METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERIC APPLICATION LIVELINESS MONITORING FOR BUSINESS RESILIENCY

• US 20080228873A1
• Filed: 06/02/2008
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Chun-Shi Chang, Dinakaran Joseph, Dinesh Chandra Verma, Lap Thiet Huynh, Michael D. Williams, Michael Edward Baskey, Sambit Sahu
• Original Assignee: Chun-Shi Chang, Dinakaran Joseph, Dinesh Chandra Verma, Lap Thiet Huynh, Michael D. Williams, Michael Edward Baskey, Sambit Sahu
• Inventors: Sahu, Sambit, Joseph, Dinakaran, Chang, Chun-Shi, Williams, Michael D., Baskey, Michael Edward, Verma, Dinesh Chandra, Huynh, Lap Thiet
• Granted Patent: US 8,671,180 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0805 by checking availability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A system and method for monitoring liveliness includes a management device which has an application layer where applications are executed. A connection monitor is located other than on the application layer, and the connection monitor is configured to receive requests from clients and deliver the requests to components on the application layer. The components include a generic application monitor which responds to liveliness monitor requests from the clients for all applications monitored, and one or more applications which response to requests to that application.

Claims

1. A monitoring system, comprising:

a message generator configured to create messages to be used for monitoring liveliness of an application;

a sequence generator configured to create a sequence of messages to provide message exchanges for the monitoring; and

a base monitor configured to validate that the sequence of messages is exchanged with the application.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the message generator generates messages from a set of message templates.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein sequence of messages are generated from a set of sequence templates.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising

a message responder to form reply messages to send back in response to liveliness requests from application monitors;

and

a request router to route the liveliness requests to at least one of the message responder or to the monitored application.

5. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the request router is located within the network stack of a device running the monitored application.

6. The system as recited in claim 5, wherein the message responder runs on a port different from the port on which the monitored application runs.

7. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the request router makes routing decisions on the basis of predetermined policies.

8. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein monitoring requests include heartbeat requests and the system handles heartbeat requests from more than one application.

9. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the message responder checks Operating System statistics to determine the liveliness of the monitored application.

10. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the message responder checks that network statistics of packets sent and received by an application are within predetermined limits.

11. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the message responder checks that an operating system associated with the monitored application is active.

12. The system as recited in claim 4, wherein the message responder monitors requests for all applications by using a same generic application liveliness responder to handle all requests to monitor.

13. A method for determining liveliness of a monitored application, comprising:

creating a set of exchange messages;

creating a sequence of exchange messages; and

validating the sequence of exchange messages by sending and receiving messages to/from the monitored application.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the set of exchange messages and the sequence of messages are determined in accordance with policies.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further comprising updating the policies in accordance with changes in applications being monitored.

16. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein creating a set of exchange messages includes generating the exchange messages from a set of message templates.

17. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the sequence of messages are generated from a set of sequence templates.

18. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

forming reply messages using a message responder to send back in response to liveliness requests from application monitors; and

routing the liveliness requests using a request router to the message responder or to the monitored application.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein the request router is located within the network stack of a device running the monitored application.

20. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein the message responder runs on a port different from the port on which the monitored application runs.

21. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein the request router makes routing decisions on the basis of predetermined policies.

22. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein monitoring requests include heartbeat requests from more than one application.

23. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein forming reply messages includes checking Operating System statistics to determine the liveliness of the monitored application.

24. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein forming reply messages includes checking network statistics of packets sent and received by an application to determine that the network statistics are within acceptable limits.

25. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein forming reply messages includes checking that an operating system associated with the monitored application is active.

26. The method as recited in claim 18, further comprising monitoring requests for all applications by using a same generic application liveliness responder to handle all requests to monitor.

27. A computer program product for determining liveliness of an application comprising a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to perform the steps of:

creating a set of exchange messages;

creating a sequence of exchange messages; and

validating the sequence of exchange messages by sending and receiving messages to/from the monitored application.