of utilization data, wherein the filter of each client application in the first set includes a rule set for each type of utilization data collected by the filter'"'"'s corresponding client application.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the filtering rule sets are embedded in XML documents.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein each XML rule document comprises a set of filtering rules for data items selected from the group consisting of:

browser utilization data items;

software utilization data items;

software inventory data items;

hardware utilization data items; and

hardware inventory data items.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the filtering rules of the rule set specify the elimination of a data item.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the filtering rules of the rule set specify the modification of at least one attribute of a data item.

7. The system of claim of 2, wherein the filtering rules of the rule set specify that the filter pass a data item without modification.

8. A method for filtering collected data, comprising:

providing a filtering engine;

receiving a data item;

identifying the appropriate rule set for the data item;

sequentially invoking the rules in the identified rule set; and

passing the data item to each invoked rule.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising commanding the data item to modify at least one attribute.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising commanding the data item to mark itself for deletion by the filtering engine.

11. A system for tracking utilization of resources of computers, the system comprising:

a plurality of client computers, wherein each computer has at least one resource that the system tracks;

a client application for each client computer, each client application for collecting utilization duration data relating to the utilization of the resources of the application'"'"'s corresponding client computer;

an application server for receiving the utilization duration data collected by the client applications and for storing the received data in a storage structure, the application server having a filter for filtering data collected by the client applications.

12. The system of claim of claim 11, wherein the filtering of data at the application server is readily modifiable.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the application server filter performs a categorization operation.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the categorization operation is performed each time the application server filter receives an inventory add data item for a new software resource.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the categorization operation is performed each time the application server filter receives a start data item for a URL event.