Facilitating event management and analysis within a communications environment

• US 20070180103A1
• Filed: 01/30/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Atkins, Mark, Moyer, Dawn
• Granted Patent: US 8,347,143 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/065 involving logical or physical relationship, e.g. grouping and hierarchies

Abstract

The management and analysis of events of communications environments are facilitated. Events, such as alert and network events, are separated into a plurality of pools, depending on the classification of event. Each pool has events exclusive of one type of event. The events are placed in the appropriate pools via one or more analysis routines. Additionally, events of at least one type of pool are further analyzed using one or more analysis routines to determine which events, if any, are to be reported.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating, in a communications environment in which at least one of individual serviceable and causal real-time events are determined and reported, selection of time-related serviceable events to be reported, said method comprising:

having a first event pool comprising one or more first events exclusively of a first classification, each first event of the one or more first events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a first event being tunable to control a closing of the first event pool;

having a second event pool comprising one or more second events exclusively of a second classification, each second event of the one or more second events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a second event being tunable to control an amount of time the second event corresponding to the individual time-out attribute is usable in applying causal elimination against one or more first events of the first event pool, wherein events of the first event pool and the second event pool are related in time as defined by the individual time-outs of the events and wherein the tuning of the time-outs controls which events are related to one another in time; and

performing causal elimination on one or more first events of said first event pool using one or more second events of the second event pool, wherein closing of said first event pool is independent of time-outs of the one or more second events of the second event pool, thus facilitating timely reporting of one or more first events that are to be serviced.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first event pool is a network pool comprising one or more network events, and wherein said network pool closes in response to a time-out of the one or more network events of the network pool.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said network pool closes when all network events of the network pool time out.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein a network event is classified as an event in which the reportability of the event is affected by one or more other events of the communications environment, such that at least one of the following may occur:

one or more other events eliminate the event, the event is reported as a member of a new event.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein an incoming event that is a duplicate of an existing event of the network pool is eliminated by the existing event to avoid an infinite condition in which the network pool cannot close.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving a network event subsequent to a closing of the network pool; and

automatically opening another network pool, in response to receiving the network event subsequent to the closing, to service the received network event.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the performing causal elimination comprises using at least one event of at least one of the first event pool and the second event pool to mark for elimination at least one event from the active network pool, said elimination being based on at least one of a defined endpoint elimination and a local device elimination.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

performing evaluation on one or more events in the closed network pool; and

reporting zero or more events remaining in the network pool, in response to the evaluation.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the performing evaluation comprises eliminating one or more events effected by causal elimination and forming one or more new events from one or more events in the closed network pool.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the second event pool comprises an alert pool and the one or more second events of the second event pool are alert events, said alert events being classified as events in which reportability of those events are not affected by other events in the environment.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising reporting an alert event prior to adding the alert event to the alert pool, the reporting being independent of other events in the communications environment.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising configuring the alert event to be reported, wherein an alert event of the alert pool is configured as being reportable or not.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the alert pool does not close and an alert event of the alert event pool is removed from the alert event pool in response to expiration of an individual time-out associated with the alert event.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein an alert event is characterized as being capable of being used to apply elimination across one or more first event pools.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein reportability of one or more second events of the second event pool is independent of time-outs of the one or more first events of the first event pool facilitating timely reporting of one or more second events.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the individual time-out attribute is set at a time in which the event associated with the individual time-out is added to an event pool.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, in at least one configuration file, each first event with its associated attributes and each second event with its associated attributes, said associated attributes defining the individual time-out attribute for its associated event and one or more analysis definitions and relationships to one or more other events.

18. A system of facilitating, in a communications environment in which at least one of individual serviceable and causal real-time events are determined and reported, selection of time-related serviceable events to be reported, said system comprising:

a first event pool comprising one or more first events exclusively of a first classification, each first event of the one or more first events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a first event being tunable to control a closing of the first event pool;

a second event pool comprising one or more second events exclusively of a second classification, each second event of the one or more second events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a second event being tunable to control an amount of time the second event corresponding to the individual time-out attribute is usable in applying causal elimination against one or more first events of the first event pool, wherein events of the first event pool and the second event pool are related in time as defined by the individual time-outs of the events and wherein the tuning of the time-outs controls which events are related to one another in time; and

an event daemon to perform causal elimination on one or more first events of said first event pool using one or more second events of the second event pool, wherein closing of said first event pool is independent of time-outs of the one or more second events of the second event pool, thus facilitating timely reporting of one or more first events that are to be serviced.

19. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer usable medium having computer readable program code logic to facilitate, in a communications environment in which at least one of individual serviceable and causal real-time events are determined and reported, selection of time-related serviceable events to be reported, the computer readable program code logic comprising;

logic to have a first event pool comprising one or more first events exclusively of a first classification, each first event of the one or more first events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a first event being tunable to control a closing of the first event pool;

logic to have a second event pool comprising one or more second events exclusively of a second classification, each second event of the one or more second events having an individual time-out attribute associated therewith, said individual time-out attribute of a second event being tunable to control an amount of time the second event corresponding to the individual time-out attribute is usable in applying causal elimination against one or more first events of the first event pool, wherein events of the first event pool and the second event pool are related in time as defined by the individual time-outs of the events and wherein the tuning of the time-outs controls which events are related to one another in time; and

perform logic to perform causal elimination on one or more first events of said first event pool using one or more second events of the second event pool, wherein closing of said first event pool is independent of time-outs of the one or more second events of the second event pool, thus facilitating timely reporting of one or more first events that are to be serviced.