NETWORK EVALUATION GRID TECHNIQUES

• US 20090006592A1
• Filed: 06/29/2007
• Published: 01/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Carter, Stephen R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,166,138 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5058 Service discovery by the service manager

Abstract

Network evaluation grid techniques are presented. Local specifications for traffic patterns are evaluated for local traffic on local grids of a grid computing environment and reported out. The local traffic reported out is then evaluated in response to global traffic pattern specifications and a global traffic policy in order to identify one or more remedial actions to take or to recommend in response to that evaluation.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying grid services that are distributed over a network for processing on a plurality of devices, wherein the plurality of devices combine to form a grid computing environment and selective collections of the devices combine to form a particular grid of the grid computing environment;

obtaining traffic pattern specifications for one or more of the following;

a particular one of the grid services, selective groupings of the grid services, the particular grid, selective groupings of the grids, and the grid computing environment as a whole; and

configuring and distributing a watch grid service with each grid of the grid computing environment, wherein when initiated on a particular device of the particular grid, a particular watch grid service listens for and reports on traffic in response to enforcement of particular ones of the traffic pattern specifications

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining traffic pattern policies for one or more of the following;

selective groupings of the traffic pattern specifications and the grid computing environment as a whole; and

configuring and distributing with each watch grid service the traffic pattern policies, wherein the particular watch grid service enforces particular ones of the traffic pattern policies to correlate multiple traffic pattern specifications with one another.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying further includes acquiring a unique grid service identity for each of the grid services from an identity service and using each unique grid service identity to obtain specific ones of the traffic pattern specifications.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining further includes acquiring each of the traffic pattern specifications in response to one or more of the following:

an identity associated with a particular grid service, an identity associated with the particular grid, an identity associated with the grid computing environment, and an active access role assigned to a particular identity.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

configuring multiple ones of the watch grid services to coordinate with one another; and

using a global traffic pattern policy known to the multiple watch grid services to evaluate cross traffic from the multiple watch grid services.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring and distributing further includes configuring each watch grid service to report information to one or more of the following:

an evaluation grid service, an administrator email account, an administrator instant message or text message account, and a website.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring and distributing further includes configuring each watch grid service to report information to one or more resources, wherein a number of the resources for a number of the watch grid services is different from other resources used by other watch grid services and wherein the configuring of reporting to the resources is driven by a unique profile or policy associated with each watch grid service.

8. A method, comprising:

receiving messages from multiple watch grid services, wherein each watch grid service reports network traffic occurring on grid members associated with a grid computing environment in response to local traffic pattern specifications and local traffic pattern policies;

using global traffic patterns to detect selective traffic being reported;

enforcing a global traffic policy to correlate the selective traffic; and

identifying actions to take in response to enforcement of the global traffic policy.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving further includes receiving each message as a signed message that each watch grid service digitally signs before reporting.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein using further includes generating system events for the detected selective traffic and raising the events within one or more selective processing environments over a network, wherein the events being raised trigger other services to take other actions within those selective processing environments.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising, digitally signing at least one of the events and sending to a remediation manager service for subsequent enforcement of remediation policies by the remediation manager service.

12. The method of claim 8 further comprising, automatically processing at least one action.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein automatically processing further includes, dynamically processing the at least one action in real-time to remediate a threat situation and improve traffic throughput associated with one or more of the following:

the grid computing environment, a particular grid, and a particular grid member.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising, supplying the global traffic patterns and the global traffic policy to a global grid manager on request.

15. A system, comprising:

a global grid manager service implemented in a machine-readable medium and to process on a machine within a network;

watch grid services implemented in a machine readable medium, each grid service processes on a different machine of the network; and

an evaluation grid service implemented in a machine-readable medium and to process on a machine different from those machines used by the watch grid services,

wherein the global grid manager service is to configure each of the watch grid services with local traffic pattern specifications and local traffic pattern policies for detecting local traffic on local machines or local processing environments of the watch grid services, each watch grid service is to report the detected traffic to the evaluation grid service, and wherein the evaluation grid service is to use global traffic pattern specifications and enforce a global traffic pattern policy to correlate the detected traffic and take one or more actions in response to the correlated traffic.

16. The system of claim 15 further comprising, an identity service implemented in a machine-accessible medium and to process on a machine within the network, wherein the identity service supplies authentication mechanisms and identity information for each of the watch grid services, the global grid manager service, and the evaluation grid manager service.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the identity service is to securely distribute the local traffic pattern specifications and policies in response to the identity information to the global grid manager service.

18. The system of claim 15 further comprising, a remediation manager service implemented in a machine-readable medium and to process on a machine of the network, wherein the actions taken by the evaluation grid service alerts the remediation manager service to take measures on the network to deal with a threat situation or to improve traffic throughput processing.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the watch grid services report to the evaluation grid service via digitally signed messages.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein at least two of the watch grid services are configured to coordinate reporting and traffic watching with one another.

21. A system, comprising:

a traffic pattern specification and policy repository implemented in a machine-readable medium and accessible to services that process on machines of a network;

a global grid configuration service implemented in a machine-readable medium and to process on a machine of the network; and

a grid evaluation manager service implemented in a machine-readable medium and to process on the machine or a different machine of the network;

wherein the global grid configuration service is to acquire local traffic pattern specifications and policies from the traffic pattern specification and policy repository and is to configure watch grid services, each watch grid service processing on a different machine associated with a grid computing environment and each watch grid service monitors local traffic in accordance with its configured local traffic pattern specifications and policies and each watch grid service configured to report the local traffic to the grid evaluation manager service, and wherein the grid evaluation manager service is to acquire global traffic pattern specifications and a global traffic pattern policy from the traffic pattern specification and policy repository and the grid evaluation manager service evaluates the local traffic received from the watch grid services in response to the global traffic pattern specifications and the global traffic policy to automatically, dynamically, and in real time take one or more actions.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the grid evaluation manager service is to take one or more of the following actions:

recommend a particular action to an administrator, raise an event to a remediation manager service, and visually display on a particular monitor the local traffic reported from the watch grid services.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the local traffic pattern specifications and policies are indexed within the traffic pattern specification and policy repository in response to identities associated with watch grid services, identities associated with the machines of the network, or identities associated with grid services that process on the machines of the network and that produce the local traffic monitored by the watch grid services.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the network is a wide-area network that includes the Internet.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the global grid configuration service configures at least two watch grid service to correlate local traffic monitoring and reporting with one another.

26. The system of claim 21, wherein the global grid configuration service is to configure the grid evaluation manager service with the global traffic pattern specifications and the global traffic pattern policy acquired from the traffic pattern specification and policy repository.

27. The system of claim 21, wherein the grid evaluation manager service is to supply the global traffic pattern specifications and the global traffic pattern policy to the global grid configuration service on request for the global grid configuration service to initiate another instance of the grid evaluation manager service on the network.