ADAPTIVE BUSINESS RESILIENCY COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20090172689A1
• 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: CHANG, Chun-Shi, BOBAK, Mythili K., SWANSON, Michael D., MCCONNELL, Tim A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,447,859 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1479 Generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components

Abstract

Programmatically adapting an Information Technology (IT) environment to changes associated with business applications of the IT environment. The programmatically adapting is performed in the context of the business application. The changes can reflect changes in the IT environment, changes to the business application, changes to the business environment and/or failures within the environment, as examples.

Claims

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

determining that a change associated with a business application of an IT environment has occurred; and

programmatically adapting the IT environment, in response to the change, wherein the programmatically adapting is performed in the context of the business application.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting adapts the IT environment to meet a quantitative goal of the business application.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the quantitative goal comprises an availability goal.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change comprises at least one of:

a change in capability of one or more resources supporting the business application;

an addition of a resource to the business application;

an addition of a resource relationship to the business application;

discontinued support of a resource of the business application;

discontinued support of a resource relationship of the business application;

a change in one or more property values for one or more resources of the business application;

a change in state for one or more resources of the business application;

a change in resource sharing associated with the business application;

a change in preconditioning of a capability of a resource of the business application;

a change in redundancy of one or more resources of the business application;

an addition of a resource operation for the business application;

or

a change in resource operation for the business application.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change comprises a change in service level goal for the business application.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change comprises at least one of:

one or more changes in the IT environment;

or

one or more failures of the IT environment.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change comprises a change of a business environment associated with the business application, wherein the change of the business environment comprises a change associated with a business cycle or business demand.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change comprises at least one of:

a failure of expected completion of an operation of a resource supporting the business application;

a change in best practices associated with the business application;

an addition of a best practice associated with the business application;

or

a change in allowed impact to one or more business applications.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting comprises performing at least one of:

conditional assessment of state of one or more resource of the business application;

determining applicability of relationship of resources of the business application;

invocation of one or more operations on one or more resources of the business application;

or

timing of management activities associated with the business application.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting provides at least one of:

continued reliable service, in response to an unbounded event or message delay;

or

continuous management services across one or more disruptions to individual management tasks associated with the business application.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting comprises performing at least one of:

predictive forecasting of achieving a management goal associated with the business application;

programmatic application of best practices in configuring the IT environment to support the business application;

real-time management of the IT environment, in response to adapting to the change;

or

concurrent execution of multiple categories of processing within the IT environment, said multiple categories of processing having varying priority.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting comprises at least one of:

forming a workflow to be used in management of the IT environment;

presenting a workflow to be used in management of the IT environment;

or

modifying a workflow to be used in management of the IT environment.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmatically adapting comprises altering a complex task executing within the IT environment based on completion status of an action of the complex task.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change is a change in at least one of the IT environment, the business application, or the business environment.

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

at least one processor to determine that a change associated with a business application of an IT environment has occurred; and

at least one processor to programmatically adapt the IT environment, in response to the change, wherein the programmatically adapting is performed in the context of the business application.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the programmatically adapting adapts the IT environment to meet a quantitative goal of the business application.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the change is a change in at least one of the IT environment, the business application, or the business environment.

18. An article of manufacture comprising:

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

determining that a change associated with a business application of an IT environment has occurred; and

programmatically adapting the IT environment, in response to the change, wherein the programmatically adapting is performed in the context of the business application.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the programmatically adapting adapts the IT environment to meet a quantitative goal of the business application.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the change is a change in at least one of the IT environment, the business application, or the business environment.