Root Cause Analysis In A System Having A Plurality Of Inter-Related Elements

• US 20090183029A1
• Filed: 09/27/2008
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: BETHKE, Bob, NATARAJAN, Srikanth
• Granted Patent: US 8,180,723 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/26
• 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 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36

Abstract

A method of performing root cause analysis for use in a system comprising a plurality of inter-related elements, wherein at least some of the elements experience one or more abnormal conditions, comprising defining one or more conditions for more than one element symptomatic of abnormal operation of the element; defining one or more causal relationships between the conditions and results on one or more related elements; compiling the conditions and causal relationships of each element for which conditions and relationships have been defined, as at least one continuation in a continuation passing style (CPS); receiving one or more observed events symptomatic of abnormal operation of at least one element of the system; processing the received events using the conditions and the continuations; concluding at least one root cause of the received events consistent with the received events; and outputting the root cause.

Claims

1. A method of performing root cause analysis for use in a system comprising a plurality of inter-related elements, wherein at least some of the elements experience one or more abnormal conditions, the method comprising:

defining one or more conditions for more than one element symptomatic of abnormal operation of the element;

defining one or more causal relationships between the conditions and results on one or more related elements;

compiling the conditions and causal relationships of each element for which conditions and relationships have been defined, as at least one continuation in a continuation passing style (CPS);

receiving one or more observed events symptomatic of abnormal operation of at least one element of the system;

processing the received events using the conditions and the continuations;

concluding at least one root cause of the received events consistent with the received events, the conditions, and the continuations; and

outputting the root cause.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to the step of processing the received events, abstracting the received events as received conditions, and the step of processing the received events comprises processing the received conditions using the continuations.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing the impact of the concluded root cause on at least a portion of the system using the concluded root cause, the received events, and the continuations.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the impact analysis further comprises propagating at least one element condition to at least one other element.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, before the step of concluding a root cause, soliciting one or more observations from one or more system elements in order to progress in the analysis or to disambiguate possible root causes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each condition associated with an element is a directly observed condition or a condition deduced from other observations.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one causal relationship is a relationship between an element in one domain of the system to an element in another domain of the system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the elements, conditions, relationships, and continuations are described using a declarative computer programming language.

9. A computer readable medium for use in performing root cause analysis in a system comprising a plurality of inter-related elements wherein at least some of the elements experience one or more abnormal conditions, the computer readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions to cause a processor to:

receive information defining one or more conditions for more than one element symptomatic of abnormal operation of the element;

receive information defining one or more causal relationships between the conditions and results on one or more related elements;

receive information compiling the conditions and causal relationships of each element for which conditions and relationships have been defined, as at least one continuation in a continuation passing style (CPS);

receive one or more observed events symptomatic of abnormal operation of at least one element of the system;

process the received events using the continuations; and

conclude at least one root cause of the received events consistent with the received events.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 9, further comprising computer-readable instructions to cause a processor to analyze the impact of the concluded root cause on at least a portion of the system using the concluded root cause, the received events, and the continuations.

11. An apparatus for performing root cause analysis of a system comprising a plurality of inter-related elements, wherein at least some of the elements experience one or more abnormal conditions, the apparatus comprising:

a processor;

inputs for receiving events of elements of the system;

a computer-readable medium comprising;

descriptions of at least a portion of the elements of the system, including conditions symptomatic of abnormal element operation,

continuations describing causal relationships between at least a portion of the described elements and the conditions, and

instructions for causing the processor to process the received events using the conditions and continuations, and to conclude at least one root cause consistent with the events, conditions, and continuations; and

an output for outputting an indication of the concluded root cause.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions for abstracting the received events as conditions.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions for analyzing the impact of the concluded root cause on at least a portion of the system using the concluded root cause, the received events, and the continuations, and the output outputs an indication of the analyzed impact of the root cause on the system.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions for propagating at least one element condition to at least one other element.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions for soliciting one or more observations from one or more system elements in order to progress in the analysis or to disambiguate possible root causes.