COMPUTER PATTERN SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT SUPPORTING BUSINESS RESILIENCY

• US 20090171706A1
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AirBNB Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: McCONNELL, Tim A., BOBAK, Mythili K., SWANSON, Michael D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,428,983 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis

Abstract

A Pattern System Environment is formed. The Pattern System Environment is a representation of information technology (IT) resources of a customer'"'"'s business environment. The Pattern System Environment is based on information associated with the IT resources of the customer, and that information indicates how the IT resources are utilized during a business cycle of the customer. Pattern System Environments are usable in many environments, including those that support business resiliency.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating management of customer environments, said method comprising:

obtaining information associated with one or more information technology (IT) resources of a customer, wherein the information indicates how the one or more IT resources are utilized during a business cycle of the customer; and

automatically forming a pattern system environment (PSE) based on the obtained information, wherein the pattern system environment is a representation of the IT resources of the customer'"'"'s business environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information indicates how the one or more IT resources are utilized over time by the customer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the pattern system environment is formed using one or more of principle component analysis, factor analysis or cluster analysis with selection criteria.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the selection criteria is based on one or more of date/time, constituent resources, resource capacity utilization, or resource configuration parameters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining comprises obtaining information recorded be a business resiliency manager (BRM) in observation mode.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the information comprises one or more observation records for one of more initiated workflows of the customer'"'"'s business environment created by the BRM.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the information includes recovery time objective (RTO) metrics associated with the one or more IT resources.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the RTO metrics are monitored and recorded during ongoing system operation.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises one or more of date/time data and operation execution duration information for the one or more IT resources.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is based on a recovery segment reflecting a topology of one or more components of a processing environment supporting a business application of the customer.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying at least one of one or more selection criteria or metrics of the pattern system environment to refine the pattern system environment.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising specifying one or more statistical metrics regarding the pattern system environment prior to use of the pattern system environment.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the representation comprises one or more RTO metrics.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the representation comprises operation execution duration statistics relating to one or more operations on one or more resources represented in the pattern system environment.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising non-disruptively adjusting an operation execution duration time used during runtime.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

adjusting one or more operation execution duration times periodically; and

updating a business resiliency manager to reflect changes.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising non-disruptively adding or removing statistics to/from the pattern system environment relating to an operation added/removed from a resource represented in the pattern system environment.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising performing at least one of automatically deriving statistical metrics or accepting customer specified statistical metrics for an operation execution duration.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically forming one or more other PSEs, each PSE covering a unique time period.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the representation is a programmatic representation.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically forming comprises:

forming the PSE based on the obtained information and one or more key metrics;

matching one or more observations for operation execution duration to the formed PSE;

determining a center of gravity for the PSE;

determining a center of gravity for each observation of a selected group of observations;

determining the distance from each observation to the PSE; and

associating, based on the determined distance, an observation of the selected group of observations with the PSE.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the automatically forming provides a customer an opportunity to make adjustments to effect the PSE at one or more occasions during the forming.

23. A system of facilitating management of customer environments, said system comprising:

a memory to store information associated with one or more information technology (IT) resources of a customer, wherein the information indicates how the one or more IT resources are utilized during a business cycle of the customer; and

a component to automatically form a pattern system environment (PSE) based on the obtained information, wherein the pattern system environment is a representation of the IT resources of the customer'"'"'s business environment.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the component to automatically form is adapted to:

form the PSE based on the obtained information and one or more key metrics;

match one or more observations for operation execution duration to the formed PSE;

determine a center of gravity for the PSE;

determine a center of gravity for each observation of a selected group of observations;

determine the distance from each observation to the PSE; and

associate, based on the determined distance, an observation of the selected group of observations with the PSE.

25. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer usable medium having computer readable program code logic to facilitate management of customer environments, said computer readable program code logic when executing performing the following;

obtaining information associated with one or more information technology (IT) resources of a customer, wherein the information indicates how the one or more IT resources are utilized during a business cycle of the customer; and

automatically forming a pattern system environment (PSE) based on the obtained information, wherein the pattern system environment is a representation of the IT resources of the customer'"'"'s business environment.