METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADAPTIVE DECLARATIVE MONITORING

• US 20090177929A1
• Filed: 11/20/2008
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sijelmassi, Rachid
• Granted Patent: US 8,769,346 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

A method of and apparatus for monitoring a computer system includes defining a monitoring policy for the computer system. At least one computer is employed to determine a status of a state of the computer system relative to the monitoring policy. At least one computer is employed to determine a condition of at least one monitored element to be monitored in the computer system based on the status of the state of the computer system. Furthermore, at least one computer is employed to monitor the condition of the at least one monitored element in the computer system, based on the monitoring policy. At least one computer is employed to perform an action in response to the condition assuming a predetermined status.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring a computer system comprising;

defining a monitoring policy for the computer system;

determining, with at least one computer, a status of a state of the computer system relative to the monitoring policy;

determining, with at least one computer, a condition of at least one monitored element to be monitored in the computer system based on the status of the state of the computer system;

monitoring, with at least one computer, the condition of the at least one monitored element in the computer system, based on the monitoring policy; and

performing, with at least one computer, an action in response to the condition assuming a predetermined status.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the defining of the monitoring policy includes defining Action Rules, states and contexts, the determining of the condition is based on the context, and the performing is based on the Action Rules.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing includes setting or resetting the state, enabling or disabling the performing, running an external process or changing the monitoring policy, or any combination of two or more thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the defining of the monitoring policy is performed using natural language.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the condition of the at least one monitored element is a utilization of the at least one monitored element.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one monitored element is a web tier of an application running on the computer system or a web server.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the running an external process includes running a workflow to provision an additional component in the computer system.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the monitoring includes checking the utilization of the at least one monitored element and comparing the utilization against a predetermined threshold.

4. The method of claim I, wherein the state is defined by a condition being monitored or an action of a user.

10. An apparatus for monitoring a computer system comprising:

a policy builder constructed and arranged to create a monitoring policy for the computer system;

a policy manager constructed and arranged to determine a status of a state of the computer system relative to the monitoring policy and determine a condition of at least one monitored element to be monitored in the computer system based on the status of the state of the computer system;

a monitoring agent constructed and arranged to monitor the condition of the at least one monitored element; and

a rules engine, responsive to the monitoring of the monitoring agent, and constructed and arranged to perform an action in response to the condition monitored by the monitoring agent assuming a predetermined status.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the policy manager is constructed and arranged to create Action Rules, states and contexts as the monitoring policy, wherein the condition determined by the policy manager is based on the context and the rules engine performs the action based on the Action Rules.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein action performed by the rules engine includes setting or resetting the state, enabling or disabling the performing, running an external process or changing the monitoring policy, or any combination of two or more thereof.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the policy manager determines the status of the state based on a condition being monitored or an action of a user.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the policy builder creates the monitoring policy based on natural language input to the policy builder in natural languages.

15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the condition of the at least one monitored element is a utilization of the at least one monitored element.

16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the at least one monitored element is a web tier of an application running on the computer system or a web server.

17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the rules engine runs a workflow to provision an additional component in the computer system.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the monitoring agent checks the utilization of the at least one monitored element and compares the utilization against a predetermined threshold.