STATISTICAL DATA INSPECTOR

• US 20080228442A1
• Filed: 03/07/2008
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Firebaugh, John Edward, Goodrow, Dennis Sidney, Lippincott, Lisa Ellen
• Granted Patent: US 7,962,610 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/179
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

An embodiment of the invention provides a technique that allows the collection, storage, and manipulation of data collected in a computer network.

Claims

1. An apparatus for managing a plurality of computer network elements, comprising:

a management console function; and

at least one statistical inspector, in communication with said management console function, either directly or indirectly, said at least one statistical inspector remotely performing a relevance determination function in connection with an associated network element for collection, storage, and manipulation of time-based data at said associated network element.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector provides a statistical representation of said data that collapses the amount of said data relative to any of time and content.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector combines said data in response to said management console function.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector measures at least one parameter related to said associated network element.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector receives at least one query from said management console function in connection with any of collection, storage, and manipulation of time-based data at said associated network element by said at least one statistical inspector.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector develops statistics based upon said time-based data, and combines said statistics to identify trends over time.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector comprising:

a binning structure for storing said time-based data as time stamped measurements;

wherein each of said time based measurements is stored within a bin that represents a discrete interval of time.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, said binning structure comprising:

a first series of time stamped bins that collect time-based data for a first discrete interval of time; and

at least one additional series of time stamped bins that collect time-based data for at least one additional, different discrete interval of time.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein each bin comprises:

a plurality of fields that are populated with said time-based data and results of statistical operations that are performed by said statistical inspector upon said time-based data.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein contents of each of said bins are any of preserved locally, reported to said remote management console, and purged after being stored as condensed data contained in a higher level bin.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein contents of each of said bins are combined.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector comprising a mechanism for receiving a polling query from said management console function with regard to said time-based data, and for aggregating said time-based data over time to establish operational characteristics of a measurement.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector implemented in a relevance language for executing at least one relevance determination with regard to said time-based data.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, said management console function comprising a mechanism for collapsing said time-based data stored by said at least one statistical inspector for said network element to identify an historical trend in connection with said network element and/or said plurality of network elements.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, said at least one statistical inspector automatically determining relevance in connection with said associated network element based on any of:

hardware attributes;

configuration attributes;

database attributes;

environmental attributes;

computed attributes;

remote attributes;

timeliness;

personal attributes;

randomization; and

advice attributes.

16. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector evaluating management and/or remediation information from said management console function by automatically performing any of:

mathematico-logical calculations;

executing computational algorithms;

returning results of system calls;

accessing contents of said associated network element;

querying said associated network element to evaluate any of;

said properties of said associated network element;

said associated network element configuration;

contents of storage devices associated with said associated network element;

peripherals associated with said associated network element; and

said associated network element environment.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector automatically determining relevance in connection with said associated network element and providing at least one notification based upon a relevance determination result.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a database for storing historical information;

at least one session inspector for accessing aggregate historical information stored in said database and for presenting statistical views of the state of one or more network elements based upon said historical information.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, said at least one session inspector accessing said aggregate historical information stored in said database relative to a policy and taking corrective action if said policy so indicates.

20. The apparatus of claim 1, said management console function comprising a mechanism for issuing a query to said at least one session inspector in connection with said time-based data, wherein any of:

said time-based data are aggregated by said at least one session inspector for said associated network element;

said time-based data are aggregated by said management console function;

said at least one session inspector logs events and said events are transposed into aggregate records;

records from a plurality of sources are combined;

records from a same network element are combined in associated bins;

records from a plurality of network elements are combined into associated bins;

bins are combined over a same time segment;

bins are combined to collapse time into a smaller data representation; and

measurements relative to a network element after bins are combined to collapse time into a smaller data representation impact statistical boundaries in said bins.

21. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said at least one statistical inspector aggregates said time based data at any one or more elements in a hierarchy of distributed network elements.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, said hierarchy comprising an aggregational pipeline in which aggregation can occur at any of one or more points along the entire pipeline from agent samples values and sampling time, relays collecting and forwarding, servers collecting and forwarding, consoles collecting and displaying, and cross server consolidation,

wherein said statistical inspector stores and forwards raw data or aggregates raw data and stores said aggregated raw data and/or forwards said aggregated raw data.

23. The apparatus of claim 1, said at least one statistical inspector comprising:

an aggregation algorithm that combines measurements into bins, combines bins with like bins, and consolidates bins into a smaller number of bins.

24. An apparatus for managing a plurality of computer network elements, comprising:

a distributed statistical/historical aggregation facility associated with said computer network elements for tracking statistical qualities of each of said associated computer network elements over time across a plurality of said computer network elements;

said statistical qualities comprising a property dimension and a network element dimension;

wherein all property results are stored as a two dimensional table, with each column representing a single property, and each row representing a single network element;

wherein a cell in said table holds a last result reported by a network element for a given property; and

wherein selected properties track changes relative to one or more network elements over time.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein results from all network elements that report on a particular property in a particular time period are aggregated into a single record.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each row in said table represents one of a plurality of different discrete intervals of time.

27. A computer implemented method for managing a plurality of computer network elements, comprising the steps of:

providing a management console function; and

providing at least one statistical inspector, in communication with said management console function, either directly or indirectly, for remotely performing a relevance determination function in connection with an associated network element for collection, storage, and manipulation of time-based data at said associated network element,

aggregational pipelinein which aggregation can occur at any of one or more points along the entire pipeline fromagent samples values and sampling time, relays collecting and forwarding, servers collecting and forwarding, consoles collecting and displaying, and cross server consolidation,

which are in said statistical inspector stores and forwards raw data or aggregates raw data and stores said aggregated raw data and/or forwards said aggregated raw data.