Environment classification

• US 20080071727A1
• Filed: 09/27/2006
• Published: 03/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Vukelja, Iva Blazina, Nair, Manoj, Dugganapally, Arun, Perrin, Stephen R., Wah, Mark Weng Soon
• Granted Patent: US 9,135,322 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A method and system for classifying environment components within a computer system. The computer system includes an information management service for defining services to be provided to data objects residing in the computer system. One exemplary method identifies environment components, such as servers, storage locations, databases, applications, and the like, within the computer system. The service level capabilities of each of the environment components are then identified. The environment components are then classified in accordance with their identified service level capabilities. By categorizing the environment components in accordance with their service level capabilities, the service level objective requests of data objects residing in the system can efficiently be matched to the environment components that are capable of providing the requested services.

Claims

1. In a computer system that includes an information management service for defining services to be provided to data objects residing in the computer system, a method for classifying environment components within the computer system, the method comprising:

identifying environment components within a computer system;

identifying service level capabilities of each of the environment components, the service level capabilities describing service level objectives that each of the environment components is able to provide to data objects within the computer system; and

classifying each of the environment components in accordance with their identified service level capabilities.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the environment components include at least one of file servers, retention servers, backup servers, databases, and applications.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein identifying environment components within a computer system further comprises accessing environment discovery information from an environment discovery application that has performed an environment discovery operation.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein identifying environment components within a computer system further comprises identifying metadata for each of the environment components describing the capabilities, features, and properties of each of the environment components.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the environment components include storage locations, wherein classifying each of the environment components further comprises classifying the storage locations in accordance with a combination of service level objectives that can be provided to the data objects stored at each of the storage locations.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the environment components include service applications, wherein classifying each of the environment components further comprises classifying the service applications in accordance with the capabilities of each of the service applications to provide information management services to the data objects stored within the computer system.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein classifying each of the environment components further comprises classifying the service applications in accordance with which storage locations within the computer system each of the service applications is capable of providing information management services to.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the data objects include at least one of directories, volumes, files, folders, user data, system data, applications, services, operating systems, instructions, and computer settings.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

generating metadata for each of the environment components for describing their classification.

10. In a computer system that includes an information management service for defining services to be provided to data objects residing in the computer system, a method for classifying environment components within the computer system, the method comprising:

identifying environment components within a computer system;

identifying service level capabilities of each of the environment components, the service level capabilities describing service level objectives that each of the environment components is able to provide to data objects within the computer system;

identifying a rule set for classifying the environment components;

applying the rule set to the environment components to classify each of the environment components in accordance with their identified service level capabilities so that the data objects having predefined service level objective requests can be efficiently matched to the environment components.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

generating metadata for each of the environment components for describing their classification.

12. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the environment components include at least one of file servers, retention servers, backup servers, databases, and applications.

13. A computer program product for use in a computer system that includes an information management service for defining services to be provided to data objects residing in the computer system, the computer program product used in implementing a method of classifying environment components within the computer system, the computer program product comprising one or more computer readable media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform the following:

identify environment components within a computer system;

identify service level capabilities of each of the environment components, the service level capabilities describing the service level objectives that each of the environment components is able to provide to data objects within the computer system; and

classify each of the environment components in accordance with their identified service level capabilities.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the environment components include at least one of file servers, retention servers, backup servers, databases, and applications.

15. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the computer executable instruction that are configured to identify the environment components within a computer system further include instruction configured to:

access environment discovery information from an environment discovery application that has performed an environment discovery operation.

16. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the computer executable instruction that are configured to identify the environment components within a computer system further include instruction configured to:

identify metadata describing the capabilities, features, and properties of each of the environment components.

17. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the environment components include storage locations, and wherein the computer executable instruction that are configured to classify each of the environment components further include instruction configured to:

classify the storage locations in accordance with a combination of information management services that can be provided to the data objects stored at each of the storage locations.

18. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the environment components include service applications, and wherein the computer executable instruction that are configured to classify each of the environment components further include instruction configured to:

classify the service applications in accordance with the capabilities of each of the service applications to provide information management services to the data objects stored within the computer system.

19. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the data objects include at least one of directories, volumes, files, folders, user data, system data, applications, services, operating systems, instructions, and computer settings.

20. The method as recited in claim 13, further including instructions configured to:

generate metadata for each of the environment components for describing their classification.