RECOVERY SEGMENTS FOR COMPUTER BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

• US 20090171707A1
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Swanson, Michael D., Chang, Chun-Shi, Bobak, Mythili K., McConnell, Tim A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,341,014 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 10/06313 Resource planning in a project environment

Abstract

Recovery Segments are defined and employed to facilitate management of a customer'"'"'s environment. A Recovery Segment is a runtime usable representation of resources and relationships between those resources associated with a business application. That representation is usable in managing the business application. Associated with the representation is one or more goals to be met by resources of the representation.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

obtaining a set of information associated with a business application, said set of information comprising an identification of a plurality of resources associated with the business application and relationship information of one or more relationships between at least two resources of the plurality of resources; and

creating a runtime usable representation of the set of information, said representation usable in managing the business application.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of resources comprises at least one information technology (IT) resource of the business application.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising associating a quantified goal with the representation.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein the quantified goal comprises an availability goal indicating one or more availability requirements of the plurality of resources of the representation.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein the availability goal comprises at least one of a recovery time objective, a recovery point objective or a maximum accumulated downtime.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the creating comprises creating the representation based upon one or more customer provided seed resources.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein one or more resources are automatically recommended to be included in the representation based on one or more relationships associated with one or more other resources of the representation.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the representation further includes another set of information.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein the another set of information is unrelated to the set of information.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one resource of the plurality of resources does not have an express relationship with the other resources of the plurality of resources.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the representation is a subset of another representation.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the representation is a superset of another representation.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one resources of the representation is shared with another representation.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one resource of the plurality of resources comprises a processor, storage, network, middleware, an application, or a programmatic representation of a staff action.

15. A system comprising:

at least one processing node to obtain a set of information associated with a business application, said set of information comprising an identification of a plurality of resources associated with the business application and relationship information of one or more relationships between at least two resources of the plurality of resources; and

at least one processing node to create a runtime usable representation of the set of information, said representation usable in managing the business application.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the representation has associated therewith a quantified goal.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein one or more resources are automatically recommended to be included in the representation based on one or more relationships associated with one or more other resources of the representation.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one resource of the plurality of resources does not have an express relationship with the other resources of the plurality of resources.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the representation is at least one of a subset of another representation, a superset of another representation, or is shared with another representation.

20. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer usable medium having computer readable program code logic to implement a method, said computer readable program code logic when executing performing the following;

obtaining a set of information associated with a business application, said set of information comprising an identification of a plurality of resources associated with the business application and relationship information of one or more relationships between at least two resources of the plurality of resources; and

creating a runtime usable representation of the set of information, said representation usable in managing the business application.

21. The article of manufacture of claim 20, further comprising associating a quantified goal with the representation.

22. The article of manufacture of claim 20, wherein the creating comprises creating the representation based upon one or more customer provided seed resources.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 20, wherein one or more resources are automatically recommended to be included in the representation based on one or more relationships associated with one or more other resources of the representation.

24. The article of manufacture of claim 20, wherein at least one resource of the plurality of resources does not have an express relationship with the other resources of the plurality of resources.

25. The article of manufacture of claim 20, wherein the representation is at least one of a subset of another representation, a superset of another representation or is shared with another representation.