Automated analysis tasks of complex computer system

• US 20070159643A1
• Filed: 01/06/2006
• Published: 07/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Weiguo, Bennetto, John, Avner, Jon, Bowden, Paul, Chase, Kevin, Allen, Nicole
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,904 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.600
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence

Abstract

Automated multiple step tasks are executed on a computing device to analyze a computer system. A step engine performs a complex task such as troubleshooting, performance analysis, or disaster recovery as defined by an input file. The step engine parses the input file into individual steps and dispatches actions of the steps to another device for execution. The device returns a file with the results of the action. The step engine progresses through the list of steps and generates a log file representative of the actions taken and data collected during performance of the task.

Claims

1. A method of automating a task of a computing system, said task including a plurality of steps, said method comprising:

defining a configuration file specifying at least one action, said action being defined by one of the plurality of steps;

dispatching said configuration file to a data engine for executing the action specified by the configuration file;

receiving an output file from the data engine, said output file representing a result of executing the action; and

generating a log file in response to receiving the output file, said log file representing the action and the result of executing the action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein dispatching the configuration file includes dispatching a driver to the data engine, said driver being associated with the action specified by the configuration file.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving at least one input file and defining at least one configuration file from the received input file, said input file representing the plurality of steps in the task.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein dispatching the configuration file comprises dispatching a first configuration file and further comprising defining and dispatching a second configuration file after the data engine executes the action specified in the first configuration file.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein receiving at least one input file comprises retrieving an available update of the input file before defining a configuration file.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration file specifies data relating to the computing system, and further comprising generating a user interface defined by the configuration file to gather the specified data from a user.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a next configuration file specifying at least one more action of a step of the task as a function of the received output file and the input file and dispatching the next configuration file to the data engine.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration file specifies data relating to the computing system under analysis, and further comprising dispatching the data engine to gather the specified data in response to the configuration file.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating the log file as the data engine executes each configuration file and provides the output file.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the analysis of the computing system comprises one or more of the following:

a disaster recovery task, a performance analysis task, a task for determining what disk capacity is needed to deploy a unified-messaging environment, a mail-flow analyzing task, a task for determining if a mail program is properly installed on a client computing device, a task for determining why memory usage is relatively high for a computing device, and a troubleshooting task.

11. A computer-implemented system for automating a task, said task including a plurality of steps, said system comprising:

a step engine for parsing an input file into a plurality of steps and for defining and dispatching at least one configuration file, said input file defining the task to be automated and said configuration file specifying at least one action of the plurality of steps in the task; and

a data engine receiving and responsive to each of the dispatched configuration files for executing the action specified by the received configuration file and for returning an output file to the step engine, said output file representing a result of executing the action.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a driver dispatched to the data engine from the step engine, said driver being associated with the action specified by the configuration file.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising a log file generated by the step engine in response to the output file, said log file representing each of the actions executed by the data engine and the result of executing the actions in each of the configuration files.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the step engine is configured to define a set of steps parsed from the received input file, said step engine dispatching a first configuration file according to a step in the set of steps and subsequently dispatching a second configuration file according to a step in the set of steps after the data engine executes the action specified in the first configuration file.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the input file comprises an extensible markup language file.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the configuration files each comprise an extensible markup language file.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the actions specified by the configuration files defines data to be retrieved from a user, said data relating to the task, and further comprising a user interface component defined by at least one of the configuration files to gather the defined data from the user.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the step engine is configured to generate a next configuration file specifying another action of a step of the task as a function of the received output file and the input file and dispatching the next configuration file to the data engine.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the data engine is configured to gather data specified by the configuration files.

20. The system of claim 11, wherein the task comprises one or more of the following:

a disaster recovery task, a performance analysis task, a task for determining what disk capacity is needed to deploy a unified-messaging environment, a mail-flow analyzing task, a task for determining if a mail program is properly installed on a client computing device, a task for determining why memory usage is relatively high for a computing device, and a troubleshooting task.