MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTER EVENTS IN A COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT

• US 20090172687A1
• 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: McConnell, Tim A., BOBAK, Mythili K., SWANSON, Michael D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,677,174 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

The scope and impact of an event, such as a failure, are identified. A Containment Region is used to identify the resources affected by the event. It is also used to aggregate resource state for those resources. This information is then used to manage one or more aspects of a customer'"'"'s environment. This management may include recovery from a failure.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of facilitating management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said computer-implemented method comprising:

determining a plurality of resources to be included in a resource set, the determining using resource relationship information that is based on real-time characteristics of the IT environment, and wherein the resource set includes one or more resources impacted by occurrence of an event in the IT environment and one or more resources contributing to the event; and

using the resource set to manage one or more aspects of the IT environment.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the event comprises a single event or a plurality of correlated events.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of correlated events are determined by one or more relationships selected based on real-time data of the IT environment.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the event comprises a failure or a plurality of related failures, and wherein the using comprises managing recovery of a component of the IT environment.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the relationship information comprises at least one of one or more explicit relationships or one or more implied relationships, wherein the implied relationships comprise at least one of one or more implied failures or one or more implied causes of failure.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resource set is a Containment Region, and wherein the computer-implemented method further comprises creating the Containment Region.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the determining comprises determining whether a resource is to be part of the Containment Region or part of a new Containment Region.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein a first occurrence of the event causes creation of a new Containment Region.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises determining for a specified amount of time the resources to be included in the resource set, the specified amount of time being adjusted based on real-time conditions of the IT environment.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining resource data, after determining the resource set, wherein the obtaining resource data includes using one or more requests and wherein zero or more requests of the one or more requests has an unbounded delay.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the obtaining comprises retrieving data from a cache, in response to a failure of a request of the one or more requests to respond within a specified amount of time.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resource relationship information includes one or more resource pairings, and wherein the one or more resource pairings used in the determining have been evaluated during runtime as being applicable.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resource set further includes state information for at least a portion of the plurality of resources.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the state information comprises aggregated state information.

15. A system of facilitating management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said system comprising:

at least one processor to determine a plurality of resources to be included in a resource set, the determining using resource relationship information that is based on real-time characteristics of the IT environment, and wherein the resource set includes one or more resources impacted by occurrence of an event in the IT environment and one or more resources contributing to the event; and

at least one processor to use the resource set to manage one or more aspects of the IT environment.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the event comprises a single event or a plurality of correlated events.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the resource relationship information includes one or more resource pairings, and wherein the one or more resource pairings used in the determining have been evaluated during runtime as being applicable.

18. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer usable medium having computer readable program code logic to facilitate management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said computer readable program code logic when executing performing the following;

determining a plurality of resources to be included in a resource set, the determining using resource relationship information that is based on real-time characteristics of the IT environment, and wherein the resource set includes one or more resources impacted by occurrence of an event in the IT environment and one or more resources contributing to the event; and

using the resource set to manage one or more aspects of the IT environment.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the event comprises a single event or a plurality of correlated events.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the determining comprises determining for a specified amount of time the resources to be included in the resource set, the specified amount of time being adjusted based on real-time conditions of the IT environment.