TECHNIQUE FOR SUPPORTING FINDING OF LOCATION OF CAUSE OF FAILURE OCCURRENCE

• US 20080065928A1
• Filed: 08/24/2007
• Published: 03/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Suzuki, Yashuhiro, Goto, Yashuhisa
• Application Number:
  US11/844,549
• Publication Number:
  US 20080065928A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/3
• 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 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/20 using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence

Abstract

A support system includes a storage unit for storing a dependency graph in which components are expressed as nodes and relationships of components depending directly on each other are expressed with links, a log display unit for displaying, in response to detection of a failing component, a log of events occurring in the component, a selection unit for selecting, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the failing component on the dependency graph, as a candidate component for a failure cause, and a display control unit for enabling the log display unit to additionally display a log of events occurring in the selected candidate component, wherein the selection unit further selects, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the candidate component on the dependency graph as a new candidate component on condition that a log thereof has not yet been displayed.

Claims

1. A support system for supporting finding of a location of a cause of a failure occurrence in an information system that includes a plurality of components, comprising:

a storage unit for storing a dependency graph in which components are expressed as nodes and relationships of components depending directly on each other are expressed with links;

a log display unit for displaying, in response to detection of a failing component, a log of events occurring in the component;

a selection unit for selecting, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the failing component on the dependency graph, as a candidate component for a failure cause; and

a display control unit for enabling the log display unit to additionally display a log of events occurring in the selected candidate component;

wherein the selection unit further selects, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the candidate component on the dependency graph as a new candidate component, on condition that a log thereof has not yet been displayed.

2. The support system according to claim 1, wherein

the information system includes a plurality of information processing units,

each component serves as at least a part of hardware of one of the information processing units, or as at least a part of software operating in one of the information processing units,

the storage unit stores the dependency graph including a vertical link that represents a relationship of components in which one component among a plurality of components operating in the same information processing unit operates in dependence on the operation of another component, and a horizontal link that represents a relationship of a plurality of components operating in different information processing units and communicating with each other,

the selection unit selects, in response to an instruction for vertically searching for a failure cause, a component that is adjacent to the failing component or the previously selected candidate component on the dependency graph via a vertical link, as a new candidate component, and

the selection unit selects, in response to an instruction for horizontally searching for a failure cause, a component that is adjacent to the component in which the failure occurred or the previously selected candidate component on the dependency graph via a horizontal link, as a new candidate component.

3. The support system according to claim 2, wherein the selection unit selects, in response to a search instruction that designates no direction, a component that is adjacent to the already selected component on the dependency graph via a link having a direction differing from the one previously instructed, as a new candidate component, so that a vertical search and a horizontal search are alternately repeated each time the instruction is issued.

4. The support system according to claim 1, wherein the selection unit does not select a component that is adjacent to the previously selected candidate component on the dependency graph as a new candidate component, on condition that a failure having a severity value equal to or greater than a predetermined reference value does not occur in the component.

5. The support system according to claim 1, wherein

the storage unit stores links expressing relationships of components depending on each other, in association with attributes representing link types, and

the selection unit selects a component that is adjacent to the failing component or the previously selected candidate component via a link corresponding to an attribute that is associated in advance with a type of the failure occurred, as a new candidate component.

6. The support system according to claim 1, further comprising a selection exclusion unit for excluding a component that is designated by a user from components that are selected as candidate components and logs of events thereof are displayed,

wherein the display control unit deletes a log of the component excluded from the candidate components, from display provided by the log display unit.

7. The support system according to claim 1, wherein the log display unit displays, for each component, symbols arranged in the order of occurrence of the events, the symbols indicating severity of failures recorded in log segments that are formed by dividing a log of events with respect to a predetermined period of time, and the log display unit further displays, in response to an instruction received from a user to select a symbol, a log segment that is represented by the selected symbol.

8. The support system according to claim 1, further comprising a selection exclusion unit for excluding a component that is designated by a user from components that are selected as candidate components and logs of events thereof are displayed,

wherein the display control unit gives priority in the order of a selected candidate component, a components that was not selected as a candidate component, and a component that was selected as a candidate component and was thereafter excluded from candidate components, and displays their logs of events on the log display unit.

9. The support system according to claim 1, wherein

the storage unit stores the dependency graph including a monitoring link distinguished from the other links, the monitoring link representing a relationship in which a monitoring agent, which is a program for monitoring whether or not a failure occurs in a component, transmits monitoring results to a monitoring server program that collects monitoring results, and

the selection unit selects, in response to an instruction to search for a failure cause via the monitoring link, a component that is adjacent to the monitoring agent that monitors a failing component or a candidate component, on the dependency graph via the monitoring link, as a candidate component.

10. A method for supporting finding of a location of a cause of a failure occurrence in an information system that includes a plurality of components, comprising the steps of:

storing a dependency graph in which components are expressed as nodes and relationships of components depending directly on each other are expressed with links;

displaying, in response to detection of a failing component, a log of events occurring in the component;

selecting, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the failing component on the dependency graph, as a candidate component for a failure cause;

displaying a log of events occurring in the selected candidate component;

selecting, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the candidate component on the dependency graph as a new candidate component, on condition that a log thereof has not yet been displayed; and

further displaying a log of events occurring in the selected candidate component.

11. A computer program product comprising computer program code recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, for causing an information processing system to serve as a support system for supporting finding of a location of a cause of a failure occurrence in an information system that includes a plurality of components, the program causing the information processing system to function as:

a storage unit for storing a dependency graph in which components are expressed as nodes and relationships of components depending directly on each other are expressed with links;

a log display unit for displaying, in response to detection of a failing component, a log of events occurring in the component;

a selection unit for selecting, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the failing component on the dependency graph, as a candidate component for a failure cause; and

a display control unit for enabling the log display unit to additionally display a log of events occurring in the selected candidate component;

wherein the selection unit selects, in response to an instruction by a user, a component that is adjacent to the candidate component on the dependency graph, as a new candidate component, on condition that a log thereof has not yet been displayed.